Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1877-10-31
St0neWali jackson.
A "REMINISCENCES OF THE WILDERNESS

stonewaII jackson. Wa
A "REMINISCENCES OF THE WILDERNESS.
All! but these calls for 9regimental
reunions mean. something more than
decorated halls. grand dinners, and
toasts and responses. Memory sits
down with the boys in blue and the
boys in gray, and. makes their hearts
thrill. as they remember the terrible
charge Oft the. Confederates to possess
themselves of the key-position at
Gettysburg. She asks the veterans to
remember how. the brave Seventh
Michigan pushed across Their wide rive
flowing past FREDERICKSBURG and looked
Into the fierce eyes Of Barksdale's
Mississippians.,, She, calls upon the
sabre fight at TreYiliap Station. the
tramp Of Stonewall Jackson's men on
the plains of Manassa, and The mad,
eager rush at the earthworks around
Petersburg.
Well may Memory sit at every
veterans right hand, for under one soil,
lulled to eternal repose by the same
soft breezes, are the blue and the gray
falling on their skirmlsh line, in. the
charge, single and by scoresEandr no
man dares say that they were not brave
and true. '5a!a
That was an awful day when that
Confederate line, 7stonewalp Jackson,
crept upon poor Hooker, hidden in the
Wilderness. .Vj-'Yt 1870 q
- at a9-H55uy- OTHKR,g bio scs7y ls7
and the woods around Charlottesville
shook and trembled, and were almost
swept from the face ofthe earth by the
whirring round-shot, the Kissing she'll,
and the screaming grape-shot. Men
were struck stone-dead9 as the battle
line advanced Or retreated. White
faced recruits aud bronze-faced veterans
were torn to fragments and hurled
against the living. ,.., r.,.tr ~ -.
Wounded men fell in their tracks, to
be crushed in the earth by the great
limbs cut from trees by shot and shell.
The roar Of guns, the crackle Of musk
etry, the fierce shouts and7awful groans,
made such hell upon earth Of that
battle field as was never seen before
or after. s..'-. 4'1
Fighting Joe Hooker was in a box,
but not a man ia his great army dreamed
that it was so until the long gray line Of
Stonewall Jackson came creeping
through the quiet forest at O'Clock Cd
that ever-to-be-remembered ID day Of
May, 1868. The light earthworks had
been thrown up to face another way
toward Lee. AL lines faced Lee all
men were looking for Lee. when three.
divisions Of Confederates, moving with
soft step, took Hooker'sr army in the
rear, and drove one brigade pell-meu
into and over another, until veteran
soldiers were without strength or
presence of mind. That awful night.
when
THE WOUNDED WERE BEING BURIED
ALIVE
il the woods, and the dead were thicker
than the leaves just broadening into full
life. a report ran through the reorganized
ranks that the great stonewall Jackson
had been killed. Thousand believed it;
but three Of US, lying side by side in the
new battle-line, born after night came
down, put no faith in the-rumor. Why
we did motifs what I started to write
about. s''''' 5'i.
Stuart's cavalry had been following
up Hooker's army, but it was like a rat
following in the footsteps Lof a uhorse.
Lee was SO far away and coming up so,
slowly that Hooker had thine to throw
up light earthworlzs, seize the best
ground. fell trees to protect his I. tanks,
and make ready to shatter and hurl
back the expected attack. On that I'd
day ofMay his soldiers, hidden in the
woods or lying in the fields, washed
their clothing, wrote letters home,
made comfortable beds for themselves,
and were not in the least troubled about
what another week would bring forth.
AS deep river suddenly bends to avoid
bluff, so did that great army ofLee's
bend to avoid the Wilderness. It split
in two to attack at given hour on bo.h
sides, and Joe Hooker sat in his tent
and congratulated himself on his i'm
pregnable position-considered impreg-
nable by him when two great highways
ran along the rear ofhalf ofhis army.
So universal was the feeling Of security
that soon after three lufantrynen star
ted out to
1887 BEG OR BUY FoRAGE-F00D.
sisel's corps was on Hooker's west
flank, and commanded That day by
Howard. Part Of this corps faced the
old turnpike and plan1-road part
faced the other way. Most of the men
were hidden in the woods and behind
ridges, and up the broad highways
which should have been first looked to-.
Stuart was pushing his cavalrymen as
skirmishers. We three men were
beyond Sigel's corps, and on the point
of entering a farmhouse from which
everybody had fed, when, less than a
rifle-shot away, we caught sight Of the
Confederate advance. The cavalrymen
we're advancing slowly, evidently ex-
pecting to find heavy guard at some
point, but, at the time we imagined
that less than regiment OF Stuart's
men were feeling along up to. pick up
j, l. 4