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[287] soon in utter rout. It was now seven o'clock, and growing dark; but Jackson had seized the breastworks, had taken the whole line in reverse, pushed forward to within half a mile of headquarters, and now proceeded to make preparations for following up his success by a blow that should be decisive. The situation at this moment was extremely critical, for the Eleventh Corps having been brushed away, it was absolutely necessary to form a new line, and it was difficult to see whence the troops were to be drawn; for just at that moment Lee was making a vigorous front attack on Hooker's left and centre, formed by Couch's and Slocum's corps. Hancock's front especially was assailed with great impetuosity; but the attacking column was held in check in the most intrepid manner by Hancock's skirmish line under Colonel Miles.1 The open plain around Chancellorsville now presented such a spectacle as a simoom sweeping over the desert might make. Through the dusk of nightfall, a rushing whirlwind of men and artillery and wagons swept down the road, and
1 Amid much that is dastardly at Chancellorsville, the conduct of this young but gallant and skilful officer shines forth with a brilliant lustre. Being intrusted with the charge of the skirmish line covering Hancock's front, he so disposed his thin line, well intrenched, that the Confederates, though making repeated charges in columns, on Saturday and Sunday, were never able to reach Hancock's line of battle. ‘On the 2d of May,’ says Hancock, ‘the enemy frequently opened with artillery from the heights towards Fredericksburg, and from those on my right, and with infantry assaulted my advanced line of rifle-pits, but was always handsomely repulsed by the troops on duty there, consisting of the Fifty-seventh, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-sixth New York Volunteers, and detachments from the Fifty-second New York, Second Delaware, and One Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, under Colonel N. A. Miles. During the sharp contest of that day, the enemy were never able to reach my line of battle, so strongly and successfully did Colonel Miles contest the ground.’—Report of Chancellorsville. Colonel Miles was on Sunday morning wounded severely, and it was supposed fatally; but he afterwards recovered to share the glories of his corps to the close of the war, and he rose to the rank of major-general.
1866.
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