[27] works and his line of retreat if he marched upon Chancellorsville; the movements of the right wing were those intended to effect a junction of the two sections of the army on the plateau situated between Banks' Ford and Marye's Heights.
In thus dividing his forces into two parts destined to fight and to manoeuvre out of reach of each other, although operating in the same direction, Hooker evidently ran the risk of the enemy concentrating all his efforts upon either one or the other, and especially upon the right wing, which had assumed the offensive. It was important, therefore, to clear the movements of this wing in the distance, so that it might know how far to advance without exposing itself too much, and that by signalling the approach of the enemy in time the general-in-chief might cause a diversion to be made by the rest of the army. In short, the whole of this wing should have been surrounded with a curtain of skirmishers which would have concealed its manoeuvres and left Lee in a state of uncertainty as to what direction it might take. The three fine cavalry divisions under Stoneman would not have been too much to accomplish this task. Hooker, as we have stated, had assigned them quite another role, and made them undertake an expedition which would have been very useful as a diversion at any other time, but which could have no influence over the results of the struggle of which the shores of the Rappahannock were to be the scene. It will be seen that Stoneman aggravated the blunder of his chief by giving to his operations the character of a guerrilla expedition, and by scattering his forces, instead of concentrating them in order to destroy the communications of the enemy. The instructions which Hooker had forwarded to him on the 12th of April, which were confirmed and completed on the 28th at the moment when the right wing was about to cross the Rappahannock, directed him to cross that river with all his corps above Kelly's Ford on the same day; to fight Fitzhugh Lee's brigade if he should meet it, this being the only cavalry force that the enemy could oppose to him on that side; to follow the railway known as the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from Culpeper Court-house as far as the important junction of Gordonsville, destroying it as he went along; then to take the line called the Virginia Central Railroad, and to proceed south-eastward toward
