Mr. Alden, the author of the work in question, says:
"There was not, in fact, any moment between Thursday afternoon and Tuesday morning when success was not wholly within the grasp of the Union army. The movement by which Chancellorsville was reached, and the Confederate position rendered worthless, was brilliantly conceived and admirably executed. The initial error, by which alone all else was rendered possible, was that halt at Chancellorsville. Had the march been continued for an hour longer, or even been resumed early in the following morning, the army would have got clear of the Wilderness without meeting any great opposing force, and then it would have been in a position where its great superiority of numbers would have told. The rout of Howard's corps was possible only from the grossest neglect of all military precautions. Jackson, after a toilsome march of ten hours, halted for three hours in open ground, not two miles from the Union lines. A single picket, sent for a mile up a broad road would have discovered the whole movement in ample time for Howard to have strengthened his position, or to have withdrawn from it without loss. The blame of this surprise can not, however, fairly be laid upon Hooker. He had a right to presume that whoever was in command there would have so picketed his lines as to prevent the possibility of being surprised in broad daylight. But even as it was, the disaster to the Eleventh Corps should have had no serious effect upon the general result. That was fully remedied when the pursuit was checked. On Sunday morning Hooker was in a better position than he had been on the evening before. He had lost 3,000 men and had been strengthened by 17,000, and now had 78,000 to oppose to 47,000. The Confederate army was divided, and could reunite only by winning a battle or by a day's march. The only thing which could have lost the battle of that day was the abandonment of the position at Hazel Grove, for from this alone was it possible to enfilade Slocum's line. But surely it is within the limits of military forethought that a general who has occupied a position for two days and three nights should have discovered the very key to that position, when it lay within a mile of his own headquarters. The disabling of Hooker could not, indeed, have been foreseen; but such an accident might happen to any commander upon any field; and there should have been somewhere some man with authority to have, within the space of three hours, brought into action some of the more than 30,000 men within sound, and almost within sight, of the battle then raging. How the hours from Sunday noon till Monday night were wasted has been shown. Hooker, indeed, reiterates that he could not assail the Confederate lines through the dense forests. But Lee broke through those very woods on Sunday, and was minded to attempt it again on Wednesday, when he found that the enemy had disappeared. The golden opportunity was lost, never to be recovered, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia gained a new lease of life."
It may not be out of place, as indicating the kind of service in which we were engaged, to quote the following letter, written after the retreat:
"I am so cut, scratched, and bruised that I can hardly hold a pen in my hand. My limbs are covered with swellings from the bites of insects and torn from forcing my way through briers and thorny bushes; my eyes close involuntarily from lack of sleep and excessive fatigue. My legs are cramped from so much riding, and I have not yet succeeded in getting rid of the chill caused by sleeping on the wet ground in the cold rain. My clothes, up to last night, had not been taken off for a week. As I lay down every night with my boots and spurs on, my feet are very much swollen. I ought to be in bed at this moment instead of attempting to write."
The others must have suffered in the same way. Warren, especially, as a medium of communication between Hooker and Sedgwick, made almost superhuman exertions to do without sleep and perform the important duties assigned him.
Each army now felt the need of rest and recuperation, and no military movements of importance took place for several weeks. Soon after the battle of Chancellorsville, Longstreet's two divisions, which had been operating in front of Suffolk, rejoined Lee at Fredericksburg. That portion of Stoneman's cavalry which had taken refuge at Gloucester Point also succeeded, by great boldness and skilful manoeuvring on the part of Colonel Kilpatrick, in outwitting the enemy and getting to Urbanna, after crossing Dragon River, rebuilding a bridge there, and repulsing the rebel forces who tried to prevent them from reaching the Rappahannock. The command, when it arrived at Urbanna, passed over on the ferry-boat, under cover of a gunboat sent there for that purpose, and rejoined the Army of the Potomac at Falmouth, on the 3d of June, bringing in about 200 prisoners, 40 wagons, and 1,000 contrabands, as slaves were usually styled at that time.
CHAPTER IX. PREPARATIONS TO RENEW THE CONFLICT.
The close of the battle of Chancellorsville found the Union army still strong in numbers, defeated, but not disheartened, and ready, as soon as reinforcements and supplies arrived, and a brief period of rest and recuperation ensued, to take the field again. To resist the effects of this defeat and recruit our armies required, however, great determination and serious effort on the part of the Administration; for a large and powerful party still clogged and impeded its efforts, and were allowed full liberty to chill the patriotism of the masses, and oppose, with tongue and pen and every species of indirection, all efficient action which looked to national defence. This opposition was so strong and active that the President almost preferred the risk of losing another battle to the commotion which would be excited by attempts to enforce the draft; for hitherto we had relied entirely on voluntary enlistments to increase our strength in the field. Men are chilled by disaster and do not readily enlist after a defeat; yet the terms of service of thirty thousand of the two years' and nine months' men were expiring, and something had to be done. Our army, however, at the end of May was still formidable in numbers, and too strongly posted to be effectually assailed; especially as it had full and free communication with Washington and the North, and could be assisted in case of need by the loyal militia of the free States.
The rebels had obtained a triumph, rather than a substantial victory, at Chancellorsville. It was gained, too, at a ruinous expense of life, and when the battle was over they found themselves too weak to follow up our retreating forces. While the whole South was exulting, their great commander, General Lee, was profoundly depressed. The resources of the Davis Government in men and means were limited, and it was evident that without a foreign alliance, prolonged defensive warfare by an army so far from its base, would ultimately exhaust the seceding States, without accomplishing their independence. It became necessary, therefore, for General Lee to chose one of two plans of campaign: Either to fall back on the centre of his supplies at Richmond, and stand a siege there, or to invade the North. By retiring on Richmond he would save the great labor of transporting food and war material to the frontier, and would remove the Northern army still further from its sources of supply and its principal depots. One circumstance, however, would probably in any event, have impelled him to take the bolder course. The situation in Vicksburg was becoming alarming. It was evident the town must fall and with its surrender the Federal fleet would soon regain possession of the Mississippi. The fall of Vicksburg, supplemented by the retreat of Lee's army on Richmond, would dishearten the Southern people, and stimulate the North to renewed efforts. It was essential, therefore, to counterbalance the impending disaster in the West by some brilliant exploit in the East.
There was perhaps another reason for this great forward movement, founded on the relation of the Confederacy to the principal European powers. England still made a pretence of neutrality, but the aristocracy and ruling classes sided with the South, and a large association of their most influential men was established at Manchester to aid the slaveholding oligarchy. The rebels were fighting us with English guns and war material, furnished by blockade runners; while English Shenandoahs and Alabamas, manned by British seamen, under the Confederate flag, burned our merchant vessels and swept our commercial marine from the ocean. The French Government was equally hostile to us, and there was hardly a kingdom in Europe which did not sympathize with the South, allied as they were by their feudal customs to the deplorable system of Southern slavery. Russia alone favored our cause, and stood ready, if need be, to assist us with her fleet; probably more from antagonism to England and France, than from any other motive. The agents of the Confederate Government stated in their official despatches that if General Lee could establish his army firmly on Northern soil England would at once acknowledge the independence of the South; in which case ample loans could not only be obtained on Southern securities, but a foreign alliance might be formed, and perhaps a fleet furnished to re-open the Southern ports.