President Lincoln received the news badly of Hooker's retreat and the recent defeat of the union army at Chancellorsville. This had followed on the heels of the defeat at Fredericksburg.
Lincoln's friend, Noah Brooks, who was with the president when the telegram arrived said he had never seen Mr. Lincoln was "so broken, so dispirited, and so ghostlike."
The president paced the room at the telegraph office, Brooks reported, saying "My God. My God. What will the country say!"
Mr. Lincoln corresponded with General Hooker saying "the recent movement of your army is ended without effecting its object...what next? have you already in your mind a plan wholly or partially formed? If you have, prosecute it without interference from me. If you have not, please inform me, so that I, incompetent as I may be, can try to assist in the formation of some plan for the army."
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