ed, and the
correspondent movements begun, than the accomplished scouts of Stuart
hurried across the Rapidan with the intelligence. Stuart, whose
headquarters were in a hollow of the hills near Orange, and not
far from General Lee's, promptly communicated in person to the
commander-in-chief this important information, and Lee dispatched
immediately an order to General A.P. Hill, in rear, to march at once
and form a junction with Ewell in the vicinity of Verdierville. The
latter officer was directed to retire from his advanced position upon
the Rapidan, which exposed him to an attack on his right flank and
rear, and to fall back and take post behind the small stream called
Mine Run.

In following with a critical eye the operations of General Lee, the
military student must be struck particularly by one circumstance, that
in all his movements he seemed to proceed less according to the nice
technicalities of the art of war, than in accordance with the dictates
of a broad and comprehensive good sense. It may be said that, in
choosing position, he always chose the right and never the wrong one;
and the choice of Mine Run now as a defensive line was a proof of
this. The run is a small water-course which, rising south of the great
highway between Orange and Chancellorsville, flows due northward amid
woods and between hills to the Rapidan, into which it empties itself a
few miles above Germanna, General Meade's main place of crossing. This
stream is the natural defence of the right flank of an army posted
between Orange and the Rapidan. It is also the natural and obvious
line upon which to receive the attack of a force marching from below
toward Gordonsville. Behind Mine Run, therefore, just east of the
little village of Verdierville, General Lee directed his two corps to
concentrate; and at the word, the men, lounging but now carelessly in
winter-quarters, sprung to arms, "fell in," and with burnished muskets
took up the line of march.

We have spoken of the promptness with which the movement was made, and
it may almost be said that General Meade had scarcely broken up his
camps north of the Rapidan, when Lee was in motion to go and meet him.
On the night of the 26th, Stuart, whose cavalry was posted opposite
the lower fords, pushed forward in person, and bivouacked under some
pines just below Verdierville; and before daylight General Lee was
also in the saddle, and at sunrise had reached the same point. The
night had been s