■:w

RACE ON THE PLANK ROAD FOR RIGHT OF WAY, BETWEEN THE NINTH MASSACHUSETTS BATTERY AND A BAGGAGE TRAIN.

the eleventh corps at chancellorsville.

Ol’P 3

tlia*

3S

nl) 11 '

ft &vbe 11fad 5 'ined

U id« c

rnfl 1 '

,.vn°

<jeH'

ten 13

OeiV

Ife'"'

fc

i* 1? ;ry" 1

BY OLIYEK O. HOWARD, MAJOB-GENEBAI,, 17. B. A.

^HE country around Chancellorsville for the most part is a wilderness,with but here and there an opening. If we consult the recent maps (noS°od ones existed before the battle), we notice that the two famous rivers, thea pidan and the Rappahannock, join at a point due north of Chancellors-> thence the Rappahannock runs easterly for two miles, till suddenly at,, e Suited States Ford it turns and flows south for a mile and a half, ande, b turning again, completes a horse-shoe bend. Here, on the south shore,Gieneral Hooker’s battle-line on the morning of the 2d of May, 1863.ei'e his five army corps, those of Meade, Slocum, Couch , Sickles, and°Ward, were deployed. The face was toward the south, and the ranksj^ainly occupied a ridge nearly parallel with the Rapidan. The left touchedj e high ground just west of the liorse-shoe bend, while the bristling front,higed with skirmishers, ran along the Mineral Spring road, bent forward to,, ^ e m the cross-roads of Chancellorsville, and then, stretching on westerlylough lower levels, retired to Dowdall’s Tavern. Just beyond Dowdall’sas a slight backward hook in the line, partially encircling Talley’s Hill , ami y spot in the forest between the Orange Plank road and the pike. Thisis an old roadway which skirts the northern edge of Talley’s farm, andhcs an angle of some forty degrees with the Orange Plank road.

Tt dawn of that eventful day Gieneral Hooker was at Chancellorsville.°cuni and Hancock were just in his front, infantry and artillery deployed0 right and left. French ’s division was in his rear. Meade occupied ther enie left, and my corps, the Eleventh, the right. Sickles connected meh Slocum. Our lines covered between five and six miles of frontage, and°oker was near the middle point. The main body of our cavalry, underj, ° Ue man, had gone off on a raid upon Lee ’s communications, and theP binder of the Army of the Potomac was under the sturdy Sedgwick,6 yond Fredericksburg.

ap Ur opponents, under Gieneral Robert E. Lee , the evening before, werec, ° v, t two miles distant toward Fredericksburg, and thus between us and

Hpncl - - - - -. ’ - '

So T Rod

S'W’ick. Lee had immediately with him the divisions of McLaws , Ander-

les, Colston, and A. P. Hill , besides some cavalry under Stuart. He

189