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[570] conversed for a few minutes. Jackson then started forward, pointing in the direction his troops were moving His face was a little flushed, Colonel Marshall says, as it was turned back towards General Lee, who nodded approval to what he had said.

The sun rose unclouded and brilliant, gilding the hilltops and penetrating the vapors of the Valley. Rising as gorgeous as did the “sun of Austerlitz,” which produced such an impression upon the imagination of Napoleon. It should be remembered by the people of the South, for its rays fell upon the last meeting, in this world, of Lee and Jackson. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said “a man of refined Christian sensibilities is totally unfit for the profession of a soldier,” but here were two devoted Christians, who faithfully performed all their duties; and so they parted.

General Lee was to keep 14,000 men in front of Hooker's 73,124 while Jackson moved around his right flank with 26,000. I say 73,124, because the Fifth, Eleventh and Twelfth corps numbered, according to the return of April the 30th, an aggregate present for duty of 42,914; the Third, 18,986, and two divisions of the Second corps, 11,224. The total, then, would be 73,124--not including the three cavalry regiments under Pleasanton. The Second corps numbered 16,836; but Gibbon's division of that corps was with Sedgwick. Putting one-third of the whole as Gibbon's strength, we would have 5,612 men, leaving 11,224 for the other two divisions. The First corps, Reynolds, was not then present, and is, therefore, not included. On the 2d of May, it was marching from Sedgwick to Hooker, but it did not get to him until daylight on the 3d. This corps numbered an aggregate present for duty on the 30th of April, 19,595. After its arrival, that portion of the Federal army in General Lee's front amounted to 92,719. The strategy of General Lee was bold but dangerous.

At the battle of Austerlitz, when the Russians made a flank movement upon Napoleon's right, he moved at once upon the weakened lines of the Allies in his front and pierced them; cutting the Russian army in two parts, leaving some battalions to hold the right wing, he wheeled the remainder upon the left wing, or flanking force, and destroyed it; then, turning towards the right wing, he directed upon it a terrible onset, and it too was no more. I am told that the men of Anderson, which was one of the two divisions left in Hooker's front, after Jackson's departure, and who formed a thin gray line tipped with steel, were about six feet apart. How long would it have taken 73,124 men to have pierced


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