Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/288

 282 Southern Historical Society Papers.

our line at Dowdall's, until too late to have it follow a better concealed route. Early Saturday morning the movement was discovered by the Third corps, and a reconnoisance was pushed out to embarrass its advance. After some trouble and a slight and successful attack, Bir- ney ascertained and reported that Jackson was moving over to our right. The conclusion which Hooker drew from this fact was, appa- rently, that Lee was retreating. Jackson, meanwhile keeping Sickles busy with a small rear-guard, advanced along the Brock road until, toward afternoon, he was abreast and in the rear of our right flank. While he was thus massing his men to take the Army of the Potomac in reverse, Hooker continued to authorize Sickles to deplete the threat- ened wing by sending a large part of its available strength (Barlow, Birney, Whipple, and Geary in part — some 15,000 men) out into the woods in the hope of capturing the force which had long ago eluded his grasp and was ready to fall upon our rear. Hooker's right flank, of barely 10,000 men, was completelv isolated. And yet though scouts, pickets, and an actual attack at 3:30 P. M., proved beyond a peradventure Jackson's presence at this point. Hooker allowed this flank to be held by an untried corps, composed of the most hetero- g^eneous and untrustworthy elements in the Army of the Potomac.

This march of Jackson's might, at first blush, have been construed by Hooker to be either a retreat or strategic march by Lee to new ground, or to be a threatened flank attack. Either would have been accompanied by the same tactical symptoms which now appeared. If the former, Hooker had his option to attack at an early or late period more or less vigorously, as might appear best to him. Hooker afterward claimed that he believed in the flank attack. But the testi- mony of his dispatches at the time finds him riding both horses, and he acted on the retreat theory. At 9:30 A. M., he had notified Slo- cum and Howard to look out and prepare for a flank attack, and to post heavy reserves to meet one. He telegraphed Sedgwick at 4:10 P. M.: "We know that the enemy is flying, trying to save his trains." In the meantime he had removed the heavy reserves in question and sent them out on Sickles' s wild goose chase to the front. He made no inspection of the right except one early in the morning.

Howard, commanding on the right, misled by Hooker's orders and apathy, held to the retreat theory. He had, on the receipt of the 9:30 order, disposed Barlow's brigade and his reserve artillery so as to resist an attack along the pike, but Barlow had been ordered by Hooker to join Sickles. General Devens made several distinct