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Sedgwick caused pontoon bridges to be laid on the night of the 28th,
and before daylight
Brooks's division crossed near the place of
Franklin's passage,
1 and captured and drove the
Confederate pickets there.
Wadsworth's division also crossed.
Breastworks were thrown up, and there was every appearance
of preparations for passing over a larger force.
Pursuant to orders,
Sickles now moved his corps stealthily away, and, marching swiftly, crossed the river at the
United States Ford, and hastened to
Chancellorsville.
When
Lee discovered
Hooker's real intentions, he did not fly toward
Richmond, as his antagonist supposed he would, but prepared to fight.
He
had called “
Stonewall”
Jackson's large force up from
Moss Neck and its vicinity when
Sedgwick made his demonstration, and now, with his army well in hand, from
Hamilton's Crossing, on the railway, to the
Rappahannock near the ford just above
Falmouth, he determined to strike
Hooker immediate and vigorous blows.
His object was twofold: First, to secure the passage of the river at Banks's Ford, and thus widen the distance between
Sedgwick and the main army; and, secondly, to compel
Hooker to fight in his disadvantageous position at
Chancellorsville, which was in the midst of a region covered with a dense forest of shrub-oaks and pines, and tangled undergrowth, broken by morasses, hills, and ravines, called The Wilderness, and which extended from a little eastward of Chancellor's house to
Mine Run on the west, and several miles southward from the
Rapid Anna.
With these designs,
Lee left
General Early, with about nine thousand men and thirty pieces of artillery, to hold his fortified position at
Fredericksburg against
Sedgwick, and at a little past midnight on the first of May,
he put
Jackson's column in motion toward
Chancellorsville.
It joined
Anderson's (which, as we have observed, had fallen back from
Chancellorsville on the approach of the
National forces) at eight o'clock in the morning, near the
Tabernacle Church, half way between
