The North, always ready, was sending forward fresh troops, and when he crossed the Rappahannock, as he intended to do, he would have more men and more guns than Burnside had led when he attacked the blazing heights of Fredericksburg.

Lincoln and Stanton, warned too by the great disasters through their attempts to manage armies in the field from the Capitol, were giving Hooker a freer hand.
On the other hand, the Confederate president and his cabinet suddenly curtailed Lee's plans.

A fourth of his veterans under Longstreet were drawn off to meet a flank attack of other Northern forces which seemed to be threatened upon Richmond.

Lee was left with only sixty thousand men to face Hooker's growing odds.
It was not any wonder that the spirits of the Southern lads sank somewhat.

Harry realized more fully every day that it was not sufficient for them merely to defeat the Northern armies.