192

THE ELEVENTH CORPS AT CHANCELL0RSV1LLE.

approaches to the north of Gilsa, firing up a gradually ascending slope. Thisridge, where I stood during the battle, was central, and, besides, enabled theartillerymen to enfilade either roadway, or meet an attack from south, west,

or north. Here epaulments for the

DOWDALI/S TAVERN, HOWARD’S HEADQUARTERS.FROM A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH.

i* o

batteries were constructed, and cross-intrenchments for the battery supportswere dug, extending from the littlechurch across all the open ground thatstretched away from the tavern to theright of Devens’s line.

To my great comfort, General Sickles’scorps came up on Friday, May 1st, andtook from our left Steinwehr’s three-quarters of a mile of the Plank road.Thus he relieved from the front lineBarlow’s large brigade, giving me,besides the several division reserves,General Barlow with 1500 men as ageneral reserve for the corps. Thesewere massed near the cross-intrench-

ments, and held avowedly to support the batteries and protect GeneralDevens’s exposed right flank.

As to pickets, each division had a good line of them. My aide, MajorCharles H. Howard, assisted in connecting them between divisions, and dur-ing the 2d of May that fearless and faithful staff-officer, Major E. Whittlesey;rode the entire circuit of their front to stimulate them to special activity'Those of Devens wore “thrown out at a distance from a half-mile to amile and stretching well around covering our right flank”; ,1 anti the picket-posts in front 011 the pike were over two miles beyond the main line.

The nature of the country in the neighborhood of the three adjoining faringDowdall’s, Talley’s, and Hawkins’s, became well known to the Army of th ePotomac in subsequent experiences, never to be forgotten. It is the terribl 6“Wilderness” where, later in the war, so many brave men fell. Here wei’ estunted trees, such as scraggy oaks, bushy firs, cedars, and junipers, all entan-gled with a thick, almost impenetrable undergrowth, and criss-crossed with anabundance of wild vines. In places all along thesouth-west and west front the forest appearedimpassable, and the skirmishers could onlywork their way through witli extreme difficulty.

To the officers of the Eleventh Corps theposition was never a desirable one. It pre-sented a flank in the air. We were more thanfour miles south from Ely’s ford, where wereHooker’s nearest cavalry flankers. In his re-port after the battle, General IS cl 1 u r/, says • bowdall’s tavuhn in i884.

; See General Devens’s report of Cliancellorsville (“Official Records,” Vol. XXV., Part I.,

p. G32).— O. O. H.