Lincoln Could you not break him?

[frontrank2]

OTD June 14, 1863
At 5:50 p.m., President Lincoln telegraphs commander of the Army of the Potomac Major General Joseph Hooker regarding defensive strategies on Virginia battlefields. Lincoln writes, "So far as we can make out here, the enemy have [General Robert] Milroy surrounded at Winchester, and [General Robert] Tyler at Martinsburg. . . . If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the Plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?"
Abraham Lincoln to Joseph Hooker, 14 June 1863, CW, 6:273.

 

[jackt62]

Striking the weak point of an enemy column may seem a plausible option but Lincoln simplified actual field conditions. He was presumably referring to Ewell's Corps which was advancing along that axis. But without adequate intelligence, it would be impossible to ascertain whether such a weak point in fact existed. And even if it did, the AVN was advancing along separate lines of maneuver, in which Longstreet and Hill's Corps were streaming to the east of Ewell, thereby blocking any attempt to get at Ewell, while presenting its own formidable force to reckon with.