Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/284

 278 Southern Historical Society Papers.

On April 30, 1863, the morning report showed, "for duly equipped," 131,491 officers and men, and nearly 400 guns in the camp near Fahiiouth. Confronting this overwhelming body of men lay the weather-beaten Army of Northern Virginia, numbering some 60,000 men and 170 guns. This force was posted from Banks's ford above, to Skenker's Neck below Fredericksburg, a distance of some fifteen miles. Every inch of this line was strongly and intelligently fortified. The morale of the Confederate army could not be finer. To numbers it opposed superior position and defences, and its won- derful successes had bred that contempt of danger and that hardihood which are of the very essence of discipline. Perhaps no infantry was ever, in its own peculiar way, more permeated with the instinct of pure fighting — ever felt the gaudium certaminis — than the Army of Northern Virginia at this time.

The Army of the Potomac could not well risk another front attack on Marye's Heights. To turn Lee's right flank necessitated opera- tions quite en evidence, and the crossing of a river 1,000 feet wide in the very teeth of the enemy. Hooker matured his plans for a move- ment about Lee's left.

On April 12th the cavalry corps was ordered out upon a raid, via Culpeper and Gordonsville, to the rear of Lee's army, in order to cut his communications and to demoralize his troops at the moment when the main attack should fall upon him.

" Let your watchword be fight! and let all your orders be fight! fight! ! fight ! ! ! " was Hooker's aggressive order to Stoneman. The performance of the latter, however, was in inverse ratio to the promise of these instructions. The start was delayed two weeks by a rise in the river; and the movement was so weak from its inception that the cavalry raid degenerated into an utter failure, and the first step in the campaign thus miscarried. The operations of the cavalry corps scarcely belong to the history of Chancellorsville. They in no wise affected the conduct or outcome ol the campaign.

In order to conceal his real move by the right, Hooker made show of moving down the river, and a strong demonstration with the First, Third and Sixth corps on the left, under command of Sedgwick. Covered by Hunt's guns, on April 29th and 30th, pontoons were thrown at Franklin's crossing and Pollock's mills, troops were put over, and bridgeheads were constructed and held by Brooks's and Wadsworth's divisions. Lee made no serious attempt to dispute this movement, but watched the dispositions, uncertain how to gauge their value.