was new.  It was embodied at much greater length four years ago, in my “History of Chancellorsville;” the reception of which volume by press, public, and soldiers, has been its own best excuse.  Gen. Hooker, though making no report, has put on record his explanation of this campaign.  Before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he stated his views as follows:  “I may say here, the battle of Chancellorsville has been associated with the battle of Fredericksburg, and has been called a disaster.  My whole loss in the battle of Chancellorsville was a little over seventeen thousand. . . .  In my opinion, there is nothing to regret in regard to Chancellorsville, except to accomplish all I moved to accomplish.  The troops lost no honor, except one corps, and we lost no more men than the enemy; but expectation was high, the army in splendid condition, and greater results were expected from it.  When I returned from Chancellorsville, I felt that I had fought no battle; in fact, I had more men than I could use, and I fought no general battle, for the reason that I could not get my men in position to do so.”

To speak thus of a passage of arms lasting a week and costing seventeen thousand men is, to say the least, abnormal.

In trying to shift the onus of failure from his own shoulders he said:  “Some of our corps commanders, and also officers of other rank, appear to be unwilling to go into a fight. . . .  So far as my experience extends, there are in all armies officers more valiant after the fight than while it is pending, and when a truthful history of the Rebellion shall be written, it will be found that the Army of the Potomac is not an exception.”

This slur is cast upon men like Reynolds, Meade, Couch, Sedgwick, Slocum, Howard, Hancock, Humphreys, Sykes, Warren, Birney, Whipple, Wright, Griffin, and many others equally gallant.  To call it ungenerous, is a mild phrase.  It certainly does open the door to unsparing criticism.  Hooker also concisely stated his military rule of action:  “Throughout the Rebellion I have acted on the principle that if I had as large a force as the enemy, I had no apprehensions of the result of an encounter.”  And in his initial orders to Stoneman, in opening the campaign, came the true ring of the always gallant corps commander, “Let your watchword be ‘Fight!’ and let all your orders be, ’Fight, fight, fight!’”

I might here say that the only attempt, on Fast Day, to exculpate Hooker for the disaster of Chancellorsville was not of an order which can be answered.  When one speaker asks, “If Gen. Hooker tells us that it was wise to withdraw across the river, is not that enough for you and me, my comrades?” I can only say that history is not so easily satisfied.  To another speaker, who states that when Hooker had planted himself in Lee’s flank by crossing the river, Lee ought, by all the rules of war, to have retreated, but when he didn’t he upset all Hooker’s calculations; that when Jackson made his “extra