CHANCELLORSVILLE

*** The three day battle for Chancellorsville (May 2-5 1863) was bravely fought by the federals. Yet all in vain. Hooker was caught like a bull in a net; and the more he struggled the worse it became. Stonewall Jackson is wounded in this battle and dies. He is shot by mistake by his own soldiers mistaking him and his staff for federal cavalry while emerging from some thickets. The battle of Chancellorsville would come to be known as Lee's masterpiece, an almost perfect example of the military arts.***

THE "MUD MARCH" JAN 20th TO JAN 24th 1863

*** The weather had been very good so far. January was more than half gone and the ground was dry and firm and the air was balmy. On the 20th of January, the Army of the Potomac moved out of its unhappy camps near Falmouth under the thin January sunlight. By evening it was raining, a slow drizzle at first, and then a steady downpour, with a howling wind wipping the rain down country roads. This rain continued for four days. The army was accustomed to mud in its varied forms, knee-deep, hub-deep, but to have it so despairingly deep was demoralizing. A cannon might be inched along for a few yards with triple teams or three hundred men on draglines, but only to watch it sink out of sight if they stopped for a breather or or failed to thrust a log under it. Some guns sank so deeply that only their muzzles were visible. The men slipped, floundered and fell sprawling, their shoes sucked off by the mud. When a horse or mule collapsed in the mud, the soldier would simply cut the animal out of its harness and trodden under foot and out of sight in this bottomless mud. The Virginia mud was a mixture of clay, and sand, which when wet, becomes very soft, practically bottomless, and exceedingly sticky and gooey.

The "MUD MARCH" was an attempt by Burnside to move his army to Banks' Ford on the Rappahannock in an attempt to envelop Lee's position before Fredericksburg. The rain forced abandonment of the project which demoralized the Army of the Potomac that Lincoln had to relieve Burnside of command.

A veteran in the Iron Brigade wrote that desertions from the Army of the Potomac after the "MUD MARCH" were averaging two hundred a day. By the end of January 1863, desertions from the Army of the Potomac totaled 85,123.

General "Fighting Joe Hooker" would turn this morale problem around after taking over command from Burnside. Hooker said "the moment I was placed in command I caused a return to be made of the absentees of the army, and found the number to be 2,922 commissioned officers and 81,964 non-commissioned officers and privates. They were scattered all over the country, and the majority were absent from causes unknown." ******

This wasn't researched because I was intrigued by a "Mud March". I applied for and received photo copies from the government archives department in Washington D.C. They supplied copies of their pay and enlistment records. Here is what I found, copied just as it was written in 1863.

---------------Augustus M. Collignon Pvt, Co D, 22 Reg't New Jersey Inf. Company Muster Roll for Jan Feb, 1863. Remarks: Deserted from Camp near Belle Plaines on Jan 20 1863. "Returned under Presidents Proclamation on April 1, 1863."-----------------------------

This started my research, and led to this report on the "MUD MARCH" of 1863. It also explained what I found on his record!

They both completed their 9 month tour of duty and were honorable discharged from the United States Army, June 25, 1863.

History of Co D 22nd Infantry Volunteers

SERVICE