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takes the hour of the urgent order; and it is difficult to see why he was summoned before the Committee, unless as a partisan. "My object" (continues Hooker) "in ordering Gen. Sedgwick forward at the time named, was to relieve me from the position in which I found myself at Chancellorsville on the night of the 2d of May." This statement is not only characteristic of Hooker's illogical method, but disingenuous to the degree of mockery. For this position, it will be remembered, was a strongly intrenched line, held by eighty thousand men, well armed and equipped, having in their front less than half their number of Confederates. In view of Hooker's above-quoted opinion about rifle-pits; of the fact that in his testimony he says: "Throughout the Rebellion I have acted on the principle that if I had as large a force as the enemy, I had no apprehensions of the result of an encounter;" of the fact that the enemy in his front had been cut in two, and would so remain if he only kept the salient, just seized by Sickles and Pleasonton, at the angle south-west of Fairview, well manned; and of the fact that he had unused reserves greater in number than the entire force of the enemy,--is it not remarkable that, in Hooker's opinion, nothing short of a countermarch of three miles by the Sixth Corps, the capture of formidable and sufficiently manned intrenchments, (the work of the Army of Northern Virginia during an entire half year,) and an advance of nearly twelve miles,--all of which was to be accomplished between eleven and daylight of a day in May,--could operate to "relieve him from the position in which he found himself on the night of the 2d of May"? "I was of the opinion, that if a portion of the army advanced on Lee's rear, sooner than allow his troops to remain between me and Sedgwick, Lee would take the road Jackson had marched over on the morning of the 2d, and thus open for me a short road to Richmond, while the enemy, severed from his depot, would have to retire by way of Gordonsville." Well enough, but was Sedgwick's corps the only one to accomplish this? Where were Reynolds, and Meade, and Howard, forsooth? There is no particular criticism by Hooker upon Sedgwick's authority to withdraw to the north side of the river, or upon the necessity for his so doing. And we have seen how hard-pressed and overmatched Sedgwick had really been, and that he only withdrew when good military reasons existed, and the latest-receive
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