* O.R.
volume 25 page 274.) Were the Confederates found in force near
Chancellorsville, it was to select a strong position and await attack
on its own ground, while Sedgwick, coming up from Fredericksburg,
would assail the enemy in flank and rear.

Such was the plan which, if resolutely carried out, bade fair to
crush Lee's army between the upper and the nether millstones, and it
seems that the size and condition of his forces led Hooker to
anticipate an easy victory. If the Army of the Potomac was not "the
finest on the planet," as in an order of the day he boastfully
proclaimed it, it possessed many elements of strength. Hooker was a
strict disciplinarian with a talent for organisation. He had not only
done much to improve the efficiency of his troops, but his vigorous
measures had gone far to restore their confidence. When he succeeded
Burnside a large proportion of the soldiers had lost heart and hope.
The generals who had hitherto commanded them, when compared with Lee
and Jackson, were mere pigmies, and the consciousness that this was
the case had affected the entire army. The Official Records contain
much justification of Jackson's anxiety that Burnside should be
fought on the North Anna, where, if defeated, he might have been
pursued. Although there had been no pursuit after the battle of
Fredericksburg, no harassing marches, no continued retreat, with lack
of supplies, abandoning of wounded, and constant alarms, the Federal
regiments had suffered terribly in morale.

"The winter rains set in," said Hooker, "and all operations were for
a while suspended, the army literally finding itself buried in mud,
from which there was no hope of extrication before spring.

"With this prospect before it, taken in connection with the gloom and
despondency which followed the disaster of Fredericksburg, the army
was in a forlorn, deplorable condition. Reference to the letters from
the army at this time, public and private, affords abundant evidence
of its demoralisation; and these, in their turn, had their effect
upon the friends and relatives of the soldiers at home. At the time
the army was turned over to me desertions were at the rate of about
two hundred a day. So anxious were parents, wives, brothers and
sisters, to relieve their kindred, that they filled the express
trains with packages of citizens' clothing to assist them in escaping
from service. At that time, perhaps, a majority of the officers,
especially those hi