the
offensive. There was no ground for manoeuvring. The woods were like
a heavy curtain in his front. His left wing was placed so as to be of
absolutely no value. His right flank was in the air. One of the roads
on which he must depend for retreat was readily assailable by the enemy.
And he had in his rear a treacherous river, which after a few hours'
rain might become impassable, with but a single road and ford secured to
him with reasonable certainty.

And, prone as we had always been to act upon unwarrantable
over-estimates of the strength of our adversaries, Hooker had not this
reason to allege for having retired to await Lee's attack. For he had
just received excellent information from Richmond, to the effect that
Lee's rations amounted to fifty-nine thousand daily; and we have seen
that he told Slocum, on Thursday, that his column of nearly forty
thousand men was much stronger than any force Lee could detach against
him. Hooker acknowledges as much in his testimony before the Committee
on the Conduct of the War, when, in answer to the question, "What
portion of the enemy lay between you and Gen. Sedgwick?" he replied:--

"Lee's army at Fredericksburg numbered sixty thousand, not including the
artillery, cavalry, and the forces stationed up the river, occupying the
posts at Culpeper and Gordonsville. I think my information on this point
was reliable, as I had made use of unusual means to ascertain. The
enemy left eight thousand men to occupy the lines about Fredericksburg;
Jackson marched off to my right with twenty-five thousand; and Lee had
the balance between me and Sedgwick."

It will be well to remember this acknowledgment, when we come to deal
with Hooker's theories of the force in his own front on Sunday and
Monday.

XII. JACKSON'S MARCH, AND SICKLES'S ADVANCE.

Lee and Jackson spent Friday night under some pine-trees, on the plank
road, at the point where the Confederate line crosses it. Lee saw that
it was impossible for him to expect to carry the Federal lines by direct
assault, and his report states that he ordered a cavalry reconnoissance
towards our right flank to ascertain its position. There is, however, no
mention of such a body having felt our lines on the right, in any of the
Federal reports.

It is not improbable that Lee received information, crude but useful,
about this portion of our army, from some women belonging to Dowdall's
Tavern. When the Eleventh Corps occupied the place