As May 4 ended, Major-General Joseph Hooker, commanding the Federal Army of the Potomac, had the bulk of his Federal Army of the Potomac in a compact V-shaped defensive line, with the right flank anchored on the Rapidan River and the left on the Rappahannock River. He had planned to lead his Federals back across the rivers, move southeast and then recross the Rappahannock at Banks’s Ford. This would put the Federals on the right flank of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Banks’s Ford was held by a detachment of Hooker’s army, commanded by Major-General John Sedgwick. For Hooker’s plan to succeed, Sedgwick would have to hold firm against the detached Confederate forces pressing him up against the Rappahannock.
For the first and only time as army commander, Hooker called a council of war to assess his situation. Attending were –
- Major-General John F. Reynolds (commanding the First Corps)
- Major-General Darius N. Couch (Second Corps)
- Major-General Daniel Sickles (Third Corps)
- Major-General George G. Meade (Fifth Corps)
- Major-General Oliver O. Howard (Eleventh Corps)
- Major-General Henry W. Slocum, commanding the Twelfth Corps, arrived late
- Also attending were Major-General Daniel Butterfield (Hooker’s chief of staff), and Brigadier-General Gouverneur K. Warren (chief Federal engineer)
Hooker described the army’s condition as best he knew it and reminded the men of the general orders from his superiors to not risk destroying the army or its ability to “cover Washington.” Hooker did not offer specifics, but he asserted that the only options were to launch some kind of offensive in the morning or withdraw back across the Rapidan/Rappahannock and return to the original Federal camp at Falmouth. Hooker and Butterfield then left to allow the corps commanders to discuss what they should do.
Meade and Howard voted to continue fighting. Reynolds told Meade to vote for fighting on his behalf while he went to sleep. Couch claimed that he favored fighting only if Hooker was replaced as commander, but no one at the meeting remembered him saying that. Sickles wanted to withdraw because he had sustained heavy losses and he believed that a withdrawal would cause less turmoil on the home front than a decisive defeat. Thus, three commanders voted to stay and fight it out, one voted to fight with conditions, and one voted to withdraw.
Hooker returned, asked the generals for their opinions, and then announced that he had already decided to withdraw. The movement would begin at 5 a.m. As the meeting ended, an irritated Reynolds asked rhetorically, “What was the sense of calling us all together if he had decided to retreat anyway?”
After the council of war, Hooker received a message from Sedgwick: “If I had only this army to care for, I would withdraw it to-night. Do your operations require that I should jeopard it by retaining it here? An immediate reply is indispensable, or I may feel obliged to withdraw.” Hooker had briefly considered going ahead with his plan to move the rest of the army to Banks’s Ford, but this message sealed Hooker’s decision to withdraw. He wrote Sedgwick, “Dispatch this moment received. Withdraw. Cover the river, and prevent any force crossing.”
Before Sedgwick received this order, he consulted with his engineer and informed Hooker that he did not need to withdraw after all; his position was strong enough to hold. Sedgwick wrote, “I shall hold my position, as ordered, on south of Rappahannock.” When Hooker read this, he tried to reactivate his plan to move to Banks’s Ford. He replied, “Order to withdraw countermanded. Acknowledge…”
But it was too late. Sedgwick had gotten the first order and had already put his men in motion to comply. He wrote, “The bridges at Banks’ Ford are swung and in process of being taken up… The dispatch countermanding my movement over the river was received after the troops had crossed. Almost my entire command has crossed over.” This communication symbolized the confusion that plagued the Federal army throughout this battle.
As the sun came up on the 5th, Hooker was preparing to return the main body of his army to its original camps at Falmouth. The Army of the Potomac had been defeated once again. A newspaper correspondent summed up the situation:
“We had men enough, well enough equipped and well enough posted, to have devoured the ragged, imperfectly armed and equipped host of our enemies from off the face of the earth… And yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to pieces, beaten us so easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest private soldiers, with no shirts to hang out of the holes in their pantaloons, and cartridge-boxes tied round their waists with strands of rope.”
The day was rainy and the armies were mostly stationary, with the men glaring at one another from their entrenched positions. Federal rations were running low, and rumors were spreading that Lieutenant-General James Longstreet’s Confederates were coming up from Suffolk to reinforce General Lee’s army; these rumors were untrue.
Sedgwick reported that by 7 a.m. the bridges at Banks’s Ford had been disassembled and his “much exhausted” command had completed its withdrawal back across the Rappahannock. Hooker led the withdrawal of the rest of his army via United States Ford. He returned to his original Falmouth headquarters, leaving the corps commanders behind to work out the logistics of such a complex withdrawal. The steady rain developed into a violent thunderstorm that raised the river levels six feet at the bridges the Federals needed to use.
The retreat grew disorderly in the rain and dark, during which time rumors spread that Hooker was incapacitated. Couch, being second-in-command, announced that since Hooker had left the army “without a command in the presence of the enemy,” the withdrawal would be suspended for the night. Couch declared, “The army should remain & fight it out.” Word of this got to Hooker, who, Couch later stated, “showed plainly that my orders displeased him.” Hooker declared, “The Genl directs that movements be continued as ordered.”
Meanwhile, Lee prepared to renew his attacks in hopes of destroying the Federal army, but the heavy rains helped him decide against it. He soon learned that the enemy was falling back across the river and chose not to pursue, reporting that the Federals “had sought safety beyond the Rappahannock.”
Bibliography
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- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
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