Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

 Five Days at Chancellorsville

                                                                                                                       Five Days at Chancellorsville

                                                                                                                       Five Days at Chancellorsville

                                                                                                                     Five Days at Chancellorsville

T he 79 th Pennsylvania, part of Colonel John Starkweather’s brigade, was marching into action at the Battle of Perryville side by side with the 1 st Wisconsin.       “As the solid, serried ranks of glistening bayonets and brave men moved onward with all the regularity and precision of a dress parade, and with the steadiness of veteran troops, the two regiments involuntarily paid just tribute to one another by sending up long and loud cheers,” one veteran recalled. “It was a grand sight! There was no flinching- not a man! Every man stood his ground firmly and manfully.”           But out of the eyesight of our correspondent, one man did flinch, indeed, making a conscious decision to flee the battlefield. He can perhaps be forgiven this decision because as John D. Kautz marched onto the battlefield at Perryville, his German-born wife Barbara and infant son Christian accompanied him. It’s an interesting if rather convoluted story. Reunion card for the first regimental reunion for the

I n mid-January 1863, General Ambrose Burnside directed what proved to be his final offensive move as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside’s aim was to steal a march on his opponent General Robert E. Lee, seize Banks’ Ford on the Rappahannock, and push into the rear of Fredericksburg. It was a bold move, but within two days of beginning, the drive was hopelessly mired down in the mud and the dejected Federals tramped back to their camps near Falmouth.           The offensive became known as the Mud March, and it marked both the end of Burnside’s tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac and the nadir of the war for his army. Today’s post will revisit the Mud March through the words of the men who were in the thick of it, slogging through the Virginia mud in a downpour. It is the picture of misery as our eyewitnesses will attest.           All of the accounts comprising this post originated from Griff's incomparable Spared & Shared website .