Sickles's orders were to advance cautiously. This was Hooker's doing. Hence exception cannot fairly be taken to either Birney's or Sickles's conduct for lack of energy. But the latter must have singularly underrated Jackson's methods, if he thought he could strike him at a given point, so many hours after his passage. For Jackson was first observed near the Furnace about eight A.M., and Sickles was just getting ready to attack him in this same place at six P.M. The errors of judgment on this entire day can scarcely be attributed to any one but the general commanding. He was the one to whom all reports were sent. He had knowledge of every thing transpiring. He it was who was responsible for some sensible interpretation of the information brought him, and for corresponding action in the premises. So much for Sickles's advance. It could not well have been more ill-timed and useless. But his gallant work of the coming night and morrow, when Hooker left him almost alone to resist the fierce assaults of our victorious and elated foe, was ample compensation for his subordinate share in the triviality and fatal issue of Saturday's manoeuvring. Nor can blame fall upon him in as full measure as upon Hooker; although he seems illy to have construed what was transpiring in his front, and what he reported may have seriously misled his chief. Perhaps no officers, during our Civil War, were placed in a more lamentably awkward position than Devens, and in a less degree Schurz, on this occasion. Having been fully convinced by the events of the afternoon that an attack down the pike was highly probable, having carefully reported all these events to his immediate commander, Devens was left without inspection, counsel, or help. He might have gone in person to Howard, but he did not dare leave his division. He might have sent messages which more urgently represented his own anxiety. But when the blow came, he did all that was possible, and remained, wounded, in command, and assisted in re-organizing some relics of his division behind the Buschbeck works. Schurz was with Howard a good part of the day, and his opinions were expressed to that officer. To Schurz's personal bearing here, or on any other occasion, no possible exception can be taken. XVII. THE CONDUCT OF THE ELEVENTH CORPS. There can be no attempt to gainsay that the Eleventh Corps, on this luckless Saturday, did not do its whole duty. That it was panic-stricken, and that it decamped from a field where as a corps it had not fought, is undeniable. But portions of the corps did fight, and the entire corps would doubtless have fought well under favorable circumstances. It is but fair, after casting upon the corps the aspersion of flight from before the enemy, to do it what justice is possible, and to palliate the bad conduct of the whole by bearing testimony to the good conduct of some of its parts.