the army be successful; so
now, when the chance had come, they were neither ready to forward
such an enterprise, nor could they make up their minds to depart from
their passive attitude. But to postpone all idea of counterstroke
until some indefinite period is as fatal in strategy as in tactics.
By no means an uncommon policy, it has been responsible for the loss
of a thousand opportunities.

Had not politics intervened, a vigorous pursuit--not necessarily
involving an immediate attack, but drawing Hooker, as Pope had been
drawn in the preceding August, into an unfavourable situation, before
his army had had time to recover--would have probably been initiated.
It may be questioned, however, whether General Lee, even when
Longstreet and his divisions joined him, would have been so strong as
he had been at the end of April. None felt more deeply than the
Commander-in-Chief that the absence of Jackson was an irreparable
misfortune. "Give him my affectionate regards," he said to an
aide-de-camp who was riding to the hospital; "tell him to make haste
and get well, and come back to me as soon as he can. He has lost his
left arm, but I have lost my right." "Any victory," he wrote
privately, "would be dear at such a price. I know not how to replace
him."

His words were prophetic. Exactly two months after Chancellorsville
the armies met once more in the clash of battle. During the first two
days, on the rolling plain round Gettysburg, a village of
Pennsylvania, four Federal army corps were beaten in succession, but
ere the sun set on the third Lee had to admit defeat.

And yet his soldiers had displayed the same fiery courage and
stubborn persistence which had carried them victorious through the
Wilderness. But his "right arm" had not yet been replaced. "If," he
said after the war, with unaccustomed emphasis, "I had had Jackson at
Gettysburg I should have won the battle, and a complete victory there
would have resulted in the establishment of Southern independence."

It was not to be. Chancellorsville, where 130,000 men were defeated
by 60,000, is up to a certain point as much the tactical masterpiece
of the nineteenth century as was Leuthen of the eighteenth. But,
splendid triumph as it was, the battle bore no abiding fruits, and
the reason seems very clear. The voice that would have urged pursuit
was silent. Jackson's fall left Lee alone, bereft of his alter ego;
with none, save Stuart, to whom he could entrust the execu