Lee ran from the converging columns of Sedgwick and Hooker. It is
true Lee tried the same system, and succeeded, by sending Jackson
around to attack Hooker's right, but the success was due solely to
the utter lack of all preparations on the part of Howard to meet
the emergency, and to Hooker's failure to make use of the ample
means at his disposal to prevent the junction of Stuart and
Anderson.

Mr. Alden, the author of the work in question, says:

"There was not, in fact, any moment between Thursday afternoon and
Tuesday morning when success was not wholly within the grasp of
the Union army. The movement by which Chancellorsville was reached,
and the Confederate position rendered worthless, was brilliantly
conceived and admirably executed. The initial error, by which
alone all else was rendered possible, was that halt at Chancellorsville.
Had the march been continued for an hour longer, or even been
resumed early in the following morning, the army would have got
clear of the Wilderness without meeting any great opposing force,
and then it would have been in a position where its great superiority
of numbers would have told. The rout of Howard's corps was possible
only from the grossest neglect of all military precautions. Jackson,
after a toilsome march of ten hours, halted for three hours in open
ground, not two miles from the Union lines. A single picket, sent
for a mile up a broad road would have discovered the whole movement
in ample time for Howard to have strengthened his position, or to
have withdrawn from it without loss. The blame of this surprise
can not, however, fairly be laid upon Hooker. He had a right to
presume that whoever was in command there would have so picketed
his lines as to prevent the possibility of being surprised in broad
daylight. But even as it was, the disaster to the Eleventh Corps
should have had no serious effect upon the general result. That
was fully remedied when the pursuit was checked. On Sunday morning
Hooker was in a better position than he had been on the evening
before. He had lost 3,000 men and had been strengthened by 17,000,
and now had 78,000 to oppose to 47,000. The Confederate army was
divided, and could reunite only by winning a battle or by a day's
march. The only thing which could have lost the battle of that
day was the abandonment of the position at Hazel Grove, for from
this alone was it possible to enfilade Slocum's line. But surely
it is within