May 8, 1863, The New York Herald
The news of General Hooker’s retrograde movement across the Rappahannock without a general battle, and with the enemy en masse in his rear, created throughout this city yesterday a profound sensation of disappointment and despondency. Confident hopes of great victories were changed again to painful anxieties for the safety of the army; for the news of the morning left our forces crossing the swollen river on two narrow pontoon bridges, in broad daylight and in view of the enemy.
We experience no small sense of relief in being able to announce to our readers that the army is safe in its old camp at Falmouth. That it was permitted to recross the river without a determined effort of the enemy to cut it to pieces satisfies us that General Lee was not disposed to risk the experiment; for he has shown from the beginning a remarkable knowledge of every movement of our forces. It is said that General Hooker was in a measure compelled to recross the river, because, with its flooded condition, and the almost impassable roads between it and his depots, he was in danger of being cut off from his supplies of provisions and ammunition.
After the events of the last ten days it is easy to see that General Hooker might have done better. For instance, had he avoided any signs of an advance until General Stoneman had cut the rebel railway communications with Richmond and returned to the army, the reinforcements and supplies to Lee from below might have been cut off until too late to be of any service to him. Or had General Hooker retained the powerful body of Stoneman’s cavalry to guard his flanks, that disastrous rebel flank movement of Friday and Saturday could have easily been prevented. We apprehend, however, that General Hooker greatest mistake was an underestimate of the strength of the rebels, or he surely would not have advanced beyond the river to draw them out without the support of Stoneman’s cavalry. From the moment he touched the south side of the river that formidable body of horsemen would have been invaluable in scouring the country and in keeping General Hooker apprised of every movement of the enemy in season to meet it. As the matters stand, General McClellan needs no other defence against the testimony of General Hooker before the War Committee of Congress than his Rappahannock campaign as compared with that of the Richmond peninsula and that of Maryland.
The responsibility, however, for this unfortunate movement on Richmond, as for every other belongs to the War Office at Washington. Secretary Stanton and General Halleck are the parties to be arraigned as the contrivers of this deplorable failure of General Hooker, with the […..] army on the planet.” Had they permitted General McClellan last fall to go on with his own plans, and had they supported him in his movements, the war in Virginia would have been over months ago. Or had they moved down in season Heintzelman’s reserves from Washington, or brought up to aid in the great struggle upon which the life of the rebellion depended the available forces of Gen. Peck, from Suffolk, and of General Keyes, from Yorktown, General Hooker might have enveloped the rebel army with his superior numbers.
But what might or should have been done is now a matter of small importance, compared with the question what is to be or should now be done. We think the Army of the Potomac should be immediately reinforced, and that it should be advanced again upon the rebel army before it can recover from its losses, or reconstruct its shattered columns. We think that the campaign in this way may yet be made a decisive success, and especially should General Stoneman be informed of the late events on the Rappahannock in season to escape the snares of the enemy with his splendid corps of cavalry. From the facts in our possession, the losses to our army, except in the veteran soldiers who have fallen, may be readily repaired. We look to the President to meet the exigencies of the day. Time is precious. The work required to repair damages and to restore the confidence of the country must be commenced at once; but that this work demands the removal of the present incompetent heads of the War Office must now be manifest to President Lincoln. The whole system upon which the war is conducted need reform, and this reform can only be effected by a complete reorganization of the War Office.