Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsOcmulgee Men Lose Two Generals at Chancellorsville
This article is compiled by Julian Williams.
The following passage gives us the spirit of the Georgia 49th Regiment (including the Telfair men) as they recalled the bloody Chancellorsville experience: "The Battle of Chancellorsville, on 3 May 1863, was fought, where the well appointed, and so much boasted "Grand Army of the Potomac," met with a most crushing, overwhelming defeat that had ever befallen the army of the Federal Government. In this engagement, the regiment, under the command of Major Player, performed its assigned duties with a precision and gallantry unsurpassed by any former occasion. The charge on the enemy's works by this regiment on the morning of 3 May 1863, was an achievement well calculated to fill the men with a just pride." (From Don't Drink the Water). Note: The above was no exaggeration. History indeed records Chancellorsville as being the zenith for General Lee and the South. The coming months would not bring similar tidings and feelings of elation.
At Chancellorsville, the North had a new general - Joseph Hooker. One writer said he had low morals and high abilities. Another said that "hookers" (ladies of the night) originated from his name because they would follow the soldiers to ply the world's oldest profession. These statements would sound rather negative for his record but, believing "Fighting Joe" Hooker would fight, Lincoln placed him at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln indeed had reservations about placing Hooker in Burnside's old position of leadership. The President didn't completely trust Hooker and thought him to have ambitions of being a dictator and told him so in a letter but decided to take his chances with his newest military "find."
Following the massacre at Fredericksburg, Lincoln needed a victory for the Union. Unfortunately, Hooker did not prove to be the man for the job.
But the Union men were indeed thinking victory as they sat around their campfires that May night in 1863. General Hooker had "reestablished" their army - he had reorganized the units and methods of reporting actions; he had worked on discipline and morale; he had provided furloughs and incentives; he had even followed the lead of the deceased General Phil Kearny (killed earlier by Sgt. John McCrimmon of Jacksonville, Georgia) and designed emblems for identifying his various units.
So, morale was at an all-time high. General Hooker and his men were ready to fight. In fact, the general had worked out a masterful plan which he would employ to crush General Lee and the Confederate Army. He said he hoped God would have mercy on General Lee because he would have none. General Hooker knew that with his superior numbers and his superior plan in action General Lee would have to retreat. For some reason General Lee did not know this. Instead, he decided to attack Hooker. Hooker did not expect this and continued, at the dismay of his commanders, to draw back. In a nutshell, he lost the Battle of Chancellorsville to General Lee and General Stonewall Jackson.
But the victory came at great price and the Telfair men and others were to write many letters home following this great battle recounting the death of their great leader - Stonewall Jackson. In riding his lines at night, attempting to evaluate the position of the enemy and his chances of further routing them in a night battle, he and his aides were mistaken for Federal cavalry and fired upon by their own men (soldiers from a North Carolina regiment). General Jackson was wounded and later died, not from the wound and losing his left arm, but from pneumonia. As one soldier said, "it was the newmony that got him." But General Lee knew he had lost his best general - "I have lost my right arm." General Jackson's left arm was buried at Fairfield, Virginia. On May 10 (Sunday), General Jackson died and was buried several miles away at Lexington, Virginia. Thus, the left arm was buried in one place and Lee's "right arm" was buried in another place.
Shortly afterward, General A.P. Hill was wounded and had to be removed from command and the field of battle. The Telfair soldiers had lost two generals - one permanently and one temporarily. Cavalry commander Jeb Stuart assumed command.
But the poor foot soldier's mind was also on other things - things of survival. "We took about ten thousand Yankee prisoners, thirty pieces of Artillery and about forty thousand stands of small arms. There is no end to the knapsacks that the enemy left behind him on the battlefield, there was knapsacks enough, I believe, to supply our whole army. They were principally full of crackers and they came to play pretty well with us as our rations ran out the day before. They had eight days of provisions with them, they had brought not much clothing with them only a change of underclothes, [and] their portfolios full of writing paper and envelops to write letters at home after the battle, and their pen and ink. All that I did get is a portfolio with paper and envelops in it, some Yankee postage stamps, some crackers, a pair of clean new drawers, some ink and an oil cloth coat. Our men have now plenty of oil clothes, and fear rain no more. After our men had done picked up all the oily clothes and blankets and overcoats, there was any quantity still left on the ground tramped in the mud."
It is hard to imagine the hardships of the soldier - Union and Confederate - of that day. It was bad enough getting killed on the battlefield. Even worse dying from fatigue or freezing to death. Even worse being wounded and not being able to escape the flames of the forest fire that had started in The Wilderness of Chancellorsville.
The Battle of Chancellorsville was a great victory for General Lee. His men now had unconditional faith in their great leader. But, the victory was to be a curse because it lured him into thinking that the South was ready to march invincibly into the battlefields of the North and conquer the foe. But destiny, in its own way and time, was yawning and stretching its fateful limbs in the enticing sunshine of a little village in Pennsylvania. The obscure place was to become the turning point of the Civil War. Gettysburg.
But Chancellorsville would go down as perhaps the South's greatest victory. The Union had 17,278 casualties of its 132,000 or so army; from its army of some 62,000 the South counted 12,764 casualties. Numerically, the North had lost but percentage-wise the South was sinking into the abyss of unrecoverable losses.
Thomas H. Johnston (or Johnson) of Telfair's Company B was captured by the enemy. He was later exchanged at City Point, VA.
History tells us that the Georgia 49th had 41 wounded and 7 killed at Chancellorsville. Those 7 were "exchanged" beyond the veil. And many welcomed the exchange and the change.
