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1862] in the subsequent investigation before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War that he received this order, but that he could not execute it, owing to the unfavorable turn the action had already taken on his front. But, except on the ground that he mistook the bearing of his first orders, it seems impossible to justify and excuse the inaction of the Sixth Corps. Its commander, General Smith, told me himself, at a later stage of the war, that he had been expecting every minute orders to move to the attack, and was puzzled and disappointed that he had to stand still all day. Of course, it cannot be positively claimed that the offensive employment of Smith's corps would have ensured victory on the left, but it is of official record that both Meade and Gibbon ascribe their repulse to the want of support, and, moreover, there can be no doubt that our failure, after the success of Meade's first onset, must be ascribed to our giving the enemy the chance to concentrate all his forces on the left against a little more than one-third of ours.

After learning that we had been discomfited on the left as well as on the right, I felt fully persuaded that our defeat was irretrievable, and that nothing remained to the Commander-in-chief but to solve the seemingly desperate problem of getting the army again over the river without further harm. I was sure, moreover, that if a resumption of the offensive should be recklessly attempted, it would be vehemently opposed by Generals Sumner and Hooker, and by their corps and division commanders. Nor was my conviction shaken by the sneering and contemptuous rebuffs my corresponding expressions met with from certain members of Burnside's staff. They talked as though the day's fighting had been only a prelude to another and greater action. Their swagger was so confident that, stirred up as I was by the grave peril of the army, I came near yielding to an impulse to approach Burnside and tell him the dire truth, which I feared he did not know. But I gave up that design when I heard, at about eight o'clock,