On Thursday, as soon as Anderson withdrew Mahone’s and Posey’s brigades from United-States Ford, which he did when Meade’s crossing at Ely’s had flanked that position, Couch, whose bridge was all ready to throw, was ordered to cross, and march in support towards the heaviest firing.  This he did, with French and Hancock, and reached Chancellorsville the same evening.

Swinton, rather grandiloquently, says, “To have marched a column of fifty thousand men, laden with sixty pounds of baggage and encumbered with artillery and trains, thirty-seven miles in two days; to have bridged and crossed two streams, guarded by a vigilant enemy, with the loss of half a dozen men, one wagon, and two mules,—­is an achievement which has few parallels, and which well deserves to rank with Prince Eugene’s famous passage of the Adige.”

However exaggerated this praise may be, Hooker nevertheless deserves high encomiums on his management of the campaign so far.  Leaving Stoneman’s delay out of the question, nothing had gone wrong or been mismanaged up to the present moment.  But soon Hooker makes his first mistake.

At 12.30 on Thursday, the Third Corps, which lay near Franklin’s Crossing, on the north side of the river, received orders to proceed by the shortest route, and concealed from the enemy, to United-States Ford, to be across the river by seven A.M., Friday; in pursuance of which order, Sickles immediately started, in three columns, following the ravines to Hamet’s, at the intersection of the Warrenton pike and United-States Ford road.  Here he bivouacked for the night.  At five A.M.  Friday he marched to the ford, and passed it with the head of his column at seven A.M., Birney leading, Whipple and Berry in the rear.  Leaving Mott’s brigade and a battery to protect the trains at the ford, he then pushed on, and reported at Chancellorsville at nine A.M.  Under Hooker’s orders he massed his corps near the junction of the roads to Ely’s and United-States Fords, in the open near Bullock’s, sending a brigade and a battery to Dowdall’s Tavern.

Hooker, meanwhile, had arrived at Chancellorsville, and taken command.  He at once issued this characteristic order:—­

                          Headquartersarmy of the Potomac,
                              camp near Falmouth, Va., April 30, 1863.

General orders, No. 47.

It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences, and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him.

The operations of the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps have been a succession of splendid achievements.

By command of Major-Gen. Hooker. 
S. Williams,
Assistant Adjutant-General.