Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee

[258] their rear at Chancellorsville, after which they are marched back to join in the expected battle around Chancellorsville next day, which did not take place because their opponents retreated across the river during the night. The bold conception of Lee was faultlessly executed by officers and men. It is true the wretched terrene assisted him in holding the lines in front of Hooker, for his axes could quickly make it defensible; that the forest concealed Jackson's march, and that an unpardonable negligence permitted twenty-five or thirty thousand troops to pass near a line of battle for many hours and mass for attack a short distance behind one of its flanks.

Had Hooker kept the ten thousand sabers of Stoneman, which he sent away on a fruitless mission, and placed them on the right or in front of his flank, his infantry would not have been surprised; or had he continued his advance on Fredericksburg when first moving out of Chancellorsville, and, pushed his cavalry along the route toward Todd's Tavern and Spottsylvania Court House, the chances of success would have been in his favor. General Lee fought the battle in the only way it could have been won, but the risks assumed were very great. To say that he committed faults is only to say that he made war. Once more the armies surveyed each other from their old camps; twice had one of them attempted the offensive. It was but fair that the Confederates should make the next move.

Lee devoted the few weeks of rest and recuperation which now followed in placing his army in better condition and reorganizing it. He now divided it into three corps instead of two-three divisions to the corps-commanded respectively by Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill. Ewell had been next in command to Jackson, participating in the glories of his Valley campaign, and maintaining his reputation as an excellent assistant to his great chief. He graduated at West Point in 1840, and served twenty-one years in the United States Army; was in Mexico, and brevetted for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco; served on the frontier in the dragoons; was forty-three years old; had lost a leg at second Manassas, and was just able to rejoin the army. He