At noon of the 6th, he assembled his entire command at Orange Springs;
thence marched to Raccoon Ford, and crossed on the 7th.
On the 8th, the command crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's, having to
swim about twenty yards.
Leaving Buford to guard the river from the railroad to Falmouth, he then
returned to camp.
During the latter part of the time occupied by these movements, the
roads had been in very bad order from the heavy rains of the 5th.
Hotchkiss and Allen say, with reference to this raid: "This failure is
the more surprising from the fact that Gen. Lee had but two regiments of
cavalry, those under W. H. Fitz Lee, to oppose to the large force under
Stoneman, consisting of ten or eleven thousand men. The whole country
in rear of the Confederate Army, up to the very fortifications of
Richmond, was open to the invader. Nearly all the transportation of
that army was collected at Guineas depot, eighteen miles from
Chancellorsville, with little or no guard, and might have been destroyed
by one-fourth of Stoneman's force."
And further:--
"Such was the condition of the railroads and the scarcity of supplies in
the country, that the Confederate commander could never accumulate more
than a few days' rations ahead at Fredericksburg.
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