April eighth, the Twenty-seventh participated in the grand review of the Army of the Potomac by President Lincoln, preparatory to opening the spring campaign. Fifty or sixty thousand men were in line, and probably the army was never in better condition than at that time.
One week later, orders were received to supply the men with eight days’ rations, five to be carried in their knapsacks, and three in their haversacks. Overcoats, dress coats, and everything which could possibly be dispensed with, were to be turned in to the Quartermaster. Each day company inspections were held, to see that the men were prepared as the orders directed. About this time the regiment was transferred to the Fourth Brigade, under the command of Colonel J. R. Brooke, of the Fifty-third Pennsylvania. A storm of two days’ duration postponed the forward movement a short time, but by the twenty-seventh of the month the weather became tolerably settled, and now began a campaign which it was fondly hoped would result in the capture of Richmond. In the morning we sent out an additional picket of over three hundred men,
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 leaving hardly a corporal’s guard in camp. All day artillery and cavalry, pack-mules and wagon-trains, were passing camp, on their way to the right. Late in the evening, orders came to strike tents, pack up as quietly as possible, and report on the division parade at daybreak. Our pickets returned at two o’clock the next morning. The camp was now full of bustling preparation. The huts all illuminated; the eager hum of voices; men hurrying to and fro; the decided tones of command, combined to form a scene of excitement nowhere found but in the army. At daybreak the regiment fell in, and bade farewell to the dismantled camp, to enter upon an experience none of us had ever contemplated as likely to fall to our lot.
Camp near Falmouth will linger vividly in memory, when other more startling scenes of army life have faded into oblivion. Our four months’ residence witnessed a complete change in the face of the country. A few stumps, or a solitary tree, were all that was left of the forests which, four months before, waved over a hundred square miles of territory. Here and there a house, tenantless, fenceless, and dingy, or a blackened ruin, with only a bare chimney standing, loomed above the naked landscape, a picture of complete desolation.
The division having assembled near General Hancock’s headquarters, began the march for United States Ford, at seven in the morning. We passed many deserted encampments, whose late occupants, like ourselves, were on the move. Instead of following the direct course of the river up to the Ford, which was only ten miles above Falmouth, we pursued a very circuitous route, and, after an easy march, halted in a strip of woods, where we encamped for the night. The next day, at
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 evening, we had just pitched our tents and built fires, and were in the act of making coffee, and frying a bit of pork or beef, when the order came for the Twenty-seventh to fall in with all possible dispatch. Suppers were thrust into haversacks, without much regard to order, and in a few moments the regiment marched off about a mile, to picket in the woods. This duty occupied us until the next afternoon, when we were relieved, and hastened on to overtake the rest of the brigade, which had already broken camp. During the night previous a light fall of rain took place, just enough, however, to put the roads in bad condition. All along the route, pioneers were thrown out in advance, to corduroy the worst places for the passage of the trains. As far as the eye could reach, a continuous line of army wagons filled the road, urging their way forward with the greatest difficulty. The woods on either hand rang with the sharp crack of the teamsters’ whips, and simultaneously a chorus of wild shouts burst from the driver and the men pushing at the wheels, while high above the din rose shrill cries, resembling the notes of the screech-owl. Then, with a quick, jerking jump, the nimble mules landed the team in the next rut, to await the reception of the same magical sounds.
Advancing to within a short distance of the Ford, the corps halted to await the completion of the preparations for crossing. The sun now burst forth from the canopy of clouds as if in glad sympathy with the exhilaration which pervaded all hearts in consequence of the encouraging news from the front. A dispatch from General Hooker announced that the success of the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps was all that could be desired, and that the rebels were retiring. These corps
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 broke camp early on Monday morning, April twenty-seventh, and took the route to Kelly’s Ford, twenty-five miles above Fredericksburg. The pontoons were laid and a crossing effected on the following day, with very little opposition, and the troops pushed forward rapidly to Germania Ford, on the Rapidan, for the purpose of concentrating at Chancellorsville. General Stoneman, with his cavalry, crossed on Wednesday, to enter upon the grand raid which the Richmond Examiner characterized as the “most audacious enterprise of the war.” The diversion from Germania caused the rebels to evacuate their works in front of the United States Ford, so that no molestation was offered when the pontoons were laid for the passage of the Second Corps. Late in the afternoon of April thirtieth, we moved rapidly down the abrupt, woody bank, and once more, set foot on the south side of the Rappahannock. A line of well-constructed rifle-pits, with more elaborate works for cannon, at intervals of several hundred yards, commanded the crossing. In their hasty retreat the rebels left behind two pieces of artillery spiked. Only a few miles now separated us from the scene of operations, and after marching through woods, and over muddy roads, rendered infinitely worse by the constant passage of troops, we bivouacked for the night a short distance from the Chancellor House, a large brick mansion, so called from its occupant, V. Chancellor. This residence was situated about five miles from United States Ford, and about ten miles southwest of Fredericksburg, at the junction of the plank road to Gordonsville and the Orange County turnpike. A shapeless mass of ruins is all that now remains of what gave name to one of the most remarkable battles of the war.
