May 6.—Hooker retreats and recrosses the river. Say now what you will to make it swallow, at the best it is an unsuccessful affair, if not an actual disaster. I believe not in the swelling of the river. Bosh! in three days these rivers fell. Have any generals Franklinized? I dare not ask; I most wish not to know anything.
May 7.—Nocte pluit tota (not) redeunt spectacula mane; grim, dark, cold, rainy night. Are the Gods against us? Or has imbecility exasperated even the merciful but rational Christian God to that extent, that God turns his back upon us?
May 7.—Hiob's news come in, confused to sure, but still one finds something like a foothold. I am thunderstruck, annihilated. I listened to Hooker's best friends but can hardly help crying. Hooker is a failure as a commander of a large army. Hooker is good for a corps or two, but not for the whole command and responsibility. From all that I can learn, Hooker fights well, courageously, but he, like the others, has not the greatest and truest gift in a commander: Hooker cannot manœuvre his army. All that I hear up to this moment strengthened my conclusion, and I am sure that the more the details come in, the stronger the truth will come out. Hooker can not manœuvre an army. Hooker may attack vigorously, stand as a rock, but cannot manœuvre.
Hooker seems to have committed the same faults and mistake as his predecessors did. He kept more men out of the fire than in the fire. And this from Hooker who accused his former chiefs of that very fault. But poor Hooker was unsupported by a good staff. This check may turn out to be a great disaster. At any rate, a whole campaign is lost, and one more commander may go overboard. Hooker will raise against him a terrible storm. God grant that Hooker could be honestly defended.
—La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile is perhaps again illustrated by Hooker. If Hooker is in fault, then he ought not to survive this disaster. After all that he said, after all that we said and repeated in his favor, to turn out an awful mistake!
May 8.—Worse and worse. I do not learn one single fact exculpating Hooker. I scarcely dare to look in the people's faces. The rain is no justification. Hooker showed no vigor before the rain. After he crossed, and had his army in hand, instead of attacking, he subsided, seemingly trying to find out the plans of the rebels instead of acting so as not to give them time to make plans or to execute them.
Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier, is almost all to be said in Hooker's defense. I tremble to know all the minute details. A paroled prisoner returned from Richmond said to me that terror was terrible in Richmond—that Lee and his army had no supplies. No troops in Richmond—Stoneman cut the bridges. The rebels were on the brink of a precipice, and extricated themselves.
May 8.—Boutwell, Member of Congress, told me that the district of St. Louis paid more new taxes to January than any other district in the United States. Bravo, Missourians. That is loyalty.
May 8: Evening—More details about this unhappy Chancellorsville. Lee and the rebel generals have been decidedly surprised—in the military sense—by the crossing of the river, and by Hooker coming thus in part in their rear. But we lost time, they retrieved and manœuvred splendidly; better than they ever have done before. Lee showed that he has learned something. Lee showed that, by a year's practice, he has at length acquired skill in handling a large army. The apprenticeship on our side is not so successful; our generals have no experience therein, and McClellan was worse at Harper's Ferry in November than at Williamsburg in the spring. McClellan learned nothing. Will it be possible to find among our Potomac generals one in whom revelation will supply experience?
The more I learn about that affair the more thoroughly I am convinced that Hooker's misfortune had the same cause and source as the misfortunes of those before him. No military scientific staff and chief-of-staff. Butterfield was not even with Hooker, but at Falmouth at the telegraph. If it is so, then no words can sufficiently condemn them all.