ld be successful, and in the coming
battle, the Army of the Potomac should be overpowered? Would it not be?
When our army was much larger than at present--had rested all
winter--and, nearly perfect in all its departments and arrangements, was
the most splendid army this continent ever saw, only a part of the Rebel
force, which it now had to contend with, had defeated it--its leader,
rather--at Chancellorsville! Now the Rebel had his whole force
assembled, he was flushed with recent victory, was arrogant in his
career of unopposed invasion, at a favorable season of the year. His
daring plans, made by no unskilled head, to transfer the war from his
own to his enemies' ground, were being successful. He had gone a day's
march from his front before Hooker moved, or was aware of his departure.
Then, I believe, the army in general, both officers and men, had no
confidence in Hooker, in either his honesty or ability.

Did they not charge him personally, with the defeat at Chancellorsville?
Were they not still burning with indignation against him for that
disgrace? And now, again under his leadership, they were marching
against the enemy! And they knew of nothing, short of the providence of
God, that could, or would, remove him. For many reasons, during the
marches prior to the battle, we were anxious, and at times heavy at
heart.

But the Army of the Potomac was no band of school girls. They were not
the men likely to be crushed or utterly discouraged by any new
circumstances in which they might find themselves placed. They had lost
some battles, they had gained some. They knew what defeat was, and what
was victory. But here is the greatest praise that I can bestow upon
them, or upon any army: With the elation of victory, or the depression
of defeat, amidst the hardest toils of the campaign, under unwelcome
leadership, at all times, and under all circumstances, they were a
reliable army still. The Army of the Potomac would do as it was told,
always.

Well clothed, and well fed--there never could be any ground for
complaint on these heads--but a mighty work was before them. Onward they
moved--night and day were blended--over many a weary mile, through dust,
and through mud, in the broiling sunshine, in the flooding rain, over
steeps, through defiles, across rivers, over last year's battle fields,
where the skeletons of our dead brethren, by hundreds, lay bare and
bleaching, weary, without sleep for days, tormented with the ne