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So he called another council of war at night, having called one before the fighting began.
In a little front room not twelve feet square in the Liester House his commanders assembled.
“Should the army attack or wait the attack of the enemy?”
was the written question they were required to answer; and they voted-as they should have done, being in superior position, with interior lines — to wait, as Lee had done at Fredericksburg, for another attack, and found him more accommodating than Burnside.
General Lee had a difficult task: the lines of his enemy had grown stronger during the night; Slocum, Howard, Newton (in Reynolds's place), Hancock, Sickles, Sykes, and Sedgwick's troops were all before him, and on his right and left flank was a division of cavalry under Gregg and Kilpatrick respectively.
The Union flanks, five miles apart on Culp's Hill and the Round Tops, were almost impregnable and difficult to turn.
Lee's strategy at Chancellorsville was bold, but his determination to assault the left center of the Union army with his right corps and its supports was consummate daring.
“Longstreet, re-enforced by Pickett's three brigades, which arrived near the battlefield during the afternoon of the 2d, was ordered to attack next morning,” said Lee, “and General Ewell was directed to assail the enemy's right at the same time.”
During the night General Johnson was re-enforced by two brigades from Rodes and one from Early.
“General Longstreet's dispositions were not completed as early as was expected,” continues Lee, and before he could notify EwelI the enemy attacked Johnson, was repulsed, and Johnson, thinking the fighting was going on elsewhere, attacked in his turn and forced the Union troops to abandon part of their intrenchments, but “after a gallant and prolonged struggle” was not able to carry the strongly fortified crest of the hill.
“The projected attack on the enemy's left not having been made,” Lee states, “he was enabled to hold his right with a force largely superior to that of General Johnson, and finally to threaten his flank and rear, rendering it necessary for him to retire to his original position about 1 P. M.” The delay to attack on the right
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