"GENERAL,—I have placed you at the head of the army of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons; and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier,—which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession,—in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself,—which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious,—which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that, during General Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying
that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability,—which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but, with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories."
Hooker was of that class of generals who show such capacity as lieutenants that they are supposed to be capable of becoming independent chiefs, until their true measure is ascertained by actual trial. In two months he had restored to good shape an army which he had found demoralized and depleted by absenteeism, and at the end of April he had under him about 124,500 men. He still lay on the north bank of the Potomac, facing Lee's army in its intrenchments about Fredericksburg. His plan of campaign, says General Doubleday,
was "simple, efficacious, and should have been successful." Diverting the attention of Lee, he threw the chief part of his army across the Rappahannock several miles above Fredericksburg; then, marching rapidly to Chancellorsville, he threatened the left flank and rear of the Confederates. Pushing a short distance out upon the three roads which led from Chancellorsville to Fredericksburg, he came to the very edge and brink, as it were, of beginning a great battle with good promise of success. But just at this point his generals at the front were astounded by orders to draw back to Chancellorsville. Was it that he suddenly lost nerve in the crisis of his great responsibility?[[44]] Or was it possible that he did not appreciate the opportunity which he was throwing away? No one can say. Only the fact can be stated that he rejected the chance which offended Fortune never offers a second time. Back came the advanced columns, and took position at Chancellorsville, while Lee, who had not the Northern habit of repudiating fair opportunity, pressed close upon them.
On May 1 manoeuvring for position and some fighting took place. On Saturday, May 2, a brilliant flanking movement by "Stonewall" Jackson wrecked the Federal right. But the dangerous Southerner, accidentally shot by his own soldiers, was carried from the field a dying man. Upon Sunday, May 3, there was a most sanguinary conflict.
"The Federals fought like devils at Chancellorsville," said Mahone. Still it was again the sad and wearisome story of brave men so badly handled that their gallantry meant only their own slaughter. The President had expressly urged Hooker to be sure to get all his troops at work. Yet he actually let 37,000 of them stand all day idle, not firing a shot, while their comrades were fighting and falling and getting beaten. On May 4, Hooker, whose previous "collapse" had been aggravated by a severe personal hurt, "seemed disposed to be inactive;" and Lee seized the chance to turn upon Sedgwick, who was coming up in the rear of the Confederates, and to drive him across the river. General Hooker now made up his mind that he had been beaten; and though a majority of his corps commanders were otherwise minded and were for renewing the conflict, he returned to the northern bank, leaving behind him his wounded soldiers, 14 guns, and 20,000 stand of arms. Another ghastly price had been paid to settle another experiment and establish the value of another general. The North lost in killed and wounded 12,197 men, with 5000 others "missing," and found out that General Hooker was not the man to beat General Lee. The Confederate loss was 10,266 killed and wounded, 2753 missing.
The days in which the news from Chancellorsville was spreading among the cities and villages of the North were the darkest of the war. In those countless households, by whose generous contributions
the armies had been recruited, the talk began to be that it was folly, and even cruelty, to send brave and patriotic citizens to be slaughtered uselessly, while one leader after another showed his helpless incompetence. The disloyal Copperheads became more bodeful than ever before; while men who would have hanged a Copperhead as gladly as they would have shot a Secessionist felt their hearts sink before the undeniable Southern prestige. But the truth was that Pope and Burnside and Hooker, by their very defeats, became the cause of victory; for the elated Southerners, beginning to believe that their armies were invincible, now clamored for "invasion" and the capture of Washington. Apparently General Lee, too, had drunk the poison of triumph, and dreamed of occupying the national capital, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and dictating the terms of peace to a disheartened North. The fascinating scheme—the irretrievable and fatal blunder—was determined upon.
To carry out this plan Swell's corps was covertly moved early in June into the Shenandoah Valley. Hooker, anticipating some such scheme, had suggested to Mr. Lincoln that, if it were entered upon, he should like to cross the river and attack the Southern rear corps in Fredericksburg. The President suggested that the intrenched Southerners would be likely to worst the assailants, while the main Southern army "would in some way be getting an advantage northward." "In one word,"
he wrote, "I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." Yet, very soon, when the attenuation of Lee's line became certain, Lincoln sent to Hooker one of his famous dispatches: "If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?" But the "animal" was moving rapidly, and the breaking process did not take place.