[62] of opposition farther up than they had been. Farther along to the right and back of the city the batteries kept up a constant fire, and about eleven o'clock the cheering of our charging men, the heavy volley of musketry, dying away into a continuous rattle, enlivened with a volley near the end followed by a sudden quiet, told us that our men had carried the lines and forts of the enemy upon the heights, and we could see our flags flying there and we cheered them heartily. In a little while we were ordered into ranks and marched toward the city along the Bowling Green Pike, where Spicer and Doxtater and Davis and Wilson were buried, and not a thought given that before the sun went down on that day many a living, breathing body of our number would be as inanimate as they were, without the privilege of sepulcher being given them by comrades and fellow soldiers.
The military exploit so briefly described was one of the most brilliant of the war. The sphere of operation was the same as that which saw the disastrous defeat of the assaulting force in the previous campaign. The same stone wall, the same steep ascent, the same redoubts and forts only strengthened, and the same determined resistance to be overcome. The movement was in compliance with an order from General Hooker received at 11 A. M., on May 2, ordering Sedgwick “to at once march on the Chancellorville road, and connect with the Major General commanding, to attack and destroy any force you may fall in with on the road; leave all trains behind except the pack mule train of small ammunition, and be in the vicinity of the General at daylight.” The order was promptly obeyed so far as was possible. General Gibbons' division of the Second Corps, still under Sedgwick's command, was brought
