Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
After the double repulse at Marye's Hill and in front of Jackson, the troops, looking at the ground strewed with dead and wounded, were in no condition to go forward hopefully to another struggle which promised to be equally bloody. The Southern army was naturally in a condition strongly in contrast with that of their adversary.
Longstreet, who occupied this ridge, had been ordered to intrench himself; gun-pits had been dug on the bare crest, named Marye's Hill, which immediately faces Fredericksburg; a few shelter-trenches had been thrown up, natural defences improved, and some slight breastworks and abattis constructed along the outskirts of the woods.
The occupants of certain quaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rear and flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which were now bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places of famous associations failed to do, and he wondered in which of them Claudia's relatives lived. At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent.
He left but nine thousand men on Marye's Heights to hold in check this forty thousand, and by a rapid night march suddenly confronted Hooker in the Wilderness before Chancellorsville.
The watchers turned their field glasses anew to the Southern center and left, where the battle raged with undiminished ferocity. Marye's Hill was a formidable position and along its slope ran a heavy stone wall. Behind it the Southern sharpshooters were packed in thousands, and every battery was well placed. Hancock, following Burnside's orders, led the attack upon the ensanguined slopes.
Burnside sent an order to Franklin to attack again, but Franklin disobeyed. Upon the left Longstreet's battle now swelled to giant proportions. Marye's Hill, girdled by that stone wall, crowned by the Washington Artillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed to destruction division after division.
Hooker, his heart full of despair, but resolved to obey, galloped back and prepared for the last desperate charge up Marye's Hill. The advancing mists in the east were showing that the short winter day would soon draw to a close. He planted his batteries and opened a heavy fire, intending to batter down the stone wall.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking