So far the attack had been completely successful, but Lee’s lack of strength prevented the full accomplishment of his design.  Had Longstreet been present, with Pickett and Hood to lead his splendid infantry, the Third Corps and the Twelfth would have been so hardly pressed that Chancellorsville, Hazel Grove, and the White House would have fallen an easy prize to Jackson’s bayonets.  Anderson, with four small brigades, was powerless to hold the force confronting him, and marching rapidly northwards, Sickles had reached Hazel Grove before Jackson fell.  Here Pleasonton, with his batteries, was still in position, and Hooker had not yet lost his head.  As soon as Birney’s and Whipple’s divisions had come up, forming in columns of brigades behind the guns, Sickles was ordered to assail the enemy’s right flank and check his advance.  Just before midnight the attack was made, in two lines of battle, supported by strong columns.  The night was very clear and still; the moon, nearly full, threw enough light into the woods to facilitate the advance, and the tracks leading north-west served as lines of direction.

The attack, however, although gallantly made, gained no material advantage.  The preliminary movements were plainly audible to the Confederates, and Lane’s brigade, most of which was now south of the plank road, had made every preparation to receive it.  Against troops lying down in the woods the Federal artillery, although fifty or sixty guns were in action, made but small impression; and the dangers of a night attack, made upon troops who are expecting it, and whose morale is unaffected, were forcibly illustrated.  The confusion in the forest was very great; a portion of the assailing force, losing direction, fell foul of Berry’s division at the foot of the Fairview heights, which had not been informed of the movement, and at least two regiments, fired into from front and rear, broke up in panic.  Some part of the log breastworks which Jackson’s advanced line had occupied were recaptured; but not a single one of the assailants, except as prisoners, reached the plank road.  And yet the attack was an exceedingly well-timed stroke, and as such, although the losses were heavy, had a very considerable effect on the issue of the day’s fighting.  It showed, or seemed to show, that the Federals were still in good heart, that they were rapidly concentrating, and that the Confederates might be met by vigorous counter-strokes.  “The fact,” said Stuart in his official dispatch, “that the attack was made, and at night, made me apprehensive of a repetition of it.”

So, while Jackson slept through the hours of darkness that should have seen the consummation of his enterprise, his soldiers lay beside their arms; and the Federals, digging, felling, and building, constructed a new line of parapet, protected by abattis, and strengthened by a long array of guns, on the slopes of Fairview and Hazel Grove.  The respite which the fall of the Confederate leader had brought them was not neglected; the fast-spreading panic was stayed; the First Army Corps, rapidly crossing the Rappahannock, secured the road to the White House, and Averell’s division of cavalry reached Ely’s Ford.