had crossed at Fredericksburg, held a prompt consultation with Jackson, when it was decided at once to concentrate the main body of the army in front of General Hooker’s column.  At the word, Jackson moved; Lee followed.  On the 1st of May, the enemy were pressed back upon Chancellorsville; on the 2d, his right was crushed, and his army thrown into confusion; on the 3d, he was driven from Chancellorsville, and, but for the flank movement of General Sedgwick, which Lee was not in sufficient force to prevent, General Hooker would, upon that same day, Sunday, have in all probability suffered a decisive defeat.

In the course of four days Lee had thus advanced, and checked, and then attacked and repulsed with heavy slaughter, an army thrice as large as his own.  On the last day of April he had been nearly enveloped by a host of about one hundred and twenty thousand men.  On the 3d day of May their main body was in disorderly retreat; and at daylight on the morning of the 6th there was not a Federal soldier, with the exception of the prisoners taken, on the southern bank of the Rappahannock.

During all these critical scenes, when the fate of the Confederate capital, and possibly of the Southern cause, hung suspended in the balance, General Lee preserved, as thousands of persons can testify, the most admirable serenity and composure, without that jubilant confidence displayed by General Hooker in his address to the troops, and the exclamations to his officers.  Lee was equally free from gloom or any species of depression.  His spirits seemed to rise under the pressure upon him, and at times he was almost gay.  When one of General Jackson’s aides hastened into his tent near Fredericksburg, and with great animation informed him that the enemy were crossing the river, in heavy force in his front, he seemed to be amused by that circumstance, and said, smiling:  “Well, I heard firing, and I was beginning to think it was time some of you lazy young fellows were coming to tell me what it was all about.  Say to General Jackson that he knows just as well what to do with the enemy as I do.”

The commander-in-chief who could find time at such a moment to indulge in badinage, must have possessed excellent nerve; and this composure, mingled with a certain buoyant hopefulness, as of one sure of the event, remained with Lee throughout the whole great wrestle with General Hooker.  He retained to the end his simple and quiet manner, divested of every thing like excitement.  In the consultation with Jackson, on the night of the 1st of May, when the crisis was so critical, his demeanor indicated no anxiety; and when, as we have said, the news came of Jackson’s wound, he said simply, “Sit down here, by me, captain, and tell me all about the fight last evening”—­adding, “Ah! captain, any victory is dearly bought which deprives us of the services of General Jackson even for a short time.  Don’t talk about it—­thank God, it is no worse!” The turns of expression