HOOKER’S COMMENTS ON CHANCELLORSVILLE.

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your profession, in wliicli you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable,not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, doesj’°°d rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside’s command of the army youave taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did^ great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I haveea rd, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Gov-e rnnient needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have giveny°u the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now* °£ you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will supportyen to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do forcommanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of^ticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you.

shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon , if he were alive^gairq could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now bewarerashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward, and giveas victories.”

The caution against rashness may have been suggested to the mind of Mr.Dicoln by the epithet of “Fighting Joe Hooker,” which the general never!| eai 'd without expressing his deep regret that it was ever applied to him.People will think I am a highwayman or a bandit,” he said; when in fact6 Was one of the most kindly and tender-hearted of men.

We were accompanied on our ride to the Chancellorsville field, some ten orWelve miles above Fredericksburg , by Major George E. Chancellor, a son of^elzi Chancellor, whose home at the time of the battle Avas at Dowdall’sa vern, where General Howard had his headquarters. On setting out, General°°ker suggested that we should take some lunch along with us, as, when he^ as there last there was very little to eat in all that region. Major Chancellor°Ught it unnecessary, and, in fact, we Avere feasted most sumptuously at hisother’s house.

Pp°n our arrival at the broad, open, rolling fields opposite Banks’s Ford ,j^ lrie three or four miles up the stream, General Hooker exclaimed, AAUtvingls band significantly: “ Here, on this open ground, I intended to fight my^le. But the trouble was to get my army on it, as the banks of the stream% as you see, rugged and precipitous, and the feAV fords Avere strongly for-fr < f au< ^ g uai 'ded by the enemy. By making a poAverful demonstration in°Bt of and below the town of Fredericksburg Avitlr a part of my army, I8 able, unobserved, to witlidraAV the remainder, and, marching nearly thirtyes Up the stream, to cross the Rappahannock and the Rapidan unopposed,u m four days’ time to arrive at Chancellorsville, within five miles of thisj . (i b'd ground, &—and all this Avithout General Lee having discovered thata d left my position in his front. So far, I regarded my movement as a

Wev ^ 16 aemoustr atious began on April 21st, andU® at intervals at Kelly’s Ford , Rappahan-bridge, and Port Royal. The movement ofthe W le k below the town was disclosed to Lee oncj 0s .' a ’ 1 , when the pontoons were laid and theplace at the point whore Franklin’shook laiia Division crossed in December, 1802.er ’ s flanking column, consisting of the Fifth,6 ”th, and Twelfth corps and two divisions ofV °L. m. 15

the Second Corps, crossed the Rappahannock atKelly’s Ford on the 28th and 29th by pontoon-bridges, and passed the Rapidan by fording andby means of pontoons, arriving at Chancellors-ville on the 30th. The Third Corps, after takingpart in the demonstrations before Fredericksburg ,crossed the Rappahannock at United States Ford and reached Chancellorsville on May 1st, and wasfollowed by the First Corps on the 2d.— Editors.