Page 11

(Chancellorsville)

Chancellorsville

Burnside's days were numbered after the debacle of the Mud March.  On January 25, 1863 'Fighting Joe' Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac.  It made life for the men better, which paid off with decreasing sickness and desertion.  He altered strategy little at first.  However, there were shakeups of command lower down, with changes in Corps and divisions.

Hooker plotted what to do, and eventually settled on an improved version of Burnside's strategy.  He would split his army in two - even so, each part would be larger than Lee's force, with Longstreet detached on the Southside Campaign.  One part, under Sedgwick, would remain at Fredericksburg to threaten a frontal assault and pin the Rebels.  The other would swing around through the eastern edge of the Wilderness and get on Lee's flank.  Unfortunately, Hooker was vague on what he would do once there - he could move and trap Lee between the two halves, he could make further detachments that would move on Richmond, or he could wait for Lee to recognize that his position was untenable and retreat.

While Hooker added men and perfected his preparations things were not entirely quiet.  There were cavalry actions like KELLY'S FORD with little advantage to either side.  It was already progress for the North that Stuart wasn't whipping them - Union cavalry had come a long way.  Hooker built this into his plans, and he formed all his cavalry into a separate Corps under George Stoneman, to operate independently and (he hoped) have strategic impact.

Hooker started the turning movement on April 29.  'May God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none' he declared.  Stoneman took the cavalry across Kelly's Ford, and Hooker followed with three infantry corps.  Stoneman fanned the Corps out into three divisions, none of which achieved anything noteworthy.  (The eastern armies had not raised destruction to the pitch that Sherman would in the west.)  The main effect was to deprive Hooker of cavalry reconnaissance at a time when he would want it - during battle.

Hooker had Lee in a vice, but didn't do much.  He had three corps around CHANCELLORSVILLE, but halted them when they met a bit of Confederate resistance.  He didn't attack hard from east or west, but let Lee use small forces to hold in both areas - and use his largest contingent, most of Jackson's Corps to swing around the Union west flank.  If Hooker's cavalry had been present they would have found what Jackson was doing, or at least absorbed the first blow.

By handing Lee the initiative Hooker as good as asked to be attacked.  Lee obliged.  Jackson smashed the XI Corps (known ever after as the Flying Dutchmen for running away) and piled into everything behind them.  In confused fighting the next day Hooker pulled troops out of vital ground, giving Lee artillery positions that forced a further Union withdrawal.

Nor was Hooker doing much with Sedgwick's men in Fredericksburg.  Lee stripped the defenses there, using the men for his roundhouse punch.  Eventually, on May 3 in the SECOND BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG Sedgwick pushed through the screening force and threatened Lee's rear.   But Hooker was too busy defending where he was, and pulling the mauled parts of the Army of the Potomac back across the Rappahannock.  Lee was free to move most of his army against Sedgwick at SALEM CHURCH, and if things had been better coordinated, Lee might have bagged a whole Corps.

The results were mixed.  Lee had won a brilliant tactical victory against all odds.  Hooker had achieved everything he wanted at the opening of the campaign but then wasted the advantages.  Yet Lee's casualties were heavy, in percentages heavier than Hooker's - and one of the dead was Stonewall Jackson.

Yet at the same time the door was now open for another invasion of the north, and with the Southern cause ebbing in the western theater Lee thought hard about moving into Maryland again.

Page 11

(Chancellorsville)