During the two days' fighting Vincent Wingfield had discharged his duties upon General Stuart's staff.On the first day the work had been slight, for General Stuart, with the cannon, remained in the rear, while Jackson's infantry attacked and carried the Federal retrenchments.Upon the second day, however, when Stuart assumed the command, Vincent's duties had been onerous and dangerous in the extreme.He was constantly carrying orders from one part of the field to the other, amid such a shower of shot and shell that it seemed marvelous that any one could exist within it.
To his great grief Wildfire was killed under him, but he himself escaped without a scratch.When he came afterward to try to describe the battle to those at home he could give no account of it.
"To me," he said, "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion.
Of what was going on I knew nothing.The din was appalling.
The roar of the shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the shouts of the men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking impossible.Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees were shorn away, and trees themselves sometimes came crashing down as a trunk was struck full by a shell.The undergrowth had caught fire, and the thick smoke, mingled with that of the battle, rendered it difficult to see or to breathe.I had but one thought, that of making my way through the trees, of finding the corps to which I was sent, of delivering my message, and finding the general again.No, I don't think I had much thought of danger, the whole thing was somehow so tremendous that one had no thought whatever for one's self.It was a sort of terrible dream, in which one was possessed of the single idea to get to a certain place.It was not till at last we swept across the open ground down to the house, that I seemed to take any distinct notice of what was going on around me.Then, for the first time, the exulting shouts of the men, and the long lines advancing at the double, woke me up to the fact that we had gained one of the most wonderful victories in history, and had driven an army of four or five times our own strength from a position that they believed they had made impregnable."The defeat of Hooker for a time put a stop to any further advance against Richmond from the North.The Federal troops, whose term of service was up, returned home, and it was months before all the efforts of the authorities of Washington could place the army in a condition to make a renewed advance.But the Confederates had also suffered heavily.A third of the force with which Jackson had attacked had fallen, and their loss could not be replaced, as the Confederates were forced to send every one they could raise to the assistance of the armies in the West, where Generals Banks and Grant were carrying on operations with great success against them.The important town of Vicksburg, which commanded the navigation of the Mississippi, was besieged, and after a resistance lasting for some months, surrendered, with its garrison of 25,000 men, on the 3d of July, and the Federal gunboats were thus able to penetrate by the Mississippi and its confluents into the heart of the Confederacy.
Shortly after the battle of Chancellorsville, Vincent was appointed to the command of a squadron of cavalry that was detached from Stuart's force and sent down to Richmond to guard the capital from any raids by bodies of Federal cavalry.It had been two or three times menaced by flying bodies of horsemen, and during the cavalry advance before the battle of Chancellorsville small parties had penetrated to within three miles of the city, cutting all the telegraph wires, pulling up rails, and causing the greatest terror.
Vincent was not sorry for the change.It took him away from the great theater of the war, but after Chancellorsville he felt no eager desire to take part in future battles.His duties would keep him near his home, and would give ample scope for the display of watchfulness, dash, and energy.Consequently he took no part in the campaign that commenced in the first week in June.
Tired of standing always on the defensive, the Confederate authorities determined to carry out the stop that had been so warmly advocated by Jackson earlier in the war, and which might at that time have brought it to a successful termination.They decided to carry the war into the enemy's country.By the most strenuous efforts Lee's army was raised to 75,000 men, divided into three great army corps, commanded by Longstreet, Ewell, and Hill.Striking first into Western Virginia, they drove the Federals from Winchester, and chased them from the State with the loss of nearly 4,000 prisoners and 30 guns.Then they entered Maryland and Pennsylvania, and concentrating at Gettysburg they met the Northern army under Meade, who had succeeded Hooker.
Although great numbers of the Confederates had seen their homes wasted and their property wantonly destroyed, they preserved the most perfect order in their march through the North, and the Federals themselves testify to the admirable behavior of the troops, and to the manner in which they abstained from plundering or inflicting annoyance upon the inhabitants.
At Gettysburg there was three days' fighting.In the first a portion only of the forces were engaged, the Federals being defeated and 5,000 of their men taken prisoners.Upon the second the Confederates attacked the Northerners, who were posted in an extremely strong position, but were repulsed with heavy loss.The following day they renewed the attack, but after tremendous fighting again failed to carry the height.Both parties were utterly exhausted.Lee drew up his troops the next day, and invited an attack from the Federals; but contented with the success they had gained they maintained their position, and the Confederates then fell back, Stuart's cavalry protecting the immense trains of wagons loaded with the stores and ammunition captured in Pennsylvania.
