of Hooker. This, however, did not long mystify that general, who reported the enemy's intentions to the President, and asked whether he might not venture to attack the Southern army while thus weakened, or even try a dash at Richmond. Mr Lincoln, however, disapproved both ideas. An attack on the Fredericksburg entrenchments, he reminded Hooker, would necessarily be at a great disadvantage; and he added: "In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." To the suggestion about Richmond he replied: "If left to me, I would not go south of the Rappahannock upon Lee's moving north of it. If you had Richmond invested to-day, you would not be able to take it in twenty days I think Lee's army, and not Richmond, is your true objective point."
In the new campaign which General Lee was beginning, Hooker for several weeks manifested all his former skill and energy, and successfully interposed the Union army between Washington and the Confederate forces moving northward along the Blue Ridge. But, like Burnside, he now began to experience a want of harmony in his military councils, the most serious part of which was his own suspicion that Halleck was unfriendly to him. Their disagreement gradually increased, though the President made every effort to reconcile their estrangement. Just when both armies had crossed the Potomac in their northward movement this irritation reached its crisis, and Hooker asked to be relieved from command. While a change of commanders at such a juncture was extremely hazardous, the President realised that discordant directions or a lack of zealous co-operation would be yet more dangerous. Accordingly, he relieved Hooker and appointed Major-General George G. Meade to succeed him.
Meade was a West Point graduate, had won distinction in the Mexican War, and from the grade of Captain of Engineers entered the Civil War as Brigadier-General of Volunteers. His service had been continuous in the Army of the Potomac, and he was at the head of the Fifth Corps when called to the chief command. Though he had been Hooker's chief critic, the latter complimented him in general orders, a courtesy which Meade heartily returned; and the change produced nothing more than a ripple of comment and not an instant's hesitation or derangement in the march.
During the earlier part of Lee's march from Fredericksburg to the Potomac near Harper's Ferry, as well as Hooker's pursuit, the movements of both armies were masked by cavalry; and, in spite of numerous skirmishes, it was not until the enemy's vanguard had crossed the
river that a serious invasion of the North became evident. The discovery, of course, created intense alarm in Maryland and Pennsylvania; and President Lincoln immediately issued, as a prudential measure, a
