Hooker Lost Confidence, and Nearly Civil War

“He sat in the full realization of all that soldiers dream of—triumph; and as I looked upon him in the complete fruition of the success which his genius, courage, and confidence in his army had won, 1 thought that it must have been from such a scene that men in ancient times rose to the dignity of gods.”

What a concept. Magnificent, isn’t it? Artillery blasts are shaking the earth as masses of smoke- and powder-blackened Confederates fire at the fleeing enemy, and Robert E. Lee, on Traveller, rides into the clearing where the Chancellorsville mansion flames. An immediate common impulse possesses his men, and one long, great cheer rises unbroken over the roar of battle. Even the wounded on the ground shout. What Lee’s biographer Douglas Southall Freeman will call the supreme moment of his subject’s life has arrived. Looking on is Lee’s aide Col. Charles Marshall, who decades in the future will suggest to his young relative George C. Marshall that he try for Virginia Military Institute and an officer’s life.

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