wick, and rode down himself and examined the lines all the way to the river, but found no place where he could do so. Returning at night, he found Jackson, and asked him if he knew of any place to attack. Jackson said, "No." Lee said, "Then we must get around on the Federal right." Jackson said he had been inquiring about roads by the furnace. Stuart came up then, and said he would go down to the furnace and see what he could learn about roads. He soon returned with Rev. Dr. B. T. Lacy, who said "a circuit could be made around by Wilderness tavern"; and a young man living in the county, and then in the cavalry, was sent for to act as guide.
Ah! what an earnest talk Lee and Jackson had on the night of May the 1st. At sunset they took their seats on a log on the right or north side of the Plank road, and a little distance in the woods. Colonel Marshall, the well-known aide-de-camp of General Lee, was the only other person present, having been ordered to come to the spot for the purpose of writing a letter to Mr. Davis, dictated by General Lee. Marshall sat on the end of a fallen tree, within three feet of the two Generals, and heard every word that passed between them, and this is what he tells me Lee and Jackson talked about on that eventful night: "Jackson spoke to General Lee about what he had seen and heard during the advance, and commented upon the promptness with which the enemy had appeared to abandon his movement towards Fredericksburg when opposed, and the ease with which he had been driven back to Chancellorsville, and concluded by expressing the opinion very decidedly, and repeating it more than once, that the enemy would recross the Rappahannock before morning. He said, in substance, 'By to-morrow morning there will not be any of them this side of the river.' General Lee expressed the hope that General Jackson's expectations might be realized, but said 'he did not look for such a result; that he did not believe the enemy would abandon his attempt so easily,' and expressed his conviction that the main body of General Hooker's army was in his front, and that the real move was to be made from this direction, and not from Fredericksburg. On this point there was a great difference of opinion among our higher officers, and General Lee was the only one who seemed to have the absolute conviction that the real movement of the Federal army was the one he was then meeting. In this belief he never wavered from the first. After telling General Jackson that he hoped his opinion might be proved to be correct, General Lee
