s wholly impracticable, and I telegraphed that fact to Gen.
Hooker."

To place in juxtaposition Hooker's testimony and Sedgwick's, in no wise
militates against the latter.

There is one broad criticism which may fairly he passed upon Sedgwick's
withdrawal across the Rappahannock. It is that, with the knowledge that
his remaining in position might be of some assistance to his chief,
instead of exhibiting a perhaps undue anxiety to place himself beyond
danger, he could with his nineteen thousand men, by dint of stubborn
flghting, have held the intrenchments at Banks's Ford, against even Lee
with his twenty-four thousand.

But if he attempted this course, and was beaten, Lee could have
destroyed his corps. And this risk he was bound to weigh, as he did,
with the advantages Hooker could probably derive from his holding on.
Moreover, to demand thus much of Sedgwick, is to hold him to a defence,
which, in this campaign, no other officer of the Army of the Potomac was
able to make.

Not but what, under equally pressing conditions, other generals have,
or himself, if he had not received instructions to withdraw, might
have, accomplished so much. But if we assume, that having an eye to the
numbers and losses of his corps, and to his instructions, as well as
to the character and strength of the enemy opposed to him, Sedgwick was
bound to dispute further the possession of Banks's Ford, in order
to lend a questionable aid to Hooker, how lamentable will appear by
comparison the conduct of the other corps of the Army of the Potomac,
under the general commanding, bottled up behind their defences at
Chancellorsville!

XXXIII. HOOKER'S FURTHER PLANS.

Hooker states: "Gen. Warren represented to me that Gen. Sedgwick
had said he could do no more; then it was I wanted him to take some
position, and hold it, that I might turn the enemy in my immediate
front. I proposed to leave troops enough where I was, to occupy
the enemy there, and throw the rest of my force down the river, and
re-enforce Sedgwick; then the whole of Lee's army, except that which
had been left in front of Sedgwick, would be thrown off the road to
Richmond, and my army would be on it.

"As soon as I heard that Gen. Sedgwick had re-crossed the river, seeing
no object in maintaining my position where I was, and believing it
would be more to my advantage to hazard an engagement with the enemy at
Franklin's Crossing, where I had elbow-room, than where I was, t