THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 58 The want of a General Staff was not less severely felt in obtuning and transmitting the information necessary at the moment of an impending action. , No one knew the country ; the maps were so defective that they were useless. Little was known about the fortified battle-field on which the army was about to be engaged. Yet this battle-field had been seen and reconnoitred the day before by the troops which had taken part in Stoneman’s skirmish. Enough was surely known of it.for us to combine a plan of attack and assign to every commander his own part in the work. No, this was not so. Every one kept his observations to himself, nr*- from i’lu ill, but because it was nobody’s special duty to elo ‘his general work. It was a defect in the organization, and with the best e'emei.ts in the world an army which is not organized cannot expect great success. It is fortunate if it escape great disaster. Thanks to this constitutional defect of the federal armies, Hooker’s division which led the column on the left hand roac and had received, the day before, a general order to march upon Williamsburg, came out on the morning of the 5th upon the scene of Stoneman’s cavalry fight without the least knowledge of what it was to meet there. Received as soon as it appeared with a steady fire from the hostile works, it deployed resolutely in the abattis and went into action. But it came up little by little and alone, whilst the defence was carried on by from 15 to 20,000 men strongly entrenched. The odds were too great. Hooker, who is an admirable soldier, held his own for some time, but he had to give way and fall back, leaving in the woods and in these terrible abattis some two thousand of his men killed and wounded, with several of his guns which he eould not bring off. The enemy followed him as he fell back. The division of General Kearney having passed the crowded road, and marching upon the guns at the pas de course, reestablished the battle. The fight had now rolled from the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=