The old battle-ground of Dec. 13 was occupied by the First Corps; while
Jackson with his Second Corps held Hamilton's Crossing, and extended his
lines down to Port Royal. Stuart's cavalry division prolonged the left
to Beverly Ford on the upper Rappahannock, and scoured the country as
far as the Pamunkey region. Hampton's brigade of cavalry had been sent
to the rear to recruit, and Fitz Lee's had taken its place at Culpeper,
from which point it extended so as to touch Lee's left flank at Banks's
Ford. The brigade of W. H. F. Lee was on the Confederate right. Stuart
retained command of the entire force, but had his headquarters at
Culpeper.
The supplies of the army were received by the Fredericksburg and
Richmond Railroad from the capital, and from the depots on the Virginia
Central. Lee had been assiduous in re-organizing his forces, in
collecting an abundance of supplies, in checking desertions, and in
procuring re-enforcements. And the vigor with which the conscription was
pushed swelled his strength so materially that in three months Jackson's
corps alone shows an increase from a force of twenty-five thousand up to
thirty-three thousand men "for duty." The staff of the army was created
a separate organization. The cavalry had already been successfully
consolidated. And now the artillery was embodied in a special
organization under Gen. Pendleton, and an engineer regiment put on foot.
The morale of the Army of Northern Virginia could not be finer. The
forced retreat of McClellan from before Richmond; the driving of Pope
from his vaunted positions in its front; the Maryland campaign with its
deliberate withdrawal from an army of twice its strength; finally the
bloody check to Burnside,--had furnished a succession of triumphs which
would lend any troops self-confidence and high courage. But, in addition
to all this, the average of the men of this army were older and more
hardened soldiers than those of the Army of the Potomac. The early
conscription acts of the Confederacy had made it difficult for men once
inured to the steady bearing and rough life of the soldier, and to the
hard fare of camp-life, to withdraw from the ranks.
In Hooker's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War
occurs this tribute to the Confederate infantry: "Our artillery had
always been superior to that of the rebels, as was also our infantry,
except in discipline; and that, for reasons not necessary to mention,
never did equal Lee's army. With a rank and file vastly inferior to our
own, intellectually and physically, that army has, by discipline alone,
acquired a character for steadiness and efficiency, unsurpassed, in my
judgment, in ancient or modern times. We have not been able to rival
it, nor has there been any near approximation to it in the other rebel
armies."
The cavalry force was small, but energetic and enterprising to a degree
as yet by no means equalled by our own. The artillery was neither as
good, nor as well equipped or served, as ours, but was commanded with
intelligence, and able to give a good account of itself.