“Yes, want ’t trade?”
“Half pound of coffee for two plugs of tobacco, Reb.”
“’right, send ’er over.”
They traded coffee, tobacco, newspapers and provisions, sometimes wading out and meeting in mid-river, but as the industry grew, miniature ferry lines, operated by strings, began to ply.
Soldiers and Generals passed and repassed in the streets of Fredericksburg, where wreckage still lay about in confusion, houses presented dilapidated fronts, and only a few of the citizens attempted to occupy their homes.
Once, in midwinter, the armies became active when Burnside attempted to move his army and cross the river above Fredericksburg; but only for a few days, for that unfortunate General’s plans were ruined by a deluge and his army “stuck in the mud.” General Hooker took his place.
The Coming of Spring
About April 26 Hooker’s great army, “The finest army on the planet,” he bombastically called it, moved up the river and began crossing. It was his purpose to get behind Lee’s lines, surprise him and defeat him from the rear. On April twenty-ninth and thirtieth, Hooker got in position around Chancellorsville, in strong entrenchments, a part of his army amounting to 85,000 men, but the Confederate skirmishers were already in front of him.
It was the Northern Commander’s plan for Sedgwick, left at Fredericksburg with 40,000, to drive past Fredericksburg and on to Chancellorsville, and thus to place the Southern forces between the two big Federal armies and crush it.
The First Aerial Scout