[310] and to this relative increase of Lee's army was now added a positive increase by a large force of conscripts, and a more important re-enforcement by the two divisions of Longstreet's corps, which, having been operating south of James River at the time of the battle of Chancellorsville, were immediately thereafter recalled to take part in the meditated movement. If Hooker's force of infantry was at this time reduced, as he de dares, to an effective of eighty thousand men,1 there was now less disproportion between the two armies than generally obtained, for at the end of May, Lee's force had reached an aggregate of sixty-eight thousand infantry and a considerable body of cavalry.2 The Confederate army had, moreover, been lately mobilized and increased in efficiency by its reorganization into three corps d'armee, under Generals Longstreet, Hill, and Ewell—three able, energetic, and trusted lieutenants. In respect of transportation, equipment, and clothing, though not in respect of supplies, the Southern force in Virginia was in better condition than at any previous time. And if its commissariat was deficient, the rich granaries of the North lay open—the inviting spoils of a successful blow.3
