Today in History:

319 Series I Volume XXV-I Serial 39 - Chancellorsville Part I

Page 319 Chapter XXXVII. THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN.

troops lay down and the artillery fired over them. One man of the One hundred and forty-eighth was killed by a shell and a few wounded.

After the enemy was repulsed my line was again changed, and I formed a line of battle on the left of the road, and on the left of Colonel Brooke. It was now nearly dark, and we worked all the evening cutting an abatis. About dark the enemy shelled our line, but without doing any harm.

About 3 o'clock on the morning of the 2nd, I received from General hancock the order to fall back to a line that had bee previously designated, near Chancellorsville. Here I found the rest of my brigade established in line, and with them the Eighty-eighth new York Volunteers. We immediately set to work digging entrenchments and constructing an abatis, and before noon had a line of great strength; the Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers on the extreme right; next came the Eighty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers; then the Eighty-eighth new York Volunteers; then the Sixty-sixth new york Volunteers, which was afterward relieved; then the One hundred and forty-eighth Pennsylvania and Sixty-first New York Volunteers, on the extreme left. Colonel Cross was placed in immediate command of the three regiments on the right, and I refer you to his report for a more circumstantial account of the part taken by those regiments. Colonel Miles, of the Sixty-first New York Volunteers, was placed by General hancock in command of the picket line of the division, which consisted of six companies of the One hundred and forty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, the Fifty-seventh New York, two companies of the Fifty-second New York Volunteers, and four companies of the Second Delaware, supported by the Eleventh Massachusetts Volunteers, Colonel Blaisdell, from General Carr's command.

With this force Colonel Miles skirmished all day long with the enemy, and at 3 p. m. repulsed, with signal loss, a determined attack of the enemy, made in two columns on each side of the road. i to not doubt that this repulse of the enemy, which kept them from our main lines, was due principally to the skill and gallantry of Colonel Miles, who, with a single line of skirmishers, deployed at 3 paces, repelled a determined attack of the enemy made in column, a feat rarely paralleled.

We lay in our entrenchments, under a heavy artillery fire, on the morning of the 2nd and the morning of the 3rd, the men behaving with the greatest coolness.

Between 9 and 10 o'clock on the morning of the 3rd, I was ordered by a member of General Hancock's staff to report with my brigade to General Hooker. By direction of General Hancock I took four companies of the One hundred and forty-eighth pennsylvania Volunteers, the other six being on picket; the Sixty-first, Fifty-second, and Fifty-seventh New York Volunteers, in all between 500 and 600 men, and marched by the right flank dow the road toward the United States Ford, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, and halted, facing the woods, distance of about three-quarters of a mile, and halted, facing the woods, on the right flank down the road toward the United States Ford, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, and halted,f acing the woods, ont he right road. I deployed a company from the road to entrenchments ont he left, to arrest the crowd of fugitives and stragglers who were going down the road in great disorder. About twenty minutes afterward I was ordered by General Hooker in person to conduct my brigade into the open field and through the woods from a point designated. The four companies of the One hundred and forty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, under Colonel Beaver, were on the right; next to them the Sixty-first New York, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Broady. The Fifty-seventh New York Volunteers on


Page 319 Chapter XXXVII. THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN.