s design, on the
night he fell, of moving a large part of his command up the White
House road, and barring the only line of retreat left open to the
Federals.

Hooker, it is argued, had two corps in position which had been hardly
engaged, the Second and the Fifth; and another, the First, under
Reynolds, was coming up. Of these, 25,000 men might possibly, could
they have been manoeuvred in the forest, have been sent to drive
Jackson back. And, undoubtedly, to those who think more of numbers
than of human nature, of the momentum of the mass rather than the
mental equilibrium of the general, the fact that a superior force of
comparatively fresh troops was at Hooker's disposal will be
sufficient to put the success of the Confederates out of court. Yet
the question will always suggest itself, would not the report that a
victorious enemy, of unknown strength, was pressing forward, in the
darkness of the night, towards the only line of retreat, have so
demoralised the Federal commander and the Federal soldiers, already
shaken by the overthrow of the Eleventh Army Corps, that they would
have thought only of securing their own safety? Would Hooker, whose
tactics the next day, after he had had the night given him in which
to recover his senses, were so inadequate, have done better if he had
received no respite? Would the soldiers of the three army corps not
yet engaged, who had been witnesses of the rout of Howard's
divisions, have fared better, when they heard the triumphant yells of
the advancing Confederates, than the hapless Germans? "The wounding
of Jackson," says a most careful historian of the battle, himself a
participator in the Union disaster, "was a most fortunate circumstance
for the Army of the Potomac. At nine o'clock the capture or
destruction of a large part of the army seemed inevitable. There was,
at the time, great uncertainty and a feeling akin to panic prevailing
among the Union forces round Chancellorsville; and when we consider
the position of the troops at this moment, and how many important
battles have been won by trivial flank attacks--how Richepanse
(attacking through the forest) with a single brigade ruined the
Austrians at Hohenlinden--we must admit that the Northern army was in
great peril when Jackson arrived within one thousand yards of its
vital point (the White House) with 20,000 men and 50 cannon."* (*
Chancellorsville, Lt.-Colonel A.C. Hamlin.) He must be a great leader
indeed who, when his