certain destruction of Lee, General Hooker was leaving a vulnerable
point in his own armor. Lee would probably discover that point, and
aim to pierce his opponent there. At most, General Hooker was wrapping
in huge folds the sword of Lee, not remembering that there was danger
to the _cordon_ as well as to the weapon.

Such was the plan which General Hooker had devised to bring back that
success of the Federal arms in the spring of 1863 which had attended
them in the early spring of 1862. At this latter period a heavy cloud
rested upon the Confederate cause. Donaldson and Roanoke Island, Fort
Macon, and the city of New Orleans, had then fallen; at Elkhorn,
Kernstown, Newbern, and other places, the Federal forces had achieved
important successes. These had been followed, however, by the Southern
victories on the Chickahominy, at Manassas, and at Fredericksburg.
Near this last-named spot now, where the year had wound up with so
mortifying a Federal failure, General Hooker hoped to reverse events,
and recover the Federal glories of the preceding spring.

Operations began as early as the middle of March, when General
Averill, with about three thousand cavalry, crossed the Rappahannock
at Kelly's Ford, above its junction with the Rapidan, and made a
determined attack upon nearly eight hundred horsemen there, under
General Fitz Lee, with the view of passing through Culpepper, crossing
the Rapidan, and cutting Lee's communications in the direction of
Gordonsville. The obstinate stand of General Fitz Lee's small force,
however, defeated this object, and General Averill was forced to
retreat beyond the Rappahannock again with considerable loss, and
abandon his expedition. In this engagement fell Major John Pelham, who
had been styled in Lee's first report of the battle of Fredericksburg
"the gallant Pelham," and whose brave stand on the Port Royal road had
drawn from Lee the exclamation, "It is glorious to see such courage in
one so young." Pelham was, in spite of his youth, an artillerist of
the first order of excellence, and his loss was a serious one, in
spite of his inferior rank.

After this action every thing remained quiet until toward the end of
April--General Lee continuing to hold the same position with his right
at Fredericksburg, his left at the fords near Chancellorsville, and
his cavalry, under Stuart, guarding the banks of the Rappahannock in
Culpepper. On the 27th of April, General Hooker began his forward
mo