[114] Full of confidence in their own strength and the ability of their leaders, their only regret was that so many companions-in-arms were left behind them, dead or wounded, who could not share in their triumph. Among all these victims there was one whose loss was an irreparable calamity to the Confederate army. On the morning of the 4th of May, Lee, writing to Jackson, said, ‘It would have been better that I had been wounded instead of you.’ Lee was undoubtedly too modest, for no one could have succeeded him in the command without detriment to the army; but he was also well aware that no one could take Jackson's place under him. Unfortunately for the Confederates, this place was henceforth to remain vacant, for he never again appeared at the head of his soldiers.
Soon after he had reached the hospital at Wilderness Tavern his arm was amputated. Notwithstanding his exhausted condition, the operation had proved successful. On the 4th he was carried to Guiney's Station, between Fredericksburg and Richmond, where he received every careful attention and many comforts which it would have been impossible to have obtained in the vicinity of a battlefield. But, after having apparently recovered some strength, he was attacked with inflammation of the chest, caused either by a former cold or by the applications of cold water which he constantly asked for, or more probably by the effects of his fall. His constitution, shaken by wounds, and weakened, above all, by the hemorrhage, could not withstand the inroads of this illness: on the 10th of May he passed away like a soldier and a Christian, breathing the names of his brave lieutenants in his last humble prayers.
He died in the zenith of his fame, after having seen his most brilliant operation secure a splendid victory to the Army of Northern Virginia, and, unfortunately for that army, the last victory it was destined to achieve in an open country. The battle of Chancellorsville is probably the most interesting to study of all those that were fought in Virginia, for the two adversaries depended upon complicated and boldly-conceived manoeuvres for success. The Confederates prevailed over their enemies by reason of the greater mobility of their troops, the energy they displayed in the attack, the far-sightedness and
