says
they were worn out, and Rodes admits in his report that Jackson's
veterans clung to their intrenchments, and that Ramseur and others
who passed them, urged them to go forward in vain.

Before the close of the action Hooker was importuned for reinforcements,
but to no avail. Perhaps he intended to send them, for about this
time he rushed out and made a passionate appeal to Geary's men to
charge and retake the works they had lost; promising to aid them
by throwing in a heavy force on the enemy's left flank. At this
appeal the exhausted troops put their caps on their bayonets, waved
them aloft, and with loud cheers charged on the rebels and drove
them out once more; but sixty guns opened upon them at close range
with terrible effect; the promised reinforcements did not come;
they were surrounded with ever increasing enemies, and forced to
give up everything and retreat. Stuart and Anderson then formed
their lines on the south of and parallel to the Plank Road, facing
north, and began to fortify the position.

Had they been disposed to follow up the retreat closely they would
have been unable to do so, for now a new and terrible barrier
intervened; the woods on each side of the Plank Road had been set
on fire by the artillery and the wounded and dying were burning in
the flames without a possibility of rescuing them. Let us draw a
veil over this scene, for it is pitiful to dwell upon it.

There was no further change in Stuart's line until the close of
the battle; but Anderson's division was soon after detached against
Sedgwick.

The new line taken up by the Union Army was a semi-ellipse, with
the left resting on the Rappahannock and the right on the Rapidan.
Its centre was at Bullock's House, about three-fourths of a mile
north of Chancellorsville. The approaches were well guarded with
artillery, and the line partially intrenched. The enemy did not
assail it. They made a reconnoissance in the afternoon, but Weed's
artillery at the apex of the line was too strongly posted to be
forced, and Lee soon found other employment for his troops, for
Sedgwick was approaching to attack his rear.

In the history of lost empires we almost invariably find that the
cause of their final overthrow on the battle-field may be traced
to the violation of one military principle, which is that _the
attempt to overpower a central force of converging columns, is
almost always fatal to the assailants_, for a force in the centre,