The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-16 00:00:00

THE BATTLES OF CHANCELLORSVILLE

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
HEAD-QUARTERS OF GEN. R. E. LEE, CHAN-

CELLORSVILL E, VIRGINIA, MAY 6.
If ever the narrative of the memorable drama
played upon the stage of Virginia between the morn-
of Wednesday, April 29, and the morning of Wed-
nesday, May 6, be undertaken by a competent mili-
tary critic it will be found that never in history did
grander or worthier theme engage the scientific at-
tention of a Jomini, or kindle the sparkling elo-
quence of a Napier. It may be that in attempting
to describe operations which were spread over an
area of something like 15 square miles of country,
intersected by two great highways and numberless
by-roads, and which involve minute descriptions of
intricate fords over one trunk stream and its two
tributaries, .1 shall utterly fail to make myself in-
telligible to the reader, or to convey a distinct im-
pression to his mind. But it should not be forgotten
that the ablest historians of military events have
never been able by words alone to give distinct de-
lineations of the collisions of great hosts of men, and
that the plain diagram which serves as a key to the
text of Napier or Alison, and which by a few simple
scratches gives clearer ideas than pages of letter-
press could convey, is denied to me, who have like-
wise the disadvantage of writing in the midst of an
excitement and hurly-burly such as eye has seldom
seen or ear heard. It has seemed to me best to
throw my narrative into the form of a diary, ex-
panding and weaving the notes made day after day
into a consecutive thread, and adding at the com-
mencement a description of the scene of action, so
far as it is capable of being painted in words.
Ten miles due west of Fredericksburg, on the
same side of the river Rappahannock, stands a large
brick house, with a blacksmith's shop and a few
small outbuildings attached, where a certain Mr.
Chancellor once lived and kept an hotel. In the
poverty of nomenclative invention of this continent,
where hamlets are ordinarily named on the principle
of selecting some prominent resident in each, and
attaching " burg" or " viile" to his name, this little
group of buildings, likely to be as famous in the
western as Hougomont in the eastern hemisphere,
is called Chancellorsville. The brick house, which
has lately been used as a boarding school, reminds
the Englishman who is old enough to remember the
north road from London to York before the days of
steam of the once-famous posting-houses at Barnby
or Scarthing Moor. Chancellorsville is connected
with Fredericksburg by two highway-roads, which
unite in front of the house, where, deflecting from
the westerly course they have hitherto pursued,
they proceed together in a south-westerly direction
towards Orange Court-house. These roads are dis-
tinguished by the names of the turnpike and plank
roads. In former times Fredericksburg 'was con-
nected with Chancellorsville solely by the turnpike,
which during most of its course runs nearer to the
river than the plank, the latter having been laid
down because, being further from the river, it
avoided the hilly bluffs which adjoin the stream.
Almost parallel with these two roads runs the river
Rappahannock, until, 12 miles west of Fredericks-
burg, it bifurcates, the north branch of the Rappa-
hannock running northwards and westwards,while
the Rapidan river flows in from the south-west.
Two miles below the junction of the streams the
Rappahannock is crossed by the United States Ford.
Eight miles above Fredericksburg is another ford
called Freeman's Landing ; four miles above Fre-
dericksburg another called Banks's Ford; while at
and below Fredericksburg itself, in place of the two
bridges which once spanned the stream, pontoon
bridges have, during the memorable seven days of
which I write, been constantly and in many places
thrown across by the Federals. Proceeding west-
ward, and following the two streams above the
fork, the north branch of the Rappahannock is
traversed by one or two fords, of which Kelly's is
the principal,while the Rapidan is crossed by Ely's
and Germanna Fords. The whole of the country
commencing four miles west of Fredericksburg and
for 10 miles southward and westward of Chancel-
lorsville is clothed with woods, dense as the pri-
rnmval forests of Germany, in which Varus' legions
were destroyed, consisting partly of pine, partly of
scrub oak, called here black jack, intertwined with
a thick undergrowth of chicopin, and apparently im-
penetrable, save to rabbits and foxes. To the wild,
dreary region extending southwards and westwards
of Chancellorsville, towards Orange Court-house, has
been given the appropriate name of the Wilderness.
At Chancellorsville the plank and turnpike roads
are at their union joined by a third road, which runs
to Ely's Ford, on the Rapidan, out of which third
road branches half a mile away from Chancellors-
vine, a fourth road leading to the United States
Ford, on the Rappahannock. Again, as you advance
from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, a country
road on your left leaves the plank eight miles from
Fredericksburg, and proceeds due south towards an
iron foundry, called the Catherine Furnace, and then
plunging into the woods brings you out again on the
plank road five miles from Chancellorsville and 15
from Fredericksburg. It is to this country road as
connected with the famous flank movement of
" Stonewall" Jackson that I would particularly in-
vite the reader's attention. It will be seen, then,
that the operations of the past week have principally
had to do with the 15 miles of plank road from
Fredericksburg:to 'Wilderness-house, with 10 miles
of turnpike from Fredericksburg to Chancellors-
ville, with the country road by the Furnace, with
the road beyond Chancellorsville leading to Ely's
Ford on the Rapidan, and with its branch leading
to the United States Ford Chi the Rappahannock.
Similarly, we have to bear in mind the fords, spe-
cially Ely's, Kelly's, Banks's, and, most of all, the
United States Ford. Over the whole of this region,
as well as over the old historical line of hills which
the Confederates occupied during the first battle of
Fredericksburg, backwards and forwards, rolled
for seven days the tide of war; and if asl hurriedly
endeavour to narrate the incidents of this momen
tons passage of arms some trifling inaccuracy should
hereafter be detected, the reader's clemency is in-
voked in consideration of the diffieulty of verifying,
within sound of the deafening roar of cannon, the
reports of 10,000 informants who fought in different
parts of the field, and gathering such a right per-
ception of its tangled and intricate geography as
will defy error and evade mistake.
Upon the evening of Friday, May 1, accompanied
by a Virginian clergyman, I left Richmond on horse-
back, following the telegraph road towards Frede-
ricksburg. My friend's knowledge of the country
about Richmond was not such as to preServe us from
losing our way in the swamps of the flooded Chicka-
hominy, across which we plunged on our way to the
Hanover Slashes, the dreariest waste of marsh and
fen and spongy copse on which mortal eye ever
rested. Putting aside all question of resistance, the
broad belt of the Hanover Slashes would, except in
the height of summer, be an insurmountable obstacle
to an invading army, while in summer its poisonous
breath would exact fearful toll if an army lingered
within its precincts. Yet even to this forsaken re-
gion the interest of having given birth to a great
man clings, and the nickname of the " Millboy of
the Slashes," by which Henry Clay was so gene-
rally known to the country folks of this continent,
points to the fact that here, in the humblest circum-
stances, he first saw the light, and here as a bare-
footed boy, was wont to ride to the flour-
inginbullfrog the bright
croaked moonlight
in
mill, carrying on the bare back of his horse
a
sack of wheat to be ground. As we proceeded
even Aristophanes r u the
s
o u dissonantnd n
s in a as
t och
produceo
while the ceaseless to
and
d imitation,tehfye
cry of that most indefatigable and
restless of nightfarers, the whip-poor-will, rang
through the woods and astonished me by the accu-
racy with which his three notes are repeated. Be-
tween 1 and 2 we had got no further then Ashland,
16 miles from Richmond, where we lay on the
ground, though under corer, fora few hours-36