The Army of the Potomac returned to its old camp on the hills above Fredericksburg, and Lee reoccupied his position on the opposite ridge.  Stoneman, who had scoured the whole country to within a few miles of Richmond, returned to Kelly’s Ford on May 8.  The raid had effected nothing.  The damage done to the railroads and canals was repaired by the time the raiders had regained the Rappahannock.  Lee’s operations at Chancellorsville had not been affected in the very slightest degree by their presence in his rear, while Stoneman’s absence had proved the ruin of the Federal army.  Jackson, who had been removed by the Commander-in-Chief’s order to Mr. Chandler’s house, near Gurney’s Station, on the morning of May 5, was asked what he thought of Hooker’s plan of campaign.  His reply was:  “It was in the main a good conception, an excellent plan.  But he should not have sent away his cavalry; that was his great blunder.  It was that which enabled me to turn him without his being aware of it, and to take him in the rear.  Had he kept his cavalry with him, his plan would have been a very good one.”  This was not his only comment on the great battle.  Among other things, he said that he intended to cut the Federals off from the United States Ford, and, taking a position between them and the river, oblige them to attack him, adding, with a smile, “My men sometimes fail to drive the enemy from a position, but they always fail to drive us away.”  He spoke of General Rodes, and alluded in high terms to his splendid behaviour in the attack on Howard.  He hoped he would be promoted, and he said that promotion should be made at once, upon the field, so as to act as an incentive to gallantry in others.  He spoke of Colonel Willis, who had commanded the skirmishers, and praised him very highly, and referred most feelingly to the death of Paxton, the commander of the Stonewall Brigade, and of Captain Boswell, his chief engineer.  In speaking of his own share in the victory he said:  “Our movement was a great success; I think the most successful military movement of my life.  But I expect to receive far more credit for it than I deserve.  Most men will think I planned it all from the first; but it was not so.  I simply took advantage of circumstances as they were presented to me in the providence of God.  I feel that His hand led me—­let us give Him the glory.”

It must always be an interesting matter of speculation what the result would have been had Jackson accomplished his 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.