It is
fortunate, indeed, that they are still there; for Sickles has just asked
for their detail to join his own column out in the woods, and an hour
ago Berry would certainly have been sent.
This division is at once thrown across the pike on the first crest below
Fairview, west of Chancellorsville. The artillery of the Eleventh Corps
is in part re-assembled. Capt. Best, chief of artillery of the Twelfth
Corps, has already trained his guns upon the advancing Confederate
columns, to protect the new line. But Berry is almost alone. Hays's
brigade of the Second Corps, on his right, is his only support. The
Excelsior brigade is rapidly pushed into the woods, north of the plank
road; the Fourth Excelsior and the First Massachusetts south. Carr's
brigade is kept in second line, one hundred and fifty yards in the rear.
The men, with the instinctive pride of self-reliance, move up with the
steadiness of veterans on drill, regardless of the stream of fugitives
breaking through their intervals.
The flight of the Eleventh Corps has stampeded part of the Third Corps
artillery. But it is re-assembled in short order, and at once thrown
into service.
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