CHAP. XIX. BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 1619 Averill and Confederate horsemen led by General Fitzhugh Lee, had a severe battle near Kelly's Ford, on the Rappahannock, in which the former were repulsed. That was the first purely cavalry contest of the war. Hooker became impatient. The time of the enlistment of many of his troops would soon expire, and he determined to put his army in motion toward Richmond early in April, notwithstanding his ranks were not full Cavalry, under General Stoneman, were sent to destroy railways in Lee's rear, but were foiled by high water in the streams. After a pause, Hooker determined to attempt to turn Lee's flank, and for that purpose he sent ten thousand mounted men to raid in his rear. Then he threw thirty-six thousand troops of his own right wing across the Rappahannock, with orders to halt and intrench at Chancellorsville between the Confederate army and Richmond. This movement was so masked by a demonstration on Lee's front, by Hooker's left wing under General Sedgwick, that the right was well advanced before Lee was aware of his peril. These troops reached Chancellorsville in a region known as The Wilderness, on the evening of the 30th of April, when Hooker expected to see Lee, conscious of danger, fly toward Richmond. He did no such thing, but proceeded to strike the National army a heavy blow, for the twofold purpose of seizing the commu nications between the two parts of that army and compelling its commander to fight at a disadvantage, with only a portion of his troops in hand. For this purpose, "Stonewall Jackson" was sent with a heavy force, early in the morning of the first of May, to attack the Nationals, when Hooker sent out his troops to meet them. The Confederates moved upon Chancellorsville by two roads. A sharp engagement ensued, when the Nationals were pushed back to a defensive position behind their intrenchments; but the efforts of Lee to seize these works were foiled. Both armies were now in a perilous position. Hooker resolved to rest on the defensive; but Lee boldly detached the whole of Jackson's command, on the morning of the 2d of May, and sent it under cover of the forestcurtain of The Wilderness to make a secret flank movement and gain the rear of the Nationals. It was observed by the latter. Suddenly, Jackson burst from the woods with twenty-five thousand men, and falling upon Hooker's right, crumbled it, and sent the astounded column in confusion upon the remainder of the line. A desperate battle, in which nearly all the troops on both sides participated, was the consequence. It lasted until late in the evening, when Jackson fell, mortally wounded by a bullet sent by mistake, in the gloom, by one of his own men. Jackson had been engaged in a personal reconnoissance with his staff and an escort; and when returning, in the darkness, to his lines, he and his companions were mistaken by their friends for Union cavalry. Hooker now made disposition for a renewal of the conflict on the morning of the 3d. He had called Reynolds's corps of more than twenty thou sand men from Sedgwick, and these arrived late on Saturday evening (the 2d), swelling his army to sixty thousand. Sedgwick, by Hooker's order, had crossed the Rappahannock, seized Fredericksburg and the Heights, and was pushing on toward Chancellorsville, when he was checked by troops sent by Lee, and compelled to retreat across the river at Banks's Ford, to save his army. This was accomplished on the night of the 4th and 5th of May. In the meantime there had been hard fighting at Chancellorsville. At dawn on Sunday morning, the 3d of May, the dashing General Stuart, leading the column of the slain commander so much loved, shouted, when he saw the Nationals, "Charge, and remember Jackson!" and then fell heavily CHAP. XIX. THE ARMIES—CONDITION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 1621 upon the troops commanded by General Sickles. The conflict was des perate and soon became general; and the National army, after a long struggle, was finally pushed from the field to a strong position on the roads back of Chancellorsville. Lee's army was now united; that of Hooker was yet divided; and hear. ing of Sedgwick's critical situation, the latter determined to retreat to the north side of the Rappahannock. The Army of the Potomac passed the river in safety on the night of the 4th, when Lee, unable to follow, resumed his former position on the Heights of Fredericksburg. Both armies had lost heavily-the Nationals over seventeen thousand men including prisoners, and the Confederates about fifteen thousand. Meanwhile Stoneman's cavalry had been raiding on Lee's communications with Richmond, and a part of them, under Colonel Judson Kilpatrick, had swept down within two miles of that city. They destroyed much property, but failed to break up the railway communication between Lee and the Confederate capital. So far the raiding was a failure. Longstreet, as we have observed, had been sent to confront General Peck in southeastern Virginia. The latter was strongly fortified near Suffolk, where he was besieged by Longstreet early in April, who expected to drive the Nationals from that post, and seizing Norfolk and its vicinity, make a demonstration against Fortress Monroe. He failed; and hearing of the struggle at Chancellorsville, he abandoned the siege and joined Lee with his large detachment. Lee's army was now strong in material and moral force. Recent successes had greatly inspirited it. It was reorganized into three army corps, commanded respectively by Generals Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell. These were all able leaders, and each bore the commission of lieutenantgeneral. And at no time, probably, during the war was the Confederate army more complete in numbers, equipment and discipline, or furnished with more ample materials for carrying on the conflict, than it was at the middle of