ld extricate himself from
the meshes that were surrounding him, and retreat to Richmond. The
dense Wilderness seemed providential for the movement upon which Lee
had now determined to stake the fate of his army and the fortunes of
the Confederacy. Its heavy, thick undergrowth entirely obstructed
the view and hid the movements to be made. Jackson, with Rhodes,
Colston's, and A.P. Hill's Divisions, were to make a detour around
the enemy's right, march by dull roads and bridle paths through
the tangled forest, and fall upon the enemy's rear, while McLaws,
Anderson's, and Early's Divisions were to hold him in check in front.
Pickett's Division had, before this time, been sent to Wilmington,
N.C., while Ransom's Division, with Barksdale's Mississippi
Brigade, of McLaws' Division, were to keep watch of the enemy at
Fredericksburg. The Federal General, Stoneman, with his cavalry, was
then on his famous but disastrous raid to Richmond. Jackson commenced
his march early in the morning, and kept it up all day, turning back
towards the rear of the enemy when sufficiently distant that his
movement could not be detected. By marching eighteen or twenty miles
he was then within three miles of his starting point. But Hooker's
Army stood between him and Lee. Near night Jackson struck the enemy a
terrific blow, near the plank road, just opposite to where we lay, and
the cannonading was simply deafening. The shots fired from some of the
rifled guns of Jackson passed far overhead of the enemy and fell in
our rear. Hooker, bewildered and lost in the meshes of the Wilderness,
had formed his divisions in line of battle in echelon, and moved out
from the river. Great gaps would intervene between the division in
front and the one in rear. Little did he think an enemy was marching
rapidly for his rear, another watching every movement in front, and
those enemies, Jackson and Lee, unknown to Hooker, his flank stood
exposed and the distance between the columns gave an ordinary enemy an
advantage seldom offered by an astute General, but to such an enemy as
Jackson it was more than he had hoped or even dared to expect. As he
sat watching the broken columns of the enemy struggling through
the dense undergrowth, the favorable moment came. Seizing it with
promptness and daring, so characteristic of the man, he, like Napoleon
at Austerlitz, when he saw the Russians passing by his front with
their flanks exposed, rushed upon them like a wild beast upon
it