ttle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862) Lee deserves no
special praise. Doubtless his unerring engineer eye picked the
fighting-line, and his already great prestige inspired his brave army.
But that was all. The pluck of his officers and men and Burnside's
incapacity did the rest.

Never did a general carry to battle a better plan of battle than
Fighting Joe Hooker's at Chancellorsville (May 2-3, 1863), and rarely
has one marched from a battle that had proved for his own side a more
lamentable fiasco. Taking the offensive with vast advantage in numbers,
he proposed to hold Lee in place with one of his wings while he thrust
the other behind Lee's left, between the Confederate army and Richmond.
But he had started a game at which two could play and had challenged a
more deft and daring gamester than himself. Early divining his purpose,
Lee, leaving a small part of his force to engage Hooker's left, with the
rest vigorously assumed the counter-offensive, sending Jackson, as
usual, around Hooker's extreme right. Both movements completely
succeeded.

Now appeared the folly of promoting a general to the headship of a great
army simply because of his fighting-quality and his success with a
division or a corps. Attacked in front and routed on his flank, Hooker
did exactly what all who knew him would have taken oath that he would
never do. Instead of going straight ahead with vengeance and bidding his
far left do the same, he ordered and executed a retreat to his old
position north of the Rappahannock.

There were those who laid this disaster to Hooker's intemperance.
President Lincoln probably had such a suspicion, when, sending General
Hooker west to join General Sherman, he admonished him in passing
through Kentucky "to steer clear of Bourbon County." Though Hooker was
not a total-abstainer, Chancellorsville is not to be explained by that
fact any more than Jubal A. Early's defeat by Sheridan in the Shenandoah
Valley is referrible to his use of apple-brandy.

Hooker did not create his own defeat, as Burnside may, with little
exaggeration, be said to have done at Fredericksburg. Lee defeated him,
and deserved the immense fame which the victory brought. No wonder he
began to plan for the offensive again. Soon the ever-memorable
Gettysburg campaign was begun.

The details of this campaign, even those of the battle itself (July
1-3, 1863), we cannot give here. Nor need we. The world knows them:--the
first day, with Hill's an