In order to cooeperate in this, the main attack, Ewell was ordered at the same time to assail the Federal right toward Gettysburg, and Hill directed to threaten their centre, and, if there were an opening, make a real attack. Telegraph road southward, and General Sedgwick promptly advanced up the turnpike leading from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, to assail General Lee. The great force of one hundred and fifty thousand men was about to make the decisive assault, when Lee attacked it, and the battle which ensued drove the Federal army to a point thirty miles from the city, with such loss as to render hopeless any further attempt to assail the capital.Īs it was, General Hooker seemed to have won the prize in the race, and Lee would, apparently, be forced to assail him on his strong ground, or retire in the direction of Richmond. South of the river the land is low, but from the depth of the channel forms a line of bluffs, affording good shelter to troops after crossing to assail a force beyond. General McClellan held them, as he proposed to do, by strong detachments, he would be able both to protect his own communications with the Potomac, and, if he thought fit to do so, enter the Valley and assail the Confederate rear. Ignorant, doubtless, of the extremely small force which had thus repulsed General Burnside, in all four thousand five hundred men, he feared that General Lee would cross the bridge, assail his left, and that the hard-fought day might end in disaster to his own army. Williamsburg and Charles City roads, and intercept him, or assail his flanks. He called persistently for reinforcements, remaining inactive meanwhile, because he estimated the Confederate army before him at two hundred thousand men, and was unwilling to assail this force, under command of soldiers like Johnston and Lee, until his own force seemed adequate to the undertaking.
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