s. Two of Sickles's divisions
are among them."

And it is kinder to Hooker's memory to assume that he did not apprehend
a flank attack on this evening. If he did, his neglect of his position
was criminal. Let us glance at the map.

We know how the Eleventh Corps lay, its reserve removed, with which it
might have protected a change of front, should this become necessary,
and itself facing southerly. What was on its left, to move up to its
support in case of an attack down the pike? Absolutely not a regiment
between Dowdall's and Chancellorsville, and near the latter place only
one division available. This was Berry's, still luckily massed in the
open north of headquarters. And to Sickles's very deliberate movement
alone is due the fact that Berry was still there when the attack on
Howard burst; for Sickles had bespoken Berry's division in support of
his own advance just at this juncture.

Birney, who was the prop of Howard's immediate left, had been advanced
nearly two miles through the thickets to the south to attack an
imaginary enemy. Whipple had followed him. Of Slocum's corps, Williams
had been sent out "two or three miles," to sweep the ground in his
front, and Geary despatched down the plank road "for the purpose of
cutting off the train of the enemy, who was supposed to be in retreat
towards Gordonsville." To oppose the attack of a column of not far from
twenty-five thousand men, there was thus left a brigade front of four
small regiments, and the flank of a corps of eight thousand men more,
without reserves, and with no available force whatever for its support,
should it be overwhelmed.

Is any criticism needed upon this situation? And who should be
responsible for it?

In a defensive battle it is all-important that the general in command
should hold his troops well in hand, especially when the movements of
the enemy can be concealed by the terrain. The enemy is allowed his
choice of massing for an attack on any given point: so that the
ability to concentrate reserve troops on any threatened point is an
indispensable element of safety. It may be assumed that Hooker was, at
the moment of Jackson's attack, actually taking the offensive. But on
this hypothesis, the feebleness of his advance is still more worthy of
criticism. For Jackson was first attacked by Sickles as early as nine
A.M.; and it was six P.M. before the latter was ready to move upon the
enemy in force. Such tardiness as this could never win a