In March, Longstreet's men primarily conducted foraging expeditions in Virginia and North Carolina. Longstreet sent Richard B. Garnett's brigade to D.H. Hill to participate in Hill's attempt to capture New Bern, a town on the North Carolina coast which had fallen to the Union in March 1862. The campaign was unsuccessful but netted a considerable amount of supplies. In April, Longstreet besieged Union forces in the city of Suffolk, Virginia. Fighting was light and nothing came of the siege. At the end of April, Longstreet was ordered by Secretary of War James Seddon to join Lee's army as it faced attack from the Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Hooker, at the Battle of Chancellorsville. He moved his divisions north but could not reach the battle in time. Longstreet's foraging operations yielded enough food to feed Lee's entire army for two months. However, no further military objective was reached, and the operation caused Longstreet and 15,000 men of the First Corps to be absent from Chancellorsville. Eventually, Longstreet came under criticism from rivals and political enemies claiming that he could have marched his men back from Suffolk in time to join Lee.