THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
Corps, so posted as to present their unprotected flank to the enemy, against Stonewall Jackson's 25,000 veterans had, therefore, lasted, at the lowest reckoning, one and one-half hours. Not a man nor a gun came to their aid during their hopeless contest. They had to retreat a mile and a half before they met a supporting force. But when this was found, the wrecked corps was soon fully reorganized, each regiment around its colors and under its own officers before 11 o'clock. Early next morning, Sunday, May 3d, we were put on the extreme left of the army. I rode to General Hooker's headquarters to ask him that we be given another opportunity for showing what we could do, after the disaster of the previous evening. He seemed to be in a very depressed state of mind, and said he would try. But we remained on the extreme left, with nothing but slight skirmishing in our front, until the army recrossed the Rappahannock on the morning of May 6th.
I must now permit myself a few remarks on the progress of the battle after the discomfiture of the Eleventh Corps. It is a curious story, full of psychological puzzles. As I have already stated, there was behind us no supporting force, within two miles. Only Birney's division of the Third Corps was near the Chancellor house, the rest of the Third Corps and the Twelfth Corps had disappeared from the ground between the Chancellor house and Dowdall's long before. Jackson's march toward our right had been observed early in the morning. It was ascertained to be a movement in great force. It could mean only one of two things: Either a retreat of Lee's army, or an attack on our right flank and rear. In either case a prompt attack, also in great force, on Jackson's flank naturally suggested itself. It was a great opportunity to interpose between Lee and Jackson and beat them in detail. Sickles was ordered, at his own request, to make an attack, but the order to move
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