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CHAPTER VI

CHANCELLORSVILLE demonstrated Hooker's incompetence to command a large army and would have justified his removal. That he was kept in his place by an intrigue of Chase and his Radical followers has (I think) little evidence to support it. It is true that Chase was devoted to the general but, if Lincoln was to be swayed by advice, Halleck's on a military matter would have carried the greater weight, and it is notorious that the General-in-Chief lacked confidence in Hooker — a feeling that was probably shared by the Secretary of War. Hooker's steadfast friend was the President himself. He visited the army soon after the battle and, taking the view that no one was to blame and it was a disaster that could not be helped, so cheered up Hooker that the general came to feel secure in his position and to show apparent unconcern at the prevalent distrust in which he was held by the army. "Hooker is safe, I think," wrote Meade, "from the difficulty of finding a successor and from the ridiculous appearance we present of changing our generals after each battle." 1 "The President," wrote Welles in his Diary, "has a personal liking for Hooker and clings to him when others give way.' Reynolds, when in Washington, was informed by a friend that he was being talked of for the head of the Army of the Potomac; he "immediately went to the President and told him he did not want the command and would not take it." But during the interview he spoke freely of Hooker's defects, whereupon

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1 General Meade, May 20, I, 379. Also 373, 374, 375, 382.
2 June 14, Welles's Diary, I, 329.

CH. VI]

LEE'S STRATEGY

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Lincoln replied, I am "not disposed to throw away a gun because it missed fire once." 1

After the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee gave his troops a rest of some weeks. He employed this time in reorganization, dividing the army into three corps of three divisions each, commanded respectively by Longstreet,2 Ewell and A. P. Hill. Believing that nothing was to be gained by his army “remaining quietly on the defensive," he decided on the invasion of Pennsylvania. In any case this movement, by threatening Washington and drawing Hooker in pursuit of the invading force, would relieve Virginia of the presence of a hostile army. But after such victories as Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, he would have been modest past belief had not his expectations gone far beyond so simple an achievement. He hoped to fight the Army of the Potomac on favorable conditions. With his own welldisciplined troops in high spirits and full of confidence in their leader, he could hardly have doubted that the result of such a battle would be other than a Confederate victory; he might even destroy the Union Army, in which case Washington would be at his mercy and he could conquer a peace on Northern soil. Nothing at this time so perturbed the Southern high councils as the operations of Grant against Vicksburg. More than one project was proposed to save it from capture, but no diversion in its favor could be so effectual as the taking of the Federal capital. If ever an aggressive movement with so high an object were to be made, now was the time. Not only was there the flush of Confederate success to be taken advantage of, but on the other hand the South by delay

1 June 13, General Meade, I, 385.

2 After the battle of Chancellorsville, Longstreet with his detachment joined Lee.

226

LEE'S INVASION OF THE NORTH

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would lose in efficiency for the offensive. "Our resources in men are constantly diminishing," wrote Lee to Davis, "and the disproportion in this respect between us and our enemies, if they continue united in their efforts to subjugate us, is steadily augmenting." Lee's extraordinary industry and attention to detail included a constant and careful reading of Northern newspapers; from the mass of news, comment and speculation he drew many correct inferences and seldom lost sight of any of the conditions which were material to the Confederates' conduct of the war. He meditated on the weariness of the contest so largely felt at the North and on the growing Democratic strength since Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. "We should neglect no honorable means of dividing and weakening our enemies," he wrote to Davis. We should "give all the encouragement we can, consistently with the truth, to the rising peace party of the North.”1

On June 3, Lee began to move his army from the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and one week later put Ewell's corps in motion for the Shenandoah Valley. Ewell drove the Union troops from Winchester and Martinsburg, and on the 15th a portion of his corps crossed the Potomac, the remainder soon following. Hill and Longstreet moved forward and by June 26 their corps had passed over the river and were in Maryland.

When Lee's northward movement became well defined, Hooker broke up his camps on the Rappahannock and marched to the Potomac, keeping to the east of the Blue Ridge and covering Washington constantly; in this manœuvre he managed his army well. Ewell, waiting at Hagerstown,

1 June 10, O. R., XXVII, Pt. III, 881. What follows shows that Lee favored no peace except on the condition of the acknowledgment of the independence of the Southern Confederacy.

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MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF EWELL'S CORPS FROM FREDERICKSBURG, VA., TO
GETTYSBURG, PA., AND RETURN TO ORANGE COURT-HOUSE, VA.

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