"
I doubt if the great commander shared the general agitation. I think he
aimed to draw Hooker out of Virginia, leaving the rest to Providence.
So he moved toward the Potomac.
The world had called Lee cautious. After this invasion, that charge was
not repeated. From first to last audacity seemed the sentiment
inspiring him.
With Hooker on the Rappahannock, threatening Richmond, Lee thrust his
advance force under Ewell through the Blue Ridge toward Maryland;
pushed Longstreet up to Culpeper to support him, and kept only A.P.
Hill at Fredericksburg to bar the road to the Confederate capital.
Hooker wished to advance upon it, but President Lincoln forbade him.
The dispatch was a queer official document.
"In case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock," Lincoln
wrote, "I would by no means cross to the south of it. I would not take
any risk of being entangled upon the river, _like an ox jumped half
over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a
fair chance to gore one way or kick the other._"
Ludicrous perhaps, but to the point; the "Rail-Splitter" was not always
dignified, but often judicious. Chancellorsville had been defeat--Lee's
assault, foreboded thus by Lincoln, would be death.
Hooker fell back, therefore, in the direction of Washington.
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