Now, I desire to compare with Hooker's recorded words, and the utterances of Fast Day, the actual performance, and see what "loyalty to Hooker," as voted in Music Hall, means. Chancellorsville bristles with points of criticism, and there are some few points of possible disagreement. Of the latter the principal ones upon which Hooker's formal apologists rely, are the destruction of the Eleventh Corps through Howard's alleged carelessness, and the failure of Sedgwick to perform the herculean task assigned to him in coming to Hooker's support. Allowing, for the moment, that Howard and Sedgwick were entirely at fault, and eliminating these two questions entirely from the issue, let us see what Hooker himself did, bearing in mind that he has officially acknowledged that he knew, substantially, the number of Lee's army, and bearing also in mind that the following are facts which can be disputed only by denying the truth and accuracy of all the reports, Federal and Confederate, taken as a body; and these happen to dovetail into each other in one so consistent whole, that they leave to the careful student none but entirely insignificant items open to doubt. From Saturday at 8 A.M. till Sunday noon, some twenty-eight hours, Hooker with seventy-five thousand, and, after the arrival of the First Corps, nearly ninety thousand men, lay between the separated wings of Lee's army of twenty-four thousand and seventeen thousand men respectively, being all the while cognizant of the facts. Had ever a general a better chance to whip his enemy in detail? And yet we were badly beaten in this fight. Now, if loyalty to Hooker requires us to believe that his conduct of this campaign was even respectable, it follows that the Army of the Potomac, respectably led, could be defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia, two to one. Will the soldiers of the ever-faithful army accept this as an explanation of our defeat? Again: from Sunday noon till Monday at 9 A.M., twenty-one hours, Hooker, with over eighty thousand men, was held in the White House lines by a force of twenty-seven thousand. If loyalty to Hooker requires us to believe that this was even respectable generalship, it follows that the Army of the Potomac, well led, could be defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia, three to one. Shall we accept this as an explanation of our defeat?