to one hundred and
thirty thousand men, about double the opposing rebel force. Hooker
divided this army, taking with him four corps, numbering probably
seventy thousand men, to operate from Chancellorsville towards
Fredericksburg, and leaving three corps, about fifty thousand men, under
Sedgwick, to move upon the latter place from below. The purpose was to
get Lee's army between these two forces and crush him. All historians of
this battle agree that up to a certain point Hooker's strategy was most
admirable. General Pleasanton, who commanded our cavalry forces in that
action, says that up to a certain point the movement on Chancellorsville
was one of the most brilliant in the annals of war. He put that point at
the close of Thursday, April 30. He had made a full reconnoissance of
all that country and had informed General Hooker of the nature of the
ground, that for a depth of from four to five miles it was all unbroken
tanglewood of the densest undergrowth, in which it was impossible to
manoeuvre an army or to know anything of the movements of the enemy;
that beyond this wilderness the country was open and well adapted to
military movements, and he had taken occasion to urge upon him the
importance of moving forward at once, so as to meet the enemy in open
ground, but his information and advice, he tells us, fell upon leaden
ears.

Lee had, up to this time, no information of the movement upon
Chancellorsville, having been wholly occupied with Sedgwick at
Fredericksburg. The former was therefore a complete surprise to him.
The "golden moment," according to Pleasanton, to move forward and carry
the battle out into the open, where the army could have been handled and
would have had a chance, was on that day, as instantly the movement was
disclosed, the enemy, being familiar with every foot of the country,
would detach a sufficient force to operate in the open, and along the
edge of the wilderness could keep us practically bottled up there and
beat us in detail; and that is precisely what seems to have been done.
The inexplicable question is, Why did fighting "Joe Hooker," with
seventy thousand as good troops as ever fired a gun, sit down in the
middle of that tanglewood forest and allow Lee to make a monkey of him
while Sedgwick was doing such magnificent work below?

Two distinguished participants in all these events holding high
commands, namely, General Alfred Pleasanton, quoted above, and General
Doubleday, commandi