Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/482

 The following night four army-corps camped in that vicinity, the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Fifth, which had come down from Kelly's Ford, and the Second, under General Couch, which had crossed at United States Ford as soon as that ford was uncovered by our advance,—a force of 50,000 men. This flanking movement had been masked by an operation conducted by General Sedgwick, who crossed the Rappahannock a few miles below Fredericksburg with a force large enough to make Lee apprehend that the main attack would come from that quarter. This crossing accomplished, the Third Corps under Sickles joined Hooker at Chancellorsville. Until then, Thursday, April 30th, the execution of Hooker's plan had been entirely successful, and with characteristic grandiloquence the commanding general issued on that day the following general order to the Army of the Potomac: “It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him—the operations of the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps have been a succession of splendid achievements.” It sounded somewhat like Pope's bragging order.

The impression made upon the officers and men by this proclamation was by no means altogether favorable to its author. Of course, they were pleased to hear themselves praised for their achievements, but they did not forget that these had so far consisted only in marching, not in fighting, and that the true test was still to come. They hoped indeed that the Army of the Potomac, 130,000 strong, would prove able to beat Lee's army, only 60,000 strong. But it jarred upon their feelings as well as their good sense to hear their commanding