have been an impossibility, even had no enemy interposed. Sedgwick, after a gallant assault in which he suffered heavy loss, carried the Fredericksburg heights on Sunday forenoon; and he then moved out to obey Hooker's instructions to fall upon Lee's rear at Chancellorsville, but was stopped by the enemy at Salem Heights.

6. But meanwhile, on Sunday morning Hooker had been driven back at Chancellorsville. Moreover, the operations ending in the giving ground of the army at Chancellorsville were over five hours before Sedgwick attacked Salem Heights. It is therefore evident, that unless the Sixth Corps could, single-handed, fight all the force brought against it, the sole object of taking the heights of Fredericksburg, or uncovering Banks' Ford, was to hold a position from which the army might debouch. Therefore the attack on Salem Heights was mere waste of men; and if those heights had been taken, the Sixth Corps never could have extricated itself. Sedgwick should not have been called forward from Fredericksburg, because to abandon the possession of the heights was to give up a positive gain for a remote possibility. If, however, Sedgwick was to be expected to make a junction with the force at Chancellorsville, Hooker was committed by every consideration of honor and duty to so act as to make the junction possible. Yet he did not make the slightest effort as a diversion in Sedgwick's favor; but allowed Lee to countermarch at pleasure from his front a force sufficient to first check and then overwhelm Sedgwick. General Hooker lays the blame of the disaster at Chancellorsville to Sedgwick's failure to join him on Sunday morning. "In my judgment," says he, "General Sedgwick did not obey the spirit of my order, and made no sufficient effort to obey it. His movement was delayed so long that the enemy discovered his intentions; and when that was done, he was necessarily delayed in the further execution of the order."* This is a cruel charge to bring against a commander now beyond the reach of de

* Hooker's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

traction; whose brilliant exploit in carrying the Fredericksburg heights and his subsequent fortitude in a trying situation, shine out as the one relieving brightness amid the gloom of that hapless battle.

7. From the time when, at noon of Sunday, Hooker was driven from the line at Chancellorsville, to his new line in the rear, he remained perfectly passive. Was all fight out of him? Had the disaster to the Eleventh Corps, which nobody in the army regarded as of any moment (that corps hardly being accounted as belonging to the Army of the Potomac), so paralyzed him that he could do nothing? Yet the disruption of the Eleventh Corps had been more than made up by the arrival of Reynolds' corps (First) on Saturday night; and in the decisive action of Sunday, he employed little more than half his force-neither Reynolds nor Meade being allowed to go into action, though eager to do so. Hooker allowed a position to be lost when he had more men at hand that did not draw trigger than Lee had in his entire army!

8. It was Monday evening before Sedgwick was attacked; and the whole interval from noon of Sunday, when the action of Chancellorsville ceased, till six o'clock on Monday evening-thirty hours-was available to re-enforce Sedgwick, which might readily have been done on a short line via United States and Banks' fords. Yet no attempt was made to do so. Lee made good use of this time in re-enforcing the wing opposed to Sedgwick, so that he was able at night to drive the Sixth Corps across the river after a severe action, in which Sedgwick's guns booming out like signals of distress were heard at Chancellorsville. Indeed, such was Hooker's delusion (to use the mildest term) regarding the situation, that on Sunday afternoon, at the time Sedgwick was completely enveloped, he sent word to that officer stating that he (Hooker) "had driven the enemy, and all it wanted was for him (Sedgwick) to come up and complete Lee's destruction !"

9. Even after Sedgwick had withdrawn across the Rappahannock at Banks' Ford on Monday, Hooker might have remained indefinitely on the third line he had caused to be

prepared. It was of impregnable strength-both flanks resting on the river; and the army could here have repelled all assaults. The whole army wished this; and a successful action, ending in Lee's repulse, would have saved the morale and pride of the troops. It has been said that the storm of May 5th, which caused a rise in the Rappahannock, and endangered the supplies of the army, was a motive for retreat. But the order to retire was given twelve hours before any rain and during a cloudless sky.

10. Not the Army of the Potomac was beaten at Chancellorsville, but its commander; and General Hooker's conduct inflicted a very severe blow to his reputation. The officers despised his generalship, and the rank and file were puzzled at the result of a battle in which they had been foiled without being fought, and caused to retreat without the consciousness of having been beaten.

IX.

THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN.

JUNE-JULY, 1863.

I.

THEORY OF THE CONFEDERATE INVASION.

In the minds of that group of able and sagacious men that at Richmond controlled the course of the mighty experiment of war, there had early grown up a theory of military conduct that was undoubtedly the best adapted to the circumstances, and, indeed, is the only theory on which a defensive war can be maintained with any hope of success.

It is now generally conceded that a Power that either voluntarily or by compulsion allows itself to be reduced to a purely defensive attitude is certain to be compelled, sooner or later, to succumb. On the other hand, military history affords many memorable illustrations of the marvellous results that may be accomplished by nations that, forced to the defensive by the superiority of the assailant, are yet able at the opportune moment to assume the offensive, and inflict blows as well as receive them. It was by acting on this principle that Frederick the Great, in that everlasting model of a defensive campaign, the Seven Years' War, was able to make head against the seemingly overwhelming combination brought against him; and that Napoleon, in 1814, in that other bright exemplar of the defence of a country by boldly taking the offensive, was able to confront the invading Allies, and at length make them pay so dearly for the capture of his capital.