y the absence
of information:--

Headquarters, First Corps, May 1, 1863.

Major-General Sedgwick,

I think the proper view to take of affairs is this: If they have not
detached more than A.P. Hill's division from our front, they have
been keeping up appearances, showing weakness, with a view of
delaying Hooker, and tempting us to make an attack on their fortified
position, and hoping to destroy us and strike for our depot over our
bridges. We ought therefore, in my judgment, to know something of
what has transpired on our right.

JOHN F. REYNOLDS, Major-General.) considered "that to have attacked
before Hooker had accomplished some success, in view of the strong
position and numbers in their front, might have failed to dislodge
the enemy, and have rendered them unserviceable at the proper time."*
(* Dispatch of Chief of the Staff to Hooker, dated 4 P.M., May 1.
O.R. volume 25 page 326.) That is, they were not inclined to risk
their own commands in order to assist Hooker, of whose movements they
were uncertain. Yet even if they had been defeated, Hooker would
still have had more men than Lee.

CHAPTER 2.24. CHANCELLORSVILLE (CONTINUED).

At a council of war held during the night at Chancellorville House,
the Federal generals were by no means unanimous as to the operations
of the morrow. Some of the generals advised an early assault. Others
favoured a strictly defensive attitude. Hooker himself wished to
contract his lines so as to strengthen them; but as the officers
commanding on the right were confident of the strength of their
intrenchments, it was at length determined that the army should await
attack in its present position.

Three miles down the plank road, under a grove of oak and pine, Lee
and Jackson, while their wearied soldiers slept around them, planned
for the fourth and the last time the overthrow of the great army with
which Lincoln still hoped to capture Richmond. At this council there
was no difference of opinion. If Hooker had not retreated before the
morning--and Jackson thought it possible he was already
demoralised--he was to be attacked. The situation admitted of no
other course. It was undoubtedly a hazardous operation for an
inferior force to assault an intrenched position; but the Federal
army was divided, the right wing involved in a difficult and
unexplored country, with which the Confederate generals and staff
were more or less familiar, and an opportunity so favourable might
neve