i8o
THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF CHAN CELLO RSVILLE.
(our rear ten minutes before). They came on in line five and. six deep, withbut one flag—a Union flag dropped by the Eleventh Corps.
I suspected deception and was ready for it. They called out not to shoot,they were friends; at the same time they gave us a volley from at leastfive thousand muskets. As soon as I saw the flash I gave the commandto fire, and the whole line of artillery was discharged at once. | It fairlyswept them from the earth; before they could recover themselves the lineof artillery had been loaded and was ready for a second attack. Afterthe second discharge, suspecting that they might play the trick of havingtheir men lie down, draw the fire of the artillery, then jump up and chargebefore the pieces could be reloaded, I poured in the canister for about twentyminutes, and the affair was over, j)
When the Eleventh Corps was routed, the situation was this : The nearestinfantry to me was the right of the Twelfth Corps, over a mile off, andengaged by the forces under General Lee , who was trying to prevent themfrom impeding the movements of General Jackson. The two divisions of theThird Corps were nearly a mile to the west, at the Furnace. Had Jackson
Major Clifford Thomson, aide-de-camp on Gen-eral Fleasonton’s staff, in a letter written in I860 gives the following account of the fight at HazelGrove:
“ General Pleasonton rode from gun to gun, directingthe gunners to aim low, not to get excited, to makeevery shot tell; the staff-officers, catching their cue fromhim, did the same, and while at first there hacl been con-siderable excitement and apprehension among us, itsoon quieted down, and every thought and action wasdirected to getting the best service out of those gunsthat they were capable of rendering, liecovering fromthe disorder into which Keenan’s charge had thrownthem, the enemy could be seen forming line of battlein the edge of woods now in our front. They werescarcely two hundred yards distant; yet such was thegloom that they could not be clearly distinguished.Geueral Pleasonton was about to give the order to ilr<i,when a sergeant at one of the guns said:
General, aren’t those our troops'! I see our colorsin the line!* This was true, for where he pointed ourcolors could be seen —trophies picked upon the field.General Pleasonton turned to me and said:
“ ‘ Mr. Thomson, ride out there and see who thosepeople are.’
“Formyself, I was not at all curious about, ‘thosepeople,’ being perfectly willing to wait till they intro-duced themselves. Hiding out between our guns, Igalloped to within thirty or forty yards of them; allalong the line they (tried out to me, ‘Come on; we’refriends!’ It was quite dark and I could not make outtheir uniforms, but I could see three of our flags, andthese caused me to hesitate; I came to a halt, peeringinto the darkness to make sure, when a bullet whistledby me, and then came ‘ the rebel yell.’ The line chargedup the hill toward our guns, and I led it! Lying downupon my horse’s neck, I gave him the spur, and the yellsof the ‘ Johnnies ’ behind further stimulated him, so thatwe got over the ground in a lively manner. But with thereport of the first shot fired at me General Pleasontonhad opened fire, and those twenty-two guns belohodfortlidestruction at a fearfully rapid rate. Although lyingdown on my horse I kept an eye on the guns and guidedmy horse between the flashes, and in less time than ittakes to tell it I was on the safe side of them. It wasload and fire at will for some minutes; the enemy wasmowed down in heaps; they could make no headwayagainst such a cyclone, and rau hack down the slope to
the cover of the woods. But still the canister waspoured into them, and a second attempt to chargethe guns failed. Boon Sickles’s corps moved from itsadvanced position and interposed between us and thewoods ; parties sent out over the field which had beenswept by our guns found the dead and dying lying iJ1heaps. Old artillery ollicers have informed me that theynever before heard such rapid firing as occurred at thatengagement; the roar was a continuous one, and theexecution terrific. After it lmd ceased I rode up toGeneral Pleasonton and said:
“ ‘ General, those people out there arc rebels ! ’
“ There was a grave twinkle in liis eye as he held outhis hand and replied :
‘“Thomson, I never expected to see you again; 1thought if they didn’t kill you I should, but that was notime to stop for one man.’
“ I should have agreed with him more cordially ^that one man had been somebody else. After Sickle 0had made his dispositions in our front, wo were with'drawn to get forage for our horses, and our part in thebattle of Clmnoellorsville was done. Word had goneout through the army that Pleasonton and his staffhad been killed ; so, when tired, sleepy, very dirty, andextremely hungry, wo next morning rode quietly int°our headquarters camp, at the rear, wo were lookedupon as persons risen from the dead. One thing I haveforgotten to mention, and that is that we had virtuallyno support for those twenty-two guns during the action*There was a portion of the 17th Pennsylvania Cavalryunder the hill, but the men were new recruits and hadnot, I believe, boon, under fire previous to that occasion-Had the enemy succeeded in gaining the crest of theknoll, the support would not have made a mouthful f° ra single company of Jackson’s men. When PresidentLincoln visited the army a day or two after this fight.General Pleasonton chanced to call at Hooker’s head'quarters, when that ollicor said ;
‘“Mr. President, this is General Pleasonton, wh°saved the Army of the Potomac the other night.’
“The President acknowledged the service in hi 0usual grateful manner. Only inspiration, or the instinctof a natural soldier, could have enabled .Pleasonton t oaccomplish so much in so short a time with so small ^force. The fight at Hazel (trove was one of those sharpand decisive actions pregnant with great results.”
j> See also statements of Captain James F. Hun'tington on p. 188.— Editors.