The Federal general attributed the loss of that battle in a great degree to Stoneman's failure to carry out the spirit of his orders. In a letter to the author, long after that field of carnage had bloomed and blossomed with the flowers and fruits of Peace, when the heart-burning and fever engendered by the contest had subsided, and it was possible to obtain access to men's judgments, General Hooker wrote: "Soon after Stonewall Jackson started to turn my right (a project of which I was informed by a prisoner), I despatched a courier to my right corps commander informing him of the intended movement, and instructing him to put himself in readiness to receive the attack. This dispatch was dated at nine o'clock A. M., and yet, when 'Stonewall' did attack, the men of this corps had their arms stacked some distance from them, and were busily engaged in cooking their supper. When the attack came these men ran like a flock of sheep. _This_, in a wooded country, where a _corps_ ought to be able to check the advance of a large army. To make this more clear, I must tell you that the corps commander, General Howard, received the dispatch while on his bed, and, after reading it, put it in his pocket, where it remained until after the battle of Gettysburg, without communicating its contents to his division commander, or to any one!!! My opinion is that not a gun of ours was fired upon Stonewall Jackson's force until he had passed nearly into the centre of my army. Judge, if you can, of the consternation throughout that army caused by this exhibition of negligence and cowardice. One word more, in regard to the cavalry. I had to have, under the seniority rule of the service, a wooden man for its commander. If you will turn to the first volume of the Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, you will find my instructions to General Stoneman, and then you will see the mistake that I made in informing him of the strength and position of the enemy he would be likely to encounter on his raid, as that officer only made use of the information to avoid the foe. He traveled at night, made extensive detours, and did not interrupt the traffic on the railroads between Lee's army and Richmond for a single day. As he was charged to make this duty his especial object of accomplishment over all others, he had twelve thousand sabres, double the force the enemy could collect from all quarters. I had men enough with me to have won Chancelorsville without the cavalry and other corps, but of what use could a field of battle have been to me when the enemy could fall back a few miles and post himself on a field possessing still greater advantages to him? General Grant did this, and is entitled to all the merit of his soldiership from a grateful country. I believe if he had sacrificed every officer and soldier of his command in the attainment of this object, the country would have applauded him. When I crossed the