All their artillery to move with
these two divisions, and to be ready to cover a forced crossing.
The division whose camps at Falmouth were most easily seen by the enemy
from across the river (it happened to be Gibbon's) to be left in camp to
do picket and provost duty. The Third Corps would be available in case
the enemy himself attempted a crossing. Gibbon to be ready to join the
command at any time.
On Thursday, as soon as Anderson withdrew Mahone's and Posey's brigades
from United-States Ford, which he did when Meade's crossing at Ely's had
flanked that position, Couch, whose bridge was all ready to throw,
was ordered to cross, and march in support towards the heaviest firing.
This he did, with French and Hancock, and reached Chancellorsville the
same evening.
Swinton, rather grandiloquently, says, "To have marched a column of
fifty thousand men, laden with sixty pounds of baggage and encumbered
with artillery and trains, thirty-seven miles in two days; to have
bridged and crossed two streams, guarded by a vigilant enemy, with the
loss of half a dozen men, one wagon, and two mules,--is an achievement
which has few parallels, and which well deserves to rank with Prince
Eugene's famous passage of the Adige.
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