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 never recur.  “Fortune,” says Napoleon, “is a woman, who must be wooed while she is in the mood.  If her favours are rejected, she does not offer them again.”  The only question was where the attack should be delivered.  Lee himself had reconnoitred the enemy’s left.  It was very utrong, resting on the Rappahannock, and covered by a stream called Mineral Spring Run.  Two of Jackson’s staff officers had reconnoitred the front, and had pronounced it impregnable, except at a fearful sacrifice of life.  But while the generals were debating, Stuart rode in with the reports