Early on Monday morning the Confederates succeeded in reoccupying the Fredericksburg Heights in Sedgwick's rear, which left him, in case of defeat, with no course open to him except to retreat across the river and give up the contest. To compel this the Confederates, falling upon him at six o'clock in the evening, pressed him at every point while Hooker, with the main body of the Federal army, lay quite inert in rear of Chancellorsville. Soon after nightfall Sedgwick crossed the river, leaving the Confederates in full possession of the Fredericksburg Heights and of all the region east of the fords upon which Hooker depended for retreat in case of necessity. Lee next set about the task of compelling that retreat. With full confidence in the willingness and the abundant ability of his men to respond to any demand he might make upon them for activity, he quickly ordered the reinforcements with which he had strengthened his right wing for the day's work, to return, and with the bulk of his force thus reunited, after having disposed of Sedgwick he was ready to fall upon Hooker. During these operations against Sedgwick Lee's army had been for the second time divided. A great part of it had been sent half a dozen miles or more away to force Sedgwick back to the river and across it. In the meanwhile Lee, with a mere fragment of his force, had lain in front of Hooker. Why Hooker did not fall upon him and destroy him with the eighty thousand men whom he could easily have brought to bear against less than twenty thousand, is a question that can be answered only by the reminder that Hooker was not equal to the task of successfully handling the marvelous fighting machine which the North had so successfully created. Great as he was as a fighter under some other and abler man's direction, Hooker in command of 120,000 men seems to have been paralyzed by the magnitude of his task. He left it to Lee, with his greatly smaller force to determine when and where the fighting should be done. He lay still and let Lee alone while the greater part of Lee's army was detached upon the mission of driving Sedgwick across the river and recapturing the heights at Fredericksburg. He lay still while Lee was bringing back the troops thus detached and putting himself in readiness to strike that final blow that should break the Federal lines, drive them back across the river, and make an inglorious end of Hooker's superbly planned but phenomenally ill-executed campaign.