The absence of information.
2. The fact that the whole movement had been observed by the
Confederate cavalry.
Pleasonton's brigade of horse had proved too weak for the duty
assigned to it. It had been able to protect the front, but it was too
small to cover the flanks; and at the flanks Stuart had persistently
struck. Hooker appears to have believed that Stoneman's advance
against the Central Railroad would draw off the whole of the
Confederate horse. Stuart, however, was not to be beguiled from his
proper functions. Never were his squadrons more skilfully handled
than in this campaign. With fine tactical insight, as soon as the
great movement on Chancellorsville became pronounced, he had attacked
the right flank of the Federal columns with Fitzhugh Lee's brigade,
leaving only the two regiments under W.H.F. Lee to watch Stoneman's
10,000 sabres. Then, having obtained the information he required, he
moved across the Federal front, and routing one of Pleasonton's
regiments in a night affair near Spotsylvania Court House, he had
regained touch with his own army. The results of his manoeuvres were
of the utmost importance. Lee was fully informed as to his
adversary's strength; the Confederate cavalry was in superior
strength at the critical point, that is, along the front of the two
armies; and Hooker had no knowledge whatever of what was going on in
the space between Sedgwick and himself.
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