his victory at Lookout Mountain, that "the bayonet-charge of Howard's
troops, made up the side of a steep and difficult hill, over two hundred
feet high, completely routing and driving the enemy from his barricades
on its top, . . . will rank with the most distinguished feats of arms of
this war." And it is asserted that this encomium was well earned,
and that no portion of it need be set down to encouragement.

In their evidence before the Committee on the Conduct of the War,
Hooker and Sickles both testify that the panic of the Eleventh Corps
produced a gap in the line, and that this was the main cause of disaster
on this field. But the fatal gap was made long before the Eleventh
Corps was attacked. It was Hooker's giddy blunder in ordering away,
two miles in their front, the entire line from Dowdall's to
Chancellorsville, that made it.

This was the gap which enabled Jackson to push his advance to within a
few hundred yards of Chancellorsville before he could be arrested.
This was what made it possible for him to join his right to Lee's left
wing next day. Had Hooker but kept his troops in hand, so as to have
moved up Birney sharply in support, to have thrown forward Berry and
Whipple if required, the Confederate advance would, in all human
probability, have been checked at Dowdall's; Lee and Jackson would still
have been separated by a distance of two miles; and of this perilous
division excellent advantage could have yet been taken at daylight
Sunday by the Army of the Potomac.

Hooker's testimony includes the following attempt to disembarrass
himself of the onus of the faulty position of the Eleventh Corps and its
consequences: "No pickets appear to have been thrown out; and I have
reason to suppose that no effort was made by the commander of the corps