June, 1863. According to the most careful estimates made from the Confederate official returns, there were then at least five hundred thousand men on the army rolls, and more than three hundred thousand "present and fit for duty." Fully one-half of the white men of the Confederacy eligible to military duty, were then enrolled for active service, while a large proportion of the other half were in the civil and military service in other capacities. Doubtless at least seven-tenths of the white adults were then in public business; while a large number of slaves, though legally emancipated, were employed in various labors, such as working on fortifications, as teamsters, etc. The following is the form of a voucher held by the Confederate government as the employer of slaves for such purposes. It is copied from the original before me: "We, the subscribers, acknowledge to have received of John B. Stannard, First Corps of Engineers, the sums set opposite our names respectively, being in full for the services of our slaves on Drewry's Bluff, during the months of March and April, 1863, having signed duplicate receipts. Richmond seemed secure from harm. Charleston was defiant, and with reason. Vicksburg and Port Hudson on the Mississippi, though seriously menaced, seemed impregnable against any force Grant or Banks might array before them; and the appeals of General Johnston, near Jack son, for reinforcements, were regarded as notes of unnecessary alarm. The Confederates were encouraged by their friends in Europe with promises of aid; and the desires of these for the acknowledgment of the independence of the "Confederate States of America" were strongly manifested. In England, public movements in favor of the Confederates were then prominent. Open-air meetings, organized by members of the aristocracy, were held, for the purpose of urging the British government to declare such recognition; and in the spring of 1864 a "Southern Independence Association" was formed with a British peer (Lord Wharncliffe) as president, and a membership composed of powerful representatives of the Church, State, and Trade. But the British government wisely hesitated; and notwithstanding the unpatriotic Peace-Faction in the city of New York had, six months before (November, 1862), waited upon Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, with an evident desire to have his government interfere in our affairs, and thus secure the independence of the Confederates, and the emissaries of the conspirators were specially active in Europe, the British ministry, restrained by the good Queen, steadily refused to take decided action in the matter. Only the Roman Pontiff, then a temporal prince, of all the rulers of the earth officially recognized Jefferson Davis as the head of a real government. At the same time, a scheme of the emperor of the French for the destruction of the Republic of Mexico, and the establishment there of a CHAP. XIX. DESIGNS OF THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 1623 monarchy ruled by a man of his own selection, and pledged to act in the interests of despotism, the Roman Catholic Church and the promotion of the domination of the Latin race, was in successful operation, by means of twenty thousand French soldiers and five thousand allied Mexicans. In this movement, it is alleged, the leaders of the great insurrection were the secret allies of the emperor, it being understood that as soon as he should obtain a firm footing in Mexico he should, for valuable commercial considerations agreed upon, acknowledge the independence of the Confederate States, and uphold it by force of arms if necessary; it also being understood that the government which Davis and his associates were to establish at the close of hostilities should, in no wise, offend Napoleon's imperialistic ideas. The slave-holding class were to be a privileged one, and be the rulers, and the great mass of the people were to be subordinated to the interests of that class. Therefore, the triumphal march of the French invaders of Mexico, in the spring of 1863, was hailed with delight by the government at Richmond, while the great mass of the people were ignorant of the conspiracy on foot to deprive them of their sacred rights. At the same time the perfidious emperor was deceiving the Confederate leaders concerning his real and deeper designs, which were both political and theological. His political design evidently was to arrest the march of empire southward on the part of the United States. His religious design was to assist the Church party in Mexico, which had been defeated in 1857, in a recovery of its power, that the Roman Catholic Church might have undisputed sway in Central America. In a letter to the Spanish General Prim, in July, 1862, the emperor, after saying that the United States fed the factories of Europe with cotton, and asserting that it was not the interest of European governments to have our country hold dominion over the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles, and the adjacent continent, he declared that if, with the assistance of France, Mexico should have a “stable govern、 ment "—that is, a monarchy-"we shall have restored to the Latin race upon the opposite side of the ocean, its strength and prestige; we shall have guaranteed then, security to our colonies in the Antilles, and to those of Spain; we shall have established our beneficent influence in the centre of America; and in this influence, by creating immense openings to our commerce, will procure to us the matter indispensable to our industry"-that is, cotton. This contemplated blow against our great cotton interest was a prime element in Napoleon's scheme, for the consummation of which he coquetted with the Confederate leaders, and deceived them. The Confederate government, greatly elated by the events at Chancel lorsville, ordered Lee to invade Maryland again. His force was now almost |