Reading again (after twenty-one years!) Chancellorsville, 1863 reminds me of Johnstown, 1889. The sensory impressions of those who were struck are similar, the foreshadowing of impending disaster similar, the inexorableness of the force the same. Most of all it is sensory impressions, the physical sensations, the sights, sounds and feelings:
"Johnstown is going to be destroyed today."
...
SOUTH FORK DAM IS LIABLE TO BREAK: NOTIFY THE
PEOPLE OF JOHNSTOWN TO PREPARE FOR THE WORST.
Two men who were shown the message...read it and laughed out loud.
...
"It is erroneous opinion that the dam burst. It simply moved away."
"Not a break, just one big push."
...
"Oh, it seemed to me as if all the destructive elements of the Creator had been turned loose at once..."
When the dam let go, the lake seemed to leap into the valley like a living thing, "roaring like a mighty battle"...
"Look at the people running! I wonder what's wrong?"
Then they saw it coming, spread across the full width of the valley.
...
"It just seemed like a mountain coming."
...
"Run for your lives!"
...
It began as a deep, steady rumble, they would say; then it grew louder and louder until it became an avalanche of sound, "a roar like thunder"...
...
But what seemed to make the most lasting impression was the cloud of dark spray that hung over the front of the wave..."a blur, an advance guard, as it were a mist, like dust that precedes a cavalry charge."
####
"Colonel, the Institute will be heard from today!"
...
Three times the 55th brought this news to Devens, who was lying down resting at the Talley house, and Devens disdained it. The third time, he told [Colonel John C.] Lee, "You are frightened, sir"...
[Lt. Col. C.W.] Friend] promptly went on to [General O.O.] Howard's headquarters---where he was laughed at, and warned not to start a panic.
After...listening a while, Lt. A.B. Searles "began to hear a queer jumble of sounds"...He even thought he remembered "their bugles sounding the call to deploy...we could hear an order occasionally, too, quite planly."Searles sent a sergeant in to warn von Amsberg of "an immense mass of men on our flank," but got no response...General Howard had scoffed, "Lieutenant Searles must not be scared at a few bushwackers."
...
Jackson...would go at Hooker on such a broad front that whenever his troops hit a strongpoint they would flow around and envelop it--so broad...
...
"Are you ready, General Rodes?"
"Yes, sir."
"You can go forward, then."
...
Outside his Eleventh Corps command post...Oliver Otis Howard told a battery of gunners to "Unharness those horses, boys, give them a good feed of oats. We'll be off for Richmond at daylight."...Devens's division headquarters passed the word to eat supper...
Music began to drift from clearing to clearing...
...
The thickness of the forest, some trick of the breeze, kept the sound of the fighting from the ears of Joe Hooker at Chancellorsville. On the pillared veranda of the house, he and his aides, Captains William Candler and Harry Russell, were sitting chatting in the balmy dusk...[S]omething caught Russell's eye west toward Dowdall's Tavern. Stepping off the porch, he lifted and focused his spyglass.
"My God!" he said. "Here they come!"
...
As [Hollis Brooks] bit into the hot, crisp roll, somebody shouted, "A deer!"...this deer was bounding away in panic. There came another out of the thickets...A flock of turkeys flapped out of the woods. Songbirds and scared rabbits followed. A crackle of rifle fire sounded beyond them.
...
"Like a cloud of dust driven before a coming shower."*
...
"Johnnies! Johnnies!"
The underbursh before them cam alive, trembling and crackling as if a storm of buffalo were rolling onto the Union positions.
...
"[The Rebels] swept forward like a cyclone...the fierce momentum of an army in three-fold folume of masses, all saturated with the spirit...that massive attack...The wrath of God pervaded it..."
...
"a confused roaring sound seemd to penetrate the air, ominous and alarming, but mysterious withal...a curious sight met the eye, for all the world like a stampeded of cattle, a multitude of yelling, struggling men...panting for breath, their faces distorted by fear..."
...
With Rebels coming from front and flank, his men could neither change front nor fire back. [Maj. Allen G.] Brady told them to take to the woods---and as young Justus Silliman said, "I believe there were [a] few who started before the order was given."
...
"So sudden was our appearance...that they did not even rise from over their steaming suppers...[and] surrendered seated or half-bent, in speechless wonderment."
