The Campaign of Chancellorsville | Page 8

also our infantry,
except in discipline; and that, for reasons not necessary to mention,
never did equal Lee's army. With a rank and file vastly inferior to our
own, intellectually and physically, that army has, by discipline alone,
acquired a character for steadiness and efficiency, unsurpassed, in my
judgment, in ancient or modern times. We have not been able to rival it,
nor has there been any near approximation to it in the other rebel
armies."
The cavalry force was small, but energetic and enterprising to a degree
as yet by no means equalled by our own. The artillery was neither as
good, nor as well equipped or served, as ours, but was commanded
with intelligence, and able to give a good account of itself.

V.
DIFFICULTY OF AN ATTACK.
An attack of Lee's position in front, even had Burnside's experience not
demonstrated its folly, seemed to promise great loss of life without
corresponding success.
To turn his right flank required the moving of pontoon trains and
artillery over the worst of roads for at least twenty miles, through a
country cut up by a multitude of streams running across the route to be
taken, and emptying into either the Potomac or Rappahannock; all
requiring more or less bridging.
Lee's spy system was excellent. It has been claimed in Southern reports,
that his staff had deciphered our signal code by watching a station at
Stafford. And Butterfield admits this in one of his despatches of May 3.
He would speedily ascertain any such movement, and could create
formidable intrenchments on one side the river, as fast as we could
build or repair roads on which to move down, upon the other. Moreover,
there was a thousand feet of stream to bridge at the first available place

below Skenker's Neck.
There remained nothing to do but to turn Lee's left flank; and this could
only be accomplished by stratagem, for Lee had strengthened every
part of the river by which Hooker could attempt a passage.
But this problem was, despite its difficulties, still possible of solution;
and Hooker set himself to work to elucidate it.
So soon as he had matured his plan, which he elaborated with the
greatest care, but kept perfectly secret from every one until the
movements themselves developed it, although making use of the
knowledge and skill of all his generals both before and during its
initiation, he speedily prepared for its vigorous execution. In May, the
term of service of some twenty-two thousand nine-months and
two-years men would expire. These men he must seek to utilize in the
campaign.
The first intimation of a forward movement received by the army at
large, apart from the Cavalry Corps, had been a circular of April 13,
notifying commanding officers to have their troops supplied with eight
days' rations, and a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, sixty to be
carried by the soldiers, and the balance on the pack-mules.
After the battle of Fredericksburg, the army had returned to
substantially the same positions and quarters occupied before; and here
the men had housed themselves for the winter. The Mud March had
broken up these cantonments; but after a few days' absence the several
regiments returned to their old camps, and the same huts had generally
been re-occupied by the same men. But when Fighting Joe Hooker's
orders to march were issued, no one dreamed of any thing but victory;
and the Army of the Potomac burned its ships. Nothing was left
standing but the mud walls from which the shelter-tent roofs had been
stripped, and an occasional chimney. Many of the men (though
contrary to orders) set fire to what was left, and the animus non
revertendi was as universal as the full confidence that now there lay
before the Army of the Potomac a certain road, whatever might bar the
path, to the long-wished-for goal of Richmond.

VI.
THE PROPOSED CAVALRY RAID.
Hooker proposed to open his flank attack by cutting Lee's

communications. Accordingly, on April 12, Gen. Stoneman,
commanding the Cavalry Corps, received orders to march at seven A.M.
next day, with his whole force except one brigade. He was to ascend
the Rappahannock, keeping well out of view, and masking his
movement with numerous small detachments,-- alleging a chase of
Jones's guerillas in the Shenandoah valley, as his objective. The river
was to be crossed west of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. At
Culpeper he was to destroy or disperse Fitz Lee's brigade of some two
thousand cavalry, and at Gordonsville the infantry provost-guard;
thence to push down the Virginia Central to the Fredericksburg and
Richmond Railroad, destroying every thing along the road. As the
enemy would probably retreat by the latter route, he was to select
strong points on the roads parallel to it,