hat before leaving Falmouth, to make this move, I
had a million and a half of rations on board lighters, and had gunboats
in readiness to tow them up to points on the Pamunkey River, in order to
replenish my provisions, to enable me to reach Richmond before the enemy
could, in case I succeeded in throwing him off that line of retreat.
When I gave the order to Gen. Sedgwick, I expected that Lee would be
whipped by manoeuvre. I supposed that he would be compelled to march
off on the same line that Jackson had. He would have been thrown on the
Culpeper and Gordonsville road, placing me fifty or sixty miles nearer
Richmond than himself."

Criticism upon such an eccentric summing-up of the results of the
campaign of Chancellorsville, is too unprofitable a task to reward the
attempt. But assuredly the commander of the gallant Army of the Potomac
stands alone in his measure of the importance of the movement, or of the
disastrous nature of the defeat.

XXXVII. SOME RESULTING CORRESPONDENCE.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
NEAR CHANCELLORSVILLE, VA., May 5, 1863.
To the Commanding Officer, Confederate Forces, Chancellorsville, Va.

I would most respectfully request the privilege of sending a
burial-party on the field of Chancellorsville, to bury the dead, and
care for the wounded officers and soldiers of my command.

Very respectfully, etc.,
JOSEPH HOOKER,
Major-General Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
May 6, 1863.
MAJOR-GEN. J. HOOKER, Commanding Army of the Potomac.

General,--I have had the honor to receive your letter of yesterday,
requesting permission to send a burial-party to attend to your dead and
wounded on the battle-field of Chancellorsville. I regret that
their position is such, being immediately within our lines, that the
necessities of war forbid my compliance with your request, which, under
other circumstances, it would give me pleasure to grant. I will accord
to your dead and wounded the same attention which I bestow upon my own;
but, if there is any thing which your medical director here requires
which we cannot provide, he shall have my permission to receive from you
such medical supplies as you may think proper to furnish. Consideration
for your wo