*General O. O. Howard, from Chancellorsville, 2nd Edition, Stackpole, chapter title "The Storm Breaks.". All other quotes from Chancellorsville, 1863, Furgurson.
"Johnstown is going to be destroyed today."
...
SOUTH FORK DAM IS LIABLE TO BREAK: NOTIFY THE
PEOPLE OF JOHNSTOWN TO PREPARE FOR THE WORST.
Two men who were shown the message...read it and laughed out loud.
...
"It is erroneous opinion that the dam burst. It simply moved away."
"Not a break, just one big push."
...
"Oh, it seemed to me as if all the destructive elements of the Creator had been turned loose at once..."
When the dam let go, the lake seemed to leap into the valley like a living thing, "roaring like a mighty battle"...
"Look at the people running! I wonder what's wrong?"
Then they saw it coming, spread across the full width of the valley.
...
"It just seemed like a mountain coming."
...
"Run for your lives!"
...
It began as a deep, steady rumble, they would say; then it grew louder and louder until it became an avalanche of sound, "a roar like thunder"...
...
But what seemed to make the most lasting impression was the cloud of dark spray that hung over the front of the wave..."a blur, an advance guard, as it were a mist, like dust that precedes a cavalry charge."
####
"Colonel, the Institute will be heard from today!"
...
Three times the 55th brought this news to Devens, who was lying down resting at the Talley house, and Devens disdained it. The third time, he told [Colonel John C.] Lee, "You are frightened, sir"...
[Lt. Col. C.W.] Friend] promptly went on to [General O.O.] Howard's headquarters---where he was laughed at, and warned not to start a panic.
After...listening a while, Lt. A.B. Searles "began to hear a queer jumble of sounds"...He even thought he remembered "their bugles sounding the call to deploy...we could hear an order occasionally, too, quite planly."Searles sent a sergeant in to warn von Amsberg of "an immense mass of men on our flank," but got no response...General Howard had scoffed, "Lieutenant Searles must not be scared at a few bushwackers."
...
Jackson...would go at Hooker on such a broad front that whenever his troops hit a strongpoint they would flow around and envelop it--so broad...
...
"Are you ready, General Rodes?"
"Yes, sir."
"You can go forward, then."
...
Outside his Eleventh Corps command post...Oliver Otis Howard told a battery of gunners to "Unharness those horses, boys, give them a good feed of oats. We'll be off for Richmond at daylight."...Devens's division headquarters passed the word to eat supper...
Music began to drift from clearing to clearing...
...
The thickness of the forest, some trick of the breeze, kept the sound of the fighting from the ears of Joe Hooker at Chancellorsville. On the pillared veranda of the house, he and his aides, Captains William Candler and Harry Russell, were sitting chatting in the balmy dusk...[S]omething caught Russell's eye west toward Dowdall's Tavern. Stepping off the porch, he lifted and focused his spyglass.
"My God!" he said. "Here they come!"
...
As [Hollis Brooks] bit into the hot, crisp roll, somebody shouted, "A deer!"...this deer was bounding away in panic. There came another out of the thickets...A flock of turkeys flapped out of the woods. Songbirds and scared rabbits followed. A crackle of rifle fire sounded beyond them.
...
"Like a cloud of dust driven before a coming shower."*
...
"Johnnies! Johnnies!"
The underbursh before them cam alive, trembling and crackling as if a storm of buffalo were rolling onto the Union positions.
...
"[The Rebels] swept forward like a cyclone...the fierce momentum of an army in three-fold folume of masses, all saturated with the spirit...that massive attack...The wrath of God pervaded it..."
...
"a confused roaring sound seemd to penetrate the air, ominous and alarming, but mysterious withal...a curious sight met the eye, for all the world like a stampeded of cattle, a multitude of yelling, struggling men...panting for breath, their faces distorted by fear..."
...
With Rebels coming from front and flank, his men could neither change front nor fire back. [Maj. Allen G.] Brady told them to take to the woods---and as young Justus Silliman said, "I believe there were [a] few who started before the order was given."
...
"So sudden was our appearance...that they did not even rise from over their steaming suppers...[and] surrendered seated or half-bent, in speechless wonderment."
*General O. O. Howard, from Chancellorsville, 2nd Edition, Stackpole, chapter title "The Storm Breaks.". All other quotes from Chancellorsville, 1863, Furgurson.
