"* (* O.R. volume 25 page
268.) The right wing, "if not strongly resisted, was to advance at
all hazards, and secure a position uncovering Banks' Ford."* (* O.R.
volume 25 page 274.) Were the Confederates found in force near
Chancellorsville, it was to select a strong position and await attack
on its own ground, while Sedgwick, coming up from Fredericksburg,
would assail the enemy in flank and rear.
Such was the plan which, if resolutely carried out, bade fair to
crush Lee's army between the upper and the nether millstones, and it
seems that the size and condition of his forces led Hooker to
anticipate an easy victory. If the Army of the Potomac was not "the
finest on the planet," as in an order of the day he boastfully
proclaimed it, it possessed many elements of strength. Hooker was a
strict disciplinarian with a talent for organisation. He had not only
done much to improve the efficiency of his troops, but his vigorous
measures had gone far to restore their confidence. When he succeeded
Burnside a large proportion of the soldiers had lost heart and hope.
The generals who had hitherto commanded them, when compared with Lee
and Jackson, were mere pigmies, and the consciousness that this was
the case had affected the entire army.
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