e Committee
censuring me very much for not being at Chancellorsville at daylight,
in accordance with the order of Gen. Hooker. I now affirm that it was
impossible to have made the movement, if there had not been a rebel
soldier in front of me."

"I lost a thousand men in less than ten minutes time in taking the
heights of Fredericksburg."

Sedgwick did "shoulder arms and advance" as soon as he received the
order; but the reports show plainly enough that he encountered annoying
opposition so soon as he struck the outskirts of the town; that he threw
forward assaulting columns at once; and that these fought as well as the
conditions warranted, but were repulsed.

It is not intended to convey the impression that there was no loss of
time on Sedgwick's part. On the contrary, he might certainly have been
more active in some of his movements. No doubt there were other general
officers who would have been. But it is no exaggeration to insist that
his dispositions were fully as speedy as those of any other portion of
the army in this campaign.

Hooker not only alleges that "in his judgment, Gen. Sedgwick did not
obey the spirit of his order, and made no sufficient effort to obey it,"
but quotes Warren as saying that Sedgwick "would not have moved at all
if he [Warren] had not been there; and that, when he did move, it was
not with sufficient confidence or ability on his part to manoeuvre his
troops." It is very doubtful whether Warren ever put his opinion in so
strong a way as thus quoted by Hooker from memory. His report does speak
of Gibbon's slowness in coming up, and of his thus losing the chance of
crossing the canals and taking the breastworks before the Confederates
filed into them. But beyond a word to the effect that giving the advance
to Brooks's division, after the capture of the heights, "necessarily
consumed a considerable time," Warren does not in his report
particularly criticise Sedgwick's movements. And in another place he
does speak of the order of ten P.M. as an "impossible" one.

Gen. Warren's testimony on this subject is of the highest importance,
as representing Gen. Hooker in person. As before stated, he carried a
duplicate of Hooker's order of ten P.M., to Sedgwick, with instructions
from the general to urge upon Sedgwick the importance of the utmost
celerity. Moreover, Warren knew the country better than any one else,
and was more generally conversant with Hooker's plans, ideas, and
methods, being