Wisconsin in the War of the Rebellion, Vol. 1

              350 WISCONSIN IN THB WAR.
theme of conversation. Thus ended an enterprise which had every human promise of success, hut which has been baulked and brought to naught by causes which mortal ken could neither have foreseen nor prevented."
On Monday, the 26th, General Burnside, failing to receive cooperation from some of his leading officers, surrendered the command of the army to General Hooker. The Presi¬ dent accepted his resignation of the position which he had held only by order of the President, and flot by his own desire, and conferring the command on General Hooker, that officer, in assuming the post, issued a hopeful address.
February 2d, the Fifth Wisconsin was assigned to the " Light Division," organized under General Pratt, which com¬ prised five regiments and one battery of picked troops, and was intended to act independently in making reoonnoissances and forced marches, without the encumbrance of baggage trains. Ammunition and rations were to be carried exclusively on pack mules, of which two hundred and fifty were furnished the division. The regiments associated with the Fifth were the Sixth Maine, Colonel Burnham; the Thirty-first New York, Colonel Frank Jones; the Forty-third New York, Col¬ onel Baker; the Sixty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel Spear; and the Third New York Light Battery, Captain Harns.
After this organization was formed, the troops lay in their winter quarters for nearly three months, with only an occa¬ sional review by the President, General Hooker, and others, to relieve the monotony of camp life.
BATTLE   OF   CHANCELLORVILLE.
On the 28th of April, the whole army was again in motion for another campaign on the south side of the Rappahannock. The Confederate army in that locality numbered about 70,000, and the Federal 120,000. The latter was divided into seven corps. General Hooker's plan — a well-kept secret then — was, to send three corps across the river below Fredericks¬ burg, and make a feint attack with the whole, and then imme¬ diately withdraw two corps, and, uniting them with the other four corps, cross the Rappahannock from ten to twenty miles above the city, and bearing down on the enemy's left and rear,
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