The first of May, 1863, the Army of the Potomac under Hooker met the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee and Jackson, near Chancellorsville, Virginia.  It was here that Jackson executed his brilliant and successful flank movement around the Union right, ensuring a victory for his side but losing his own life.  After a contest of several days, involving the fruitless sacrifice of thousands of gallant soldiers, Hooker’s army fell back and recrossed the Rappahannock.[G]

The news of this fresh disaster was an almost stunning shock to President Lincoln.  During the progress of the battle he was under a cruel strain of anxiety and suspense.  Secretary Welles, who was with him a part of the time, says:  “He had a feverish eagerness for facts; was constantly up and down, for nothing reliable came from the front.”  Mr. Noah Brooks relates that in company with an old friend of Lincoln’s he was waiting in one of the family rooms of the White House.  “A door opened and Lincoln appeared, holding an open telegram in his hand.  The sight of his face and figure was frightful.  He seemed stricken with death.  Almost tottering to a chair, he sat down; and then I mechanically noticed that his face was of the same color as the wall behind him—­not pale, not even sallow, but gray, like ashes.  Extending the despatch to me, he said, with a hollow, far-off voice, ’Read it—­news from the army.’  The telegram was from General Butterfield, I think, then chief of staff to Hooker.  It was very brief, simply saying that the Army of the Potomac had ‘safely recrossed the Rappahannock,’ and was now at its old position on the north bank of that stream.  The President’s friend, Dr. Henry, an old man and somewhat impressionable, burst into tears,—­not so much, probably, at the news as on account of its effect upon Lincoln.  The President regarded the old man for an instant with dry eyes, and said, ‘What will the country say?  Oh, what will the country say?’ He seemed hungry for consolation and cheer, and sat a little while talking about the failure.  Yet it did not seem that he was disappointed so much for himself, but that he thought the country would be.”

Lincoln’s anxiety regarding the effect at the North of these repeated reverses was not without sufficient cause.  Aside from those who were positively opposed to the war, the loyal people were wearying of the useless slaughter, the unavailing struggles, of the gallant soldiers.  The growing distrust of the capacity of their military leaders was also keenly felt.  The feeling of that time is so well expressed in a stirring poem entitled “Wanted, a Man,” written by Mr. E.C.  Stedman, that it is given place here.  It has an additional personal interest connected with President Lincoln in the fact that he was so impressed with the piece that he read it aloud to his assembled Cabinet.