Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[51] Jackson's genius then conceived the most brilliant idea that had ever emanated from him during his whole career, and he proposed to his chief to make a great flank movement around the enemy's army, so as to strike it where an attack was least expected. A bolder plan could not have been conceived; for, after leaving a little more than one division ten miles behind him at Fredericksburg, a considerable detachment had yet to be set apart in order to occupy Hooker's attention along the roads in the vicinity of which there had been any fighting, and to go afterward to take position on the opposite side, thus giving him a chance to divide the army into three sections unable to effect a junction. Such a manoeuvre would have been fatal in the presence of an active and vigilant adversary; but Lee understood that Hooker, by going back into the forest, had doomed himself to powerless immobility, and that the curtain of woods in which he had wrapped himself permitted the assailant to venture upon a manoeuvre which it would have been impossible to execute in any other locality. However rash Jackson's plan might appear, it was the only one that offered any positive chances of success; nor did it compromise the safest line of retreat, which was upon Gordonsville. Lee, in adopting it, assigned the most perilous part of this plan to his lieutenant. This, however, was not the most difficult, for by allowing him to take away his whole army corps he assumed the responsibility of holding Hooker in check with only seven brigades, four belonging to Anderson and three to McLaws: Anderson's fifth brigade, under Wilcox, had been sent back to Banks' Ford to defend that important pass.

Jackson immediately gave orders for marching. His three divisions were to start at daybreak, for he could not think of taking his soldiers through the labyrinthine pathways of the forest in the night, and it was moreover necessary to allow them time to recuperate their strength before undertaking a march the success of which depended on their activity and speed. He found a guide who undertook to lead them through byways as far as the Brock Road, which, coming from the south, connects successively with the Plank Road and the turnpike two miles and two-thirds west of Wilderness Church, where the extreme right wing of the Federals terminated.