Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/409

Rh held the front of Lee's right, from Hamilton's crossing down to Port Royal, with the 33,000 well-tried men of the Second corps. Of the two divisions of Longstreet that remained with Lee, McLaws held the front, from Jackson's left to opposite Banks' ford, with 8,000 men; Anderson's 8,000 extended McLaws' left well toward Chancellorsville (to Mott's run), while Stuart's 2,700 cavalrymen watched the fords of the Rappahannock up to the Orange & Alexandria railroad crossing.

Hooker had opposed Burnside's plan of campaign against Lee, and he now essayed to make trial of his own. He proposed to make a great show of having adopted Burnside's plan, by sending Sedgwick across the Rappahannock, at and below Fredericksburg, with three army corps, thus hoping to detain Lee in front of that desolated city while he, with four other army corps, marched rapidly up the north bank of the Rappahannock, concealed by its well-nigh continuous forests, crossed that river at Kelly's ford and the Rapidan at the Germanna and Ely fords, and thence, marching on roads leading from Orange through Spottsylvania to Fredericksburg, should fall upon Lee's flank and rear and thus force him away from his tried lines of defense toward Richmond, when Hooker's reunited army would, with overwhelming numbers, follow in pursuit.

On the 13th of April, a fortnight in advance of his infantry movement. Hooker sent Gen. George Stoneman, with 10,000 of his cavalry corps, to cross the Rappahannock at Kelly's ford, in Culpeper, brush aside Stuart's cavalry, destroy his base of supplies, break the Virginia Central railroad at Gordonsville, then turn southeastward toward Hanover Junction, and, breaking Lee's railway connection with Richmond, there form an intrenched camp and be ready to fall upon Lee's flank as Hooker drove him in retreat toward Richmond. As Stoneman began his march, a heavy rain set in and so flooded the Rappahannock that he had not only to contend with Stuart at every ford he attempted, but also to wait upon its northern bank for the waters to subside; and it was not until the 27th that the three Federal corps, led by Slocum, followed after the cavalry. They crossed Kelly's ford of the Rappahannock in the afternoon of the 28th, and late on the 29th reached Germanna and Ely fords of the Rapidan. Lee had divined the purpose of