the language and breathes the spirit of the great ruler, secure in
popular confidence and official authority, equal to the great
emergencies that successively rose before him. Upon General Hooker its
courteous praise and frank rebuke, its generous trust and distinct note
of fatherly warning, made a profound impression. He strove worthily to
redeem his past indiscretions by devoting himself with great zeal and
energy to improving the discipline and morale of his army, recalling its
absentees, and restoring its spirit by increased drill and renewed
activity. He kept the President well informed of what he was doing, and
early in April submitted a plan of campaign on which Mr. Lincoln
indorsed, on the eleventh of that month:

"My opinion is that just now, with the enemy directly ahead of us, there
is no eligible route for us into Richmond; and consequently a question
of preference between the Rappahannock route and the James River route
is a contest about nothing. Hence, our prime object is the enemy's army
in front of us, and is not with or about Richmond at all, unless it be
incidental to the main object."

Having raised his effective force to about one hundred and thirty
thousand men, and learning that Lee's army was weakened by detachments
to perhaps half that number, Hooker, near the end of the month, prepared
and executed a bold movement which for a while was attended with
encouraging progress. Sending General Sedgwick with three army corps to
make a strong demonstration and crossing below Fredericksburg, Hooker
with his remaining four corps made a somewhat long and circuitous march
by which he crossed both the Rappahannock and the Rapidan above the
town without serious opposition, and on the evening of April 30 had his
four corps at Chancellorsville, south of the Rappahannock, from whence
he could advance against the rear of the enemy. But his advantage of
position was neutralized by the difficulties of the ground. He was in
the dense and tangled forest known as the Wilderness, and the decision
and energy of his brilliant and successful advance were suddenly
succeeded by a spirit of hesitation and delay in which the evident and
acknowledged chances of victory were gradually lost. The enemy found
time to rally from his surprise and astonishment, to gather a strong
line of defense, and finally, to organize a counter flank movement under
Stonewall Jackson, which fell upon the rear of the Union right and
created a pan