art
shouted, "Charge! and remember Jackson!" and this watchword seemed to
drive the line forward. With Stuart leading them, and singing, in
his joyous voice, "Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the
Wilderness!"--for courage, poetry, and seeming frivolity, were
strangely mingled in this great soldier--the troops went headlong
at the Federal works, and in a few moments the real struggle of the
battle of Chancellorsville had begun.

From this instant, when the lines, respectively commanded in person
by Lee and by Stuart, closed in with the enemy, there was little
manoeuvring of any description. It was an open attempt of Lee, by hard
fighting, to crush in the enemy's front, and force them back upon the
river. In this arduous struggle it is due to Stuart to say that his
generalship largely decided the event, and the high commendation which
he afterward received from General Lee justifies the statement. As his
lines went to the attack, his quick military eye discerned an elevated
point on his right, from which it appeared an artillery-fire woulden
filade the Federal line. About thirty pieces of cannon were at once
hastened to this point, and a destructive fire opened on the lines
of General Slocum, which threw his troops into great confusion. So
serious was this fire that General Slocum sent word to General Hooker
that his front was being swept away by it, to which the sullen
response was, "I cannot make soldiers or ammunition!"

General Hooker was indeed, it seems, at this moment in no mood to take
a hopeful view of affairs. The heavy assault of Jackson appears to
have as much demoralized the Federal commander as his troops. During
the night he had erected a semicircular line of works, in the form of
a redan, in his rear toward the river, behind which new works he no
doubt contemplated falling back. He now awaited the result of the
Southern attack, leaning against a pillar of the porch at the
Chancellorsville House, when a cannon-ball struck the pillar, throwing
it down, and so stunning the general as to prevent him from retaining
the command, which was delegated to General Couch.

[Illustration: Chancellorsville]

The fate of the day had now been decided. The right wing of the
Southern army, under Lee, had gradually extended its left to meet the
extension of Stuart's right; and this junction of the two wings having
been effected, Lee took personal command of all, and advanced his
whole front in a decisive assault. Be