lines. About
3.30 P.M. the leading divisions of Jackson's corps, arriving on the old
turnpike, sent a party forward to feel our lines, and a ten-minutes'
skirmish resulted, when the Confederate party withdrew. There had been a
number of minor attacks on our outlying pickets, some of them occurring
when Gen. Howard was present. All these facts were successively reported
to headquarters.

About the same time two men, sent out as spies, came in, and reported
the enemy crossing the plank road on our right, in heavy columns.
These men were despatched by Howard to Hooker, with instructions to the
officer accompanying them to see that Hooker promptly received their
information. On the other hand, a half-hour before Jackson's attack
came, Howard sent a couple of companies of cavalry out the plank road to
reconnoitre. These men, from negligence or cowardice, failed to go far
enough to ascertain the presence of Jackson, and returned and reported
all quiet. This report was, however, not forwarded to Hooker.

There was not an officer or man in the Eleventh Corps that afternoon who
did not discuss the possibility of an attack in force on our right, and
wonder how the small body thrown across the road on the extreme flank
could meet it. And yet familiar with all the facts related, for that
they were reported to him there is too much cumulative evidence to
doubt, and having inspected the line so that he was conversant with
its situation, Hooker allowed the key of his position to depend upon a
half-brigade and two guns, facing the enemy, while the balance of the
wing, absolutely in the air, turned its back upon the general whose
attack was never equalled for its terrible momentum during our war, or
excelled in any, and whose crushing blows had caused the brave old Army
of the Potomac more than once to stagger.

Moreover, the "key of the position" was confided to a corps which was
not properly part of the Army of the Potomac, and untried as yet. For
not only had the Eleventh Corps, as a corps, seen no active service, but
the most of its regiments were made up of raw troops, and the elements
of which the corps was composed were to a degree incongruous. Of itself
this fact should have caused Hooker to devote serious attention to his
right flank.

XIII. HOOKER'S THEORIES AND CHANCES.

Hooker and Sickles have both stated that the plan of the former was to
allow this movement of Jackson's to develop itself: if it was a retreat,