leave this comparatively
interesting portion of the field, and invite the attention of the
reader to the movements of General Jackson, who was about to strike
his last great blow, and lose his own life in the moment of victory.

Jackson set out at early dawn, having under him three divisions,
commanded by Rhodes and Trimble, in all about twenty-one thousand men,
and directed his march over the Old Mine road toward "The Furnace,"
about a mile or so from and in front of the enemy's main line. Stuart
moved with his cavalry on the flank of the column, with the view of
masking it from observation; and it reached and passed "The Furnace,"
where a regiment with artillery was left to guard the road leading
thence to Chancellorsville, and repel any attack which might be made
upon the rear of the column. Just as the rear-guard passed on, the
anticipated attack took place, and the regiment thus left, the
Twenty-third Georgia, was suddenly surrounded and the whole force
captured. The Confederate artillery, however, opened promptly upon the
assailing force, drove it back toward Chancellorsville, and Jackson
proceeded on his march without further interruption. He had thus been
seen, but it seems that the whole movement was regarded by General
Hooker as a retreat of the Confederates southward, a bend in the road
at this point toward the south leading to that supposition.

"We know the enemy is flying," General Hooker wrote, on the afternoon
of this day, to General Sedgwick, "trying to save his trains; two of
Sickles's divisions are among them."

Soon after leaving "The Furnace," however, Jackson, following the same
wood-road, turned westward, and, marching rapidly between the walls of
thicket, struck into the Brock road, which runs in a direction nearly
northwest toward Germanna and Ely's Fords. This would enable him to
reach, without discovery, the Orange Plank-road, or Old Turnpike, west
of Chancellorsville, as the woods through which the narrow highway
ran completely barred him from observation. Unless Federal spies were
lurking in the covert, or their scouting-parties of cavalry came in
sight of the column, it would move as secure from discovery as though
it were a hundred miles distant from the enemy; and against the
latter danger of cavalry-scouts, Stuart's presence with his horsemen
provided. The movement was thus made without alarming the enemy, and
the head of Jackson's column reached the Orange Plank-road, near
which poin