An attack of Lee's position in front, even had Burnside's experience
not demonstrated its folly, seemed to promise great loss of life without
corresponding success.
To turn his right flank required the moving of pontoon trains and
artillery over the worst of roads for at least twenty miles, through a
country cut up by a multitude of streams running across the route to
be taken, and emptying into either the Potomac or Rappahannock; all
requiring more or less bridging.
Lee's spy system was excellent. It has been claimed in Southern reports,
that his staff had deciphered our signal code by watching a station at
Stafford. And Butterfield admits this in one of his despatches of May
3. He would speedily ascertain any such movement, and could create
formidable intrenchments on one side the river, as fast as we could
build or repair roads on which to move down, upon the other. Moreover,
there was a thousand feet of stream to bridge at the first available
place below Skenker's Neck.
There remained nothing to do but to turn Lee's left flank; and this
could only be accomplished by stratagem, for Lee had strengthened every
part of the river by which Hooker could attempt a passage.
But this problem was, despite its difficulties, still possible of
solution; and Hooker set himself to work to elucidate it.
So soon as he had matured his plan, which he elaborated with the
greatest care, but kept perfectly secret from every one until the
movements themselves developed it, although making use of the knowledge
and skill of all his generals both before and during its initiation,
he speedily prepared for its vigorous execution. In May, the term of
service of some twenty-two thousand nine-months and two-years men would
expire. These men he must seek to utilize in the campaign.
The first intimation of a forward movement received by the army at
large, apart from the Cavalry Corps, had been a circular of April 13,
notifying commanding officers to have their troops supplied with eight
days' rations, and a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, sixty to be
carried by the soldiers, and the balance on the pack-mules.
After the battle of Fredericksburg, the army had returned to
substantially the same positions and quarters occupied before; and here
the men had housed themselves for the winter. The Mud March had
broken up these cantonments; but after a few days' absence the several
regiments returned to their old camps, and the same huts had generally
been re-occupied by the same men. But when Fighting Joe Hooker's orders
to march were issued, no one dreamed of any thing but victory; and the
Army of the Potomac burned its ships. Nothing was left standing but the
mud walls from which the shelter-tent roofs had been stripped, and an
occasional chimney. Many of the men (though contrary to orders) set fire
to what was left, and the animus non revertendi was as universal as
the full confidence that now there lay before the Army of the Potomac a
certain road, whatever might bar the path, to the long-wished-for goal
of Richmond.