“You have shot my friends! You have destroyed my staff!” In the confusion of the night of May 2, 1863, Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill and members of his staff had followed Stonewall Jackson out in front of Confederate lines just west of the Chancellor House. Jackson was scouting the Federal lines in the darkness. Hill had followed him at a distance and was much closer to the main Confederate lines. It was not a position for either a corps or a division commander. Shots between the main Confederate line, main Federal line, and their respective skirmishers rolled from one side to another. As Jackon and his staff returned to the Confederate lines, someone thought they were being attacked by Federal cavalry – there were remnants of just such a charge earlier in the day scattered about. One officer in the 18th North Carolina wrote that “the tramp of thirty horsemen advancing through a heavy forest at a rapid gait seemed to the average infantryman like a brigade of cavalry.”[1]
“Cavalry!” someone
cried out. With the intense small arms fire just across the Orange Plank Road
to their right, the 18th North Carolina sent a strong volley into
the darkness. Jackson and several members of his staff were stuck. Hill jumped
from his horse, prostrating himself on the ground, and escaped unharmed. The
staff that rode with a general were paramount to operations. There were medical
officers, commissary officers, quartermasters, inspectors, ordinance officers,
and volunteer aides, all essential to operations, whether in camp or on
campaign. During battle, these were typically the men who relayed orders to
those commanders under the general.
Captain Murray F.
Taylor was one of those aides on Hill’s staff that evening. In 1904, his
recollections of the events were published. Taylor writes that “eleven of our
staff, including Capt. [James K.] Boswell, who were in front of this regiment,
were either killed or wounded.” Boswell was a member of Jackson’s staff. Because
of his familiarity with the area, he had been temporarily assigned to Hill to
serve as a guide. According to Taylor, the only two not wounded among the staff
were Taylor and Capt. Watkins Leigh. Taylor was pinned under his horse. He
recalled hearing Hill’s voice in the darkness, wanting “to know if any of his
staff were alive.” Hill was trying to help extricate Taylor when a courier
arrived bearing news that Jackson was wounded. With that information, Hill left
Taylor to manage the best that he could and went in search of Jackson.[2]
Boswell was killed,
and his death much lamented. Another of the killed was Capt. James F. Forbes,
serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp. The horses of Major Howard and Sergeant
Tucker were so unnerved that they carried their riders into Federal lines. Private
Richard J. Muse, courier, was killed, and another courier, Eugune Saunders, was
struck twice in the face. Possibly another courier, Kilpatrick, might have also
been killed. There might have been others wounded. Compiled service records on
each of the men who served on Hill’s staff are somewhat thin. Many times, those
who were only slightly wounded were not reported as such.[3]
Replacing Palmer as
assistant adjutant general was William N. Starke. Prior to his assignment,
Starke had served as Acting Assistant Adjutant General in his father’s brigade.
Starke served in this role for the rest of the war. Palmer would return to Hill’s
staff and follow Hill when the latter was promoted to command of the Third
Corps. It does not appear that another volunteer aide-de-camp was assigned to
Hill’s command after the death of Forbes.
Not long after the
volley that killed Boswell and Forbes and wounded Palmer, and after Hill
oversaw the evacuation of Jackson from such an exposed position between the
lines, Hill himself was wounded by an artillery fragment. While it was not a
dangerous wound, Hill was unable to walk or ride and passed command over to JEB
Stuart.
Hill’s statement “You
have shot my friends! You have destroyed my staff!” was remembered by Taylor
long after the war. As Hill took a roll call of his staff in the darkness and
confusion, he could have believed that the volley had been worse than it was.
Maybe some of the wounded were members of the 39th Battalion
Virginia Cavalry, an organization that supplied couriers to division, corps,
and general staff. Several members of the 39th Battalion were reported
wounded or killed at Chancellorsville, including John Hall, George Smith, and Thomas
Williamson (he was wounded and captured). While these soldiers were not
considered as belonging to the staff of a particular general, it is possible
that Hill might have considered some of them friends or staff.[4]
When historians write on the battle of Chancellorsville or the life of A.P. Hill, the volley that wounded Jackson and took out several of Hill staff is always mentioned. However, the focus is usually on Jackson. Sears, in his standard work on the battle, neglects details about the volley in relationship to Hill. Likewise, Schenck neglects this part of the story. In his biography of Hill, Robertson only includes Taylor’s account. Only Lively, in Calamity at Chancellorsville, dives into who was with Hill as the volley wreaked havoc on Hill’s staff in the woods that fateful, dark night at Chancellorsville.[5]
[1] Robertson,
General A.P Hill, 187.
[2] Taylor,
“Stonewall Jackson’s Death,” Confederate Veteran, 12:493.
[3] Krick,
Staff Officers in Gray, 130; 236; Palmer, “Another Account of It,” Confederate
Veteran, 13:233; Lively, Calamity at Chancellorsville, 52, 57.
[4] Hardy,
General Lee’s Bodyguard, 49.
[5] Sears,
Chancellorsville, 295; Schrenck, Up Came Hill, 250; Robertson, General
A.P. Hill, 187; Lively, Calamity at Chancellorsville, 52, 57.
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