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[351] as we were bountifully supplied with rations, we were 10th to leave this camp to enter upon the spring campaign, but General Joseph Hooker, having relieved Burnside, had thoroughly reorganized the Army of the Potomac, as it was then known, and having started Avarill on a raid as a preliminary step to his onward march to Richmond, we were ordered hurriedly to leave our quarters and start again to the front to meet the same old enemy. The April sun had dried the roads and we soon found ourselves once more in front of Fredericksburg, Hooker opposing us with an army about four times the size of ours, Longstreet being then on the Blackwater near Suffolk, having spent the winter there. And soon was to come another struggle and with it another exhibition of military strategy, in which the ever fertile mind of General Jackson was called into play. MajorGen-eral Sedgwick had crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg to hold Lee in check, and Jackson had drawn up his corps there to meet him. It was soon apparent that this was only a ruse of the enemy to deceive our commander, and Jackson was ordered to leave one division behind and with the rest of his troops to move rapidly towards
Chancellorsville. Jackson moved at midnight and soon reached the Tabernacle church, where he was joined by a division and two brigades under General R. H. Anderson. Here he formed a line of battle across the plank road leading through the
Wilderness
and steadily advanced to assail the enemy. Hooker's position was almost impregnable. Such were the labors of his men that earthworks confronted us on all sides and the heavy undergrowth of this weird and wild looking country made it almost impossible for Jackson to go forward. Hooker was in his stronghold, and Jackson, after making an ineffectual effort to drive him out, withdrew to await the arrival of Lee. Here these two master minds in the art of war were to hold their last converse. What was said, or how it was said, we know not; but never since time began has there been such a meeting. I cannot picture the scene, but I can imagine possibly something that passed. It was perhaps here that Jackson suggested a swift and secret march by the right flank and an attack in the front at the same time. This
Richmond, VA. 1900.
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