Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/93

 Ceremonies at Unveiling of Statue of General Lee. 8T

with Fitzhugh Lee alone upon an eminence from which he looked down upon the unsuspecting camps of the enemy, deployed his forces for assault and hurled them upon the astonished foe. This took place in the afternoon, and before night had suspended opera- tions Hooker's discomfiture was assured. The advantage was promptly and vigorously pushed on the next morning; in the course of which Lee and Stuart (who had succeeded to the command of the wounded Jackson), again touched elbows, swept Hooker's army out of its works at Chancellorsville and sent it reeling and broken back upon the Rappahannock.

Hooker thus disposed of, now for Sedgwick. Early had, by his gallant resistance, gained precious time and given serious occupation to Sedgwick, but the immensely superior numbers of the latter had at last forced Early back and were advancing upon Lee's rear to- wards Chancellorsville. Lee now gathered up the most available of his victorious forces and, rushing to the reinforcement of Early, speedily converted Sedgwick's advance into a swift retreat; which would have resulted in his capture had not the friendly cover of night checked pursuit and enabled him to cross the Rappahannock. So ended the operations of Chancellorsville, at the close of which Gen- eral Hooker found his army, demoralized by defeat and weakened by tremendous losses, in those very camps opposite Fredericksburg, from which they had so recently set out to imagine victory over an inferior foe.

Chancellorsville ! brightest and saddest of Confederate triumphs. Brightest, because the military history of the future must ever point to it as the most conspicuous example of the power of consummate genius in a commander, by audacious wisdom of conception, celerity of movement, and knowing how and when to venture on risks which, by the very sublimity of their rashness, escape anticipation or discovery, and thereby become prudent and safe, to accomplish the apparently impossible and to snatch victory from overwhelming odds. Saddest, because in its tangled thickets, and in the shades of that night which fell upon the most brilliant achievement of the war, the immortal Jackson, busy in organizing the sure victory of the morrow, rode upon that death, which leaves the world yet in doubt as to whether the fatal bullet that caused it did not, at the same time, deal the death-wound of the Confederacy. If Lee was the Jove of the war, Stonewall Jackson was his thunderbolt. For the execution of the hazardous plans of Lee, just such a lieutenant was indispensable — one in whose lexicon there was ' ' no such word