The foregoing reflections, which necessarily involve a criticism of General Hooker, arise naturally from a review of the events of the campaign, and seem justified by the circumstances.  There can be no inducement for the present writer to underrate the military ability of the Federal commander, as that want of ability rather detracts from than adds to the merit of General Lee in defeating him.  It may be said, indeed, that without these errors and shortcomings of General Hooker, Lee, humanly speaking, must have been either defeated or forced to retire upon Richmond.

After giving full weight, however, to all the advantages derived from the extraordinary Federal oversights and mistakes, General Lee’s merit in this campaign was greater, perhaps, than in any other during his entire career.  Had he left behind him no other record than this, it alone would have been sufficient to have conferred upon him the first glories of arms, and handed his name down to posterity as that of one of the greatest soldiers of history.  It is difficult to discover a single error committed by him, in the whole series of movements, from the moment when General Sedgwick crossed at Fredericksburg, to the time of General Hooker’s retreat beyond the Rappahannock.  It may appear that there was unnecessary delay in permitting Tuesday to pass without a final advance upon General Hooker, in his second line of intrenchments; but, no doubt, many circumstances induced Lee to defer this attack—­the fatigue of his troops, consequent upon the fighting of the four preceding days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; the necessity of reforming his battalions for the final blow; and the anticipation that General Hooker, who still had at his command a force of more than one hundred thousand men, would not so promptly relinquish his campaign, and retire.

With the exception of this error, if it be such, Lee had made no single false step in the whole of his movements.  The campaign was round, perfect, and complete—­such as a student of the art of war might pore over, and analyze as an instance of the greatest principles of military science “clothed in act.”  The most striking features of Lee’s movements were their rapidity and audacity.  It had been the fashion with some persons to speak of Lee as slow and cautious in his operations, and this criticism had not been completely silenced even in the winter of 1862, when his failure to crush General Burnside afforded his detractors another opportunity of repeating the old charge.  After the Chancellorsville campaign these fault-finders were silenced—­no one could be found to listen to them.  The whole Southern movement completely contradicted their theory.  At the first intelligence of the advance of General Hooker’s main body across the upper Rappahannock, Lee rode rapidly in that direction, and ordered his troops at the fords of the river to fall back to Chancellorsville.  He then returned, and, finding that General Sedgwick