484 Hooker succeeds Burnside [1862-3 withdrawn in an irritation and bitterness of spirit almost akin to mutiny. There arose, of course, the usual controversy as to the causes of the defeat. With frank and manly courage, Burnside himself assumed the responsibility and the blame, giving due credit to the extreme courage and endurance of his troops. The simple explanation was that he had set his army a task practically impossible. The losses were 12,653 on the Federal side and 4201 on that of the Confederates. This great disaster intensified the want of confidence which the army felt in its commander, and gave rise to such open expressions of discontent among officers and men that the President cautioned Burnside to make no further movement without his knowledge. This in turn led Burnside to demand an explanation of the restraining order. The situation was frankly discussed between them. In order to relieve the embarrassment, the President requested General Halleck to visit the army, examine Burnside's further plans, and approve or disapprove their execution; but Halleck refused the unwelcome task. On January 21, 1863, Burnside, against the protest of several of his officers, started his army on a second movement, which became known as the "Mud March," because it was cut short by a sudden rainstorm that rendered the roads absolutely impassable. This was hailed as a providential relief by the unwilling soldiers. Every day, every interview, and every letter brought to light increasing mistrust and disagreement. Complaint and recrimination were beginning to demoralise the whole army. On January 23 Burnside drew up an order dismissing or relieving eight or ten of his general officers for various reasons, and presented it, together with his own resignation, to the President, who, seeing that all his efforts at conciliation had proved abortive, relieved him and appointed General Joseph Hooker his successor. General Hooker was also a West Point graduate, who, re-entering the army at the beginning of the rebellion as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, had risen through the grades of division and corps-commander to the command of Burnside's centre grand division. In the previous battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, and Antietam, he had gained the sobriquet of "Fighting Joe Hooker." He had been loudest in his criticisms of Burnside and in the manifestation of an insubordinate spirit. The selection was Lincoln's own act, and his reasons for so doing are set forth in one of the President's most characteristic letters. "I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that, during General Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country 1863] Hooker's march on Richmond 485 and to a most meritorious and honourable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship." This missive, notifying him of his appointment, written confidentially to Hooker on January 25, 1863, did not become public for long years afterwards. At its close it specially enjoined upon the new commander to "beware of rashness." The generous but searching criticism it contained doubtless made a deep impression upon Hooker, for he appears to have endeavoured seriously to conform to the President's injunctions. He laboured hard and succeeded well in restoring the morale of the troops, and by the middle of April had under his command about 130,000 soldiers on whose efficiency he felt he could firmly rely, while both the army and the country had acquired a strong faith in the new commander. In the interim he made several visits to Washington to confer with the President, and finally laid before him a plan of campaign which in his judgment promised success. Both armies remained in the same relative positions they had occupied while Burnside was in command, and Mr Lincoln impressed upon Hooker the obvious truth that his main objective should be, not Richmond, but the Confederate army; that it should not be attacked in its entrenchments, but by operations on its communications be drawn into an engagement outside of them. Having arranged his plan on this theory and received the President's approval of the enterprise, Hooker began his movement on April 27 by strongly threatening Lee's right, a few miles below Fredericksburg, while he threw the bulk of his forces across the Rappahannock on boats and pontoon bridges twenty-seven miles above. On the 30th he had four army corps at Chancellorsville, eleven miles from Fredericksburg, ready to attack the enemy's rear. So far this movement had practically been a surprise to Lee. The plan had been conceived with skill, and up to this point executed with great energy and promptness; and it seems conceded that, had the movement been pushed forward a short distance further, the Confederate army would have been obliged to fight a very disadvantageous battle. Hooker's qualities as a leader are tersely expressed by one of his critics in the phrase, "as an inferior he planned badly and fought well; as a chief he planned well and fought badly." Arrived at Chancellorsville, the energy of the commander and the momentum of the army suddenly slackened. The delay gave Lee time to bring up all his forces from Fredericksburg and entrench them in front of the Union advance, as well as to organise a flanking movement under Stonewall Jackson, which found its way round the unguarded Union 486 Battle of Chancellorsville.-Death of Jackson [1863 right, and by an impetuous attack threw it into violent disorder. Gradually, during the next four days, the Federal aggressive became changed to the defensive, and the battle was lost. Two important personal incidents marked the occasion. On May 3, while Hooker was standing at his head-quarters at Chancellor's house, a column of the portico was struck by a cannon shot and thrown violently against him, the shock rendering him unconscious for half an hour; and, though he soon became capable of giving directions, he seems not to have regained his full powers of reason and will during the remainder of the action. The other incident was a serious loss to the Confederate army and cause. Stonewall Jackson, conducting the flank movement, rode under the excitement of success a hundred yards in front of his lines, where by accident he came under the fire of both Union and Confederate guns, and received wounds from which he died a few days afterwards. On the evening of May 4 Hooker called a council of war, and, although a majority of his commanders wished to remain and fight the campaign to a finish on the south side of the river, he finally decided to withdraw his army. Hooker's defeat in the battle of Chancellorsville naturally diminished his prestige as a commander, but not nearly so much as the repulse from Fredericksburg had affected that of Burnside. The President and Secretary of War did not lose faith in him; and Hooker's subordinate generals gave as yet no sign of serious discontent. While the army rested and recuperated in its old position, Hooker conceived and suggested several new plans, in which the President neither encouraged nor