And this was the theory of Howard. He knew that Hooker had all the information obtained along the entire line, from prisoners and scouts. He naturally concluded, that if there was any reasonable supposition that an attack from the west was intended, Hooker would in some way have notified him. But, far from doing this, Hooker had inspected and approved his position, and had ordered Howard's reserve away. To be sure, early in the morning, Hooker had told him to guard against an attack on the right: but since then circumstances had absolutely changed; Barlow had been taken from him, and he conjectured that the danger of attack had passed. How could he assume otherwise? Had he suspected an attack down the pike, had he received half an hour's warning, he could, and naturally would, assuming the responsibility of a corps commander, have changed front to rear so as to occupy with his corps the line along the east side of the Dowdall's clearing, which he had already intrenched, and where he had his reserve artillery. He did not do so; and it is more easy to say that he was to blame, than to show good cause for the stigma cast upon him for the result of this day. However much Hooker's after-wit may have prompted him to deny it, his despatch of 4.10 P.M., to Sedgwick, shows conclusively that he himself had adopted this theory of a retreat. "We know that the enemy is flying," says he, "trying to save his trains. Two of Sickles's divisions are among them." And it is kinder to Hooker's memory to assume that he did not apprehend a flank attack on this evening. If he did, his neglect of his position was criminal. Let us glance at the map. We know how the Eleventh Corps lay, its reserve removed, with which it might have protected a change of front, should this become necessary, and itself facing southerly. What was on its left, to move up to its support in case of an attack down the pike? Absolutely not a regiment between Dowdall's and Chancellorsville, and near the latter place only one division available. This was Berry's, still luckily massed in the open north of headquarters. And to Sickles's very deliberate movement alone is due the fact that Berry was still there when the attack on Howard burst; for Sickles had bespoken Berry's division in support of his own advance just at this juncture.