For, having resisted the pressure of Stuart’s right for nearly four hours, his troops having been for some time with empty cartridge-boxes, twenty-four hours without food, and having passed several nights without sleep, while intrenching, Williams now felt that he could no longer hold his ground.  The enemy was still pressing on, and the mule-train of small ammunition could not be got up under the heavy fire.  His artillery had also exhausted its supplies; Sickles was in similar plight; Jackson’s men, better used to the bayonet, and possessing the momentum of success, still kept up their vigorous blows.  Williams’s line therefore slowly fell to the rear, still endeavoring to lean on Sickles’s left.

Sickles, who had kept Hooker informed of the condition of affairs as they transpired, and had repeatedly requested support, now sent a more urgent communication to him, asking for additional troops.  Major Tremaine reached headquarters just after the accident to Hooker, and received no satisfaction.  Nor had a second appeal better results.  What should and could easily have been done at an earlier moment by Hooker,—­to wit, re-enforce the right centre (where the enemy was all too plainly using his full strength and making the key of the field), from the large force of disposable troops on the right and left,—­it was now too late to order.

Before nine A.M., Sickles, having looked in vain for re-enforcements, deemed it necessary to withdraw his lines back of Fairview crest.  Himself re-formed the divisions, except that portion withdrawn by Revere, and led them to the rear, where the front line occupied the late artillery breastworks.  Ammunition was at once re-distributed.

We had doubtless inflicted heavy losses upon the Confederates.  “Their formation for attack was entirely broken up, and from my headquarters they presented to the eye the appearance of a crowd, without definite formation; and if another corps had been available at the moment to have relieved me, or even to have supported me, my judgment was that not only would that attack of the enemy have been triumphantly repulsed, but that we could have advanced on them, and carried the day.” (Sickles.)

On the Chancellorsville open occurred another sanguinary struggle.  Stuart still pressed on with his elated troops, although his men were beginning to show signs of severe exhaustion.  Franklin’s and Mott’s brigades, says Sickles, “made stern resistance to the impulsive assaults of the enemy, and brilliant charges in return worthy of the Old Guard.”

But, though jaded and bleeding from this prolonged and stubbornly-contested battle, Jackson’s columns had by no means relaxed their efforts.  The blows they could give were feebler, but they were continued with the wonderful pertinacity their chief had taught them; and nothing but the Chancellor clearing, and with it the road to Fredericksburg, would satisfy their purpose.

And a half-hour later, Sickles, finding himself unsupported on right and left, though not heavily pressed by the enemy, retired to Chancellorsville, and re-formed on the right of Hancock, while portions of three batteries held their ground, half way between Chancellorsville and Fairview, and fired their last rounds, finally retiring after nearly all their horses and half their men had been shot, but still without the loss of a gun.