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Save an occasional discharge of cannon, the forenoon of May first was spent in comparative quiet, neither party seeming disposed to inaugurate the conflict. Movements, however, were in progress with a view to ascertain the enemy’s position. In the afternoon the Twenty-seventh participated in a reconnoissance for this purpose, which came very near proving an affair of no little importance. Leaving our bivouack in the woods, we advanced down the road by the Chancellor House, and ascending a gentle elevation, turned aside into an open lot on the left, near a small dwelling, afterward occupied by General Lee as his headquarters. Here a section of artillery was exchanging compliments in a lively manner with a rebel battery, a short distance up the road. Several companies were immediately deployed as skirmishers, with the remainder as a support, and advanced through the woods to feel the enemy’s position, and develop his strength. Suddenly the artillery limbered up, the skirmishers were called in, and the reconnoitering force retired to the rear at double-quick. This movement was rendered necessary by an advance of the enemy, seriously threatening our right flank; but they were foiled in the attempt, and fell back before a stubborn fire of musketry and artillery. For a few moments we remained in line of battle in the open ground near the Chancellor House, then, moving down the road a short distance, deployed through the thick and tangled woods on the left. Appearances indicated that the rebels were about to charge down from the ridge from which we had just retired, but they contented themselves with shelling us furiously with their batteries. Long before the cannonade ceased, the mellow twilight of a May evening had passed into the darkness of night, adding
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 to the fearful sublimity of the scene, as the rebel guns woke the sleeping forest echoes, and shells careered wildly through the air, and crashed among the trees. Quietly resting on the ground, we wait for the iron storm to pass. No sooner has the last shell swept over our heads and burst into numberless fragments, than we enter upon the night’s work, of intrenching our position against the anticipated attack of the morrow. The rebels were apparently engaged in similar work just across the ravine. It was a busy and exciting scene along the lines of the army that night. The rapid strokes of axemen, followed by the dull sound of falling trees, rang through the woods in every direction. Details of men were at hand to put the logs in position, while others dug a trench in the rear, and heaped the soil upon them. For some distance in front of the breastworks, trees were cut down for the purpose of obstructing the enemy’s advance. After the completion of our intrenchments, we rested under arms, and at daybreak, May second, as silently as possible, marched out into the road, and past the Chancellor House, and took a new position in Hooker’s line of battle. The rebels soon entered the place we had just left, which, however, was of very little value to them, and could easily be reöccupied when circumstances required. We spent the forenoon in building breastworks, while on the other parts of the line there was much skirmishing, and several sharp fights. At intervals during the day the enemy opened upon us with shot and shell, discovering our position by the smoke curling above the trees from the camp fires. At noon, when rations were being dealt out to the companies, the rebel gunners, doubtless tantalized by the
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 display, seemed determined to involve commissaries and rations in one common ruin.
Several days had now passed in the usual preliminaries to a battle. Hooker had succeeded in drawing the main force of the rebels from their works in the rear of Fredericksburg, and was himself well intrenched in the dense woods skirting the plank road, and most appropriately called the Wilderness. The line of battle of the union forces formed a broad wedge, whose base rested on the Rappahannock, the apex terminating at the extreme front beyond the Chancellor House. The Eleventh Corps held the extreme right, and next in order were the Third, Twelfth, and Second, while the Fifth occupied the left.
Lee is said to have issued orders to his troops to break this line, at all hazards. A brief calm followed the desultory movements of the day. The men stood in their places behind the breastworks, gazing into the woods in front, eagerly listening to hear the first sound wh............