restrained him, but which the general's own confidence was not sufficiently strong to lead him to attempt. During this period of expectancy General Lee once more took the initiative, and for the second time began an invasion of Pennsylvania. It was not alone his recent victories in the two important battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville that moved him to this course. Thus far in the several Virginia campaigns the balance of success and advantage had been very decidedly with the Confederate army. It was now at the point of its largest numbers and greatest efficiency. The Southern Confederacy was in the flush of confidence and hope. For nearly a year the North had made little apparent progress towards a final suppression of the rebellion; while dissension was growing in its politics, and its debt was increasing with frightful rapidity. To fill its armies it had been obliged to enact a conscription law, the enforcement of which was meeting opposition, and might create counter-revolution. Under such conditions, the Confederate government urged a military policy of vigorous aggression, to which General Lee and his army responded with more than ordinary goodwill. About the beginning of June, therefore, the Confederate army began moving northward, leaving a strong rear-guard to occupy the attention 1863] Lee invades Pennsylvania 487 of Hooker. This, however, did not long mystify that general, who reported the enemy's intentions to the President, and asked whether he might not venture to attack the Southern army while thus weakened, or even try a dash at Richmond. Mr Lincoln, however, disapproved both ideas. An attack on the Fredericksburg entrenchments, he reminded Hooker, would necessarily be at a great disadvantage; and he added: "In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." To the suggestion about Richmond he replied: "If left to me, I would not go south of the Rappahannock upon Lee's moving north of it. If you had Richmond invested to-day, you would not be able to take it in twenty days. . . . I think Lee's army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point. In the new campaign which General Lee was beginning, Hooker for several weeks manifested all his former skill and energy, and successfully interposed the Union army between Washington and the Confederate forces moving northward along the Blue Ridge. But, like Burnside, he now began to experience a want of harmony in his military councils, the most serious part of which was his own suspicion that Halleck was unfriendly to him. Their disagreement gradually increased, though the President made every effort to reconcile their estrangement. Just when both armies had crossed the Potomac in their northward movement this irritation reached its crisis, and Hooker asked to be relieved from command. While a change of commanders at such a juncture was extremely hazardous, the President realised that discordant directions or a lack of zealous co-operation would be yet more dangerous. Accordingly, he relieved Hooker and appointed Major-General George G. Meade to succeed him. Meade was a West Point graduate, had won distinction in the Mexican War, and from the grade of Captain of Engineers entered the Civil War as Brigadier-General of Volunteers. His service had been continuous in the Army of the Potomac, and he was at the head of the Fifth Corps when called to the chief command. Though he had been Hooker's chief critic, the latter complimented him in general orders, a courtesy which Meade heartily returned; and the change produced nothing more than a ripple of comment and not an instant's hesitation or derangement in the march. During the earlier part of Lee's march from Fredericksburg to the Potomac near Harper's Ferry, as well as Hooker's pursuit, the movements of both armies were masked by cavalry; and, in spite of numerous skirmishes, it was not until the enemy's vanguard had crossed the river that a serious invasion of the North became evident. The discovery, of course, created intense alarm in Maryland and Pennsylvania; and President Lincoln immediately issued, as a prudential measure, a 488 Battle of Gettysburg [1863 proclamation calling into service for six months 120,000 militia from those and the contiguous States. Lee's advance was somewhat slow after his whole force crossed the Potomac. He pushed two advance detachments well towards the Susquehanna, but kept his main army at and near Chambersburg until, on the night of June 28, the same day on which the change of command had occurred in the Union army, a scout brought information to Lee that his antagonist had reached Frederick and seized the passes of South Mountain. Up to this time Lee had made his preparations to march upon Harrisburg; but now, seeing his communications menaced, he turned his course abruptly to the right and issued orders to concentrate his whole army at Gettysburg, east of the mountains. Meade, having no certain information of the enemy's plans, ordered a continuation of the northward march which Hooker had begun. Within the next two days he learned the enemy's movements more accurately, and correctly divined that a collision must necessarily soon occur. Having reached Taneytown, he, on July 1, carefully selected a battle-field behind the line of Pipe creek, whither he expected to retire and receive Lee's attack. But on that morning the advance guards of the two armies, moving at right angles to each other, had already met and engaged in conflict at Gettysburg, and that place became the principal battle-field of the war. Meade had sent Reynolds, his second in command, with three corps forward to Gettysburg to observe the enemy and mask the intended retrograde movement to Pipe creek. Arriving early on the morning of July 1, Reynolds found two brigades of Federal cavalry skirmishing with the enemy's advance two miles west of that town. His advance division was not yet on the ground, but he hurried it up to support the Federal cavalry; and the fight thus begun grew in strength and importance on the arrival of additional forces from both armies. It continued throughout the day with fluctuating results, until heavy Confederate reinforcements, coming by converging roads from the north and north-east as well as from the north-west, and outnumbering the Federals by two to one, drove back the Unionist troops, first into Gettysburg, and then through and southward out of the town to a line of hills called Cemetery Ridge. Cemetery Ridge is an irregular curved ridge which has aptly been compared with a fish-hook, lying in general direction north and south, with the barb towards the north and east. At its southern extremity is an elevation called Round Top, 400 feet high, and some distance north of it a lower elevation, called Little Round Top. From these the ridge extends northward two miles, to within half a mile of Gettysburg, and curving eastward, terminates abruptly in Culp's Hill. Posted on this ridge, the Union army found itself in a kind of natural fortress, the broken and rocky crest of which the troops immediately strengthened by |