securities, but a
foreign alliance might be formed, and perhaps a fleet furnished to
re-open the Southern ports.

While thus elated by hopes of foreign intervention, the Confederate
spies and sympathizers who thronged the North greatly encouraged
the Davis Government by their glowing accounts of the disaffection
there, in consequence of the heavy taxation, rendered necessary by
the war, and by the unpopularity of the draft, which would soon
have to be enforced as a defensive measure. They overrated the
influence of the _Copperhead_ or anti-war party, and prophesied
that a rebel invasion would be followed by outbreaks in the principal
cities, which would paralyze every effort to reinforce the Federal
forces in the field.

These reasons would have been quite sufficient of themselves to
induce Lee to make the movement, but he himself gives an additional
one. He hoped by this advance to draw Hooker out, where he could
strike him a decisive blow, and thus ensure the permanent triumph
of the Confederacy. He was weary of all this marching, campaigning,
and bloodshed, and was strongly desirous of settling the whole
matter at once. Having been reinforced after the battle of
Chancellorsville by Longstreet's two divisions and a large body of
conscripts, he determined to advance. On May 31st, his force,
according to rebel statements, amounted to 88,754, of which 68,352
were ready for duty. Recruits, too, were constantly coming in from
the draft, which was rigidly enforced in the Southern States.

Hooker having learned from his spies that there was much talk of
an invasion, wrote to the President on May 28th, that the enemy
was undoubtedly about to make a movement of some kind. On June
3d, McLaws' and Hood's divisions of Longstreet's corps started for
the general rendezvous at Culpeper. A change in the encampment on
the opposite side of the river was noted by the vigilant Union
commander, who at once ordered Sedgwick to lay two bridges at the
old crossing place, three miles below Fredericksburg, pass over
with a division, and press the enemy to ascertain if their main
body was still there. Fresh indications occurred on the 4th, for
Ewell's corps followed that of Longstreet. The bridges being
completed on the 5th, Howe's division of the Sixth Corps was thrown
over and Hill's corps came out of their intrenchments to meet it.
Some skirmishing ensued, and Sedgwick reported, as his opinion,
that the greater portion of t