ssigned to a third corps made up of
portions of the two others. The infantry was thus rearranged in a
manner to increase greatly its efficiency, and the artillery arm
was entirely reorganized. The old system of assigning one or more
batteries or battalions to each division or corps was done away with,
and the artillery of the army was made a distinct command, and placed
under General W.N. Pendleton, a brave and energetic officer, who was
thenceforward Lee's "chief of artillery." The last arm, the cavalry,
was also increased in efficiency; and, on the last day of May,
General Lee had the satisfaction of finding himself in command of a
well-equipped and admirably-officered army of sixty-eight thousand
three hundred and fifty-two bayonets, and nearly ten thousand cavalry
and artillery--in all, about eighty thousand men. Never before had
the Southern army had present for duty, as fighting men, so large a
number, except just before the battles on the Chickahominy. There was,
however, this great difference between the army then and at this time:
in those first months of 1862, it was made up largely of raw troops
who had never heard the discharge of a musket in their lives: while
now, in May, 1863 the bulk of the army consisted of Lee's veterans,
men who had followed him through the fire of Manassas, Sharpsburg,
Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and could be counted on
to effect any thing not absolutely beyond human power. General
Longstreet, conversing after the war with a gentleman of the North,
declared as much. The army at that time, he said, was in a condition
to undertake _any thing_.

X.

LEE'S PLANS AND OBJECTS.

The great game of chess was now about to commence, and, taking an
illustration from that game, General Lee is reported to have said that
he believed he would "swap queens," that is, advance and attempt to
capture the city of Washington, leaving General Hooker at liberty, if
he chose so to do, to seize in turn upon Richmond. What the result of
so singular a manoeuvre would have been, it is impossible to say; it
would certainly have proved one of the strangest incidents of a war
fruitful in varied and shifting events.

Such a plan of operations, however, if ever seriously contemplated
by Lee, was speedily abandoned. He nowhere makes mention of any such
design in his published reports, and he probably spoke of it only in
jest. His real aim in the great movement now about to commence, is
stated w