and two years' men would soon expire. Encamped on the north bank of the Rappahannock River, he had 130,000 troops to oppose Lee's 60,000, who were at Fredericksburg: the Army of Northern Virginia had been weakened by the detachment of Longstreet and part of his corps. Hooker ordered his cavalry to advance towards Richmond for the purpose of severing the communications of the Confederates, but owing to heavy rains and high water in the river, these troops were delayed and were of no assistance to him in his operations. He was not able to wait for them to perform their part. April 27 three corps were put in motion; they crossed the Rappahannock thirty miles above Fredericksburg, then forded the Rapidan and marched to Chancellorsville on the south side of these rivers. To mask the main movement, General John Sedgwick with his corps forced the passage of the Rappahannock a short distance below Fredericksburg. Meanwhile the Second Corps under Couch had crossed the river at the United States ford and had reached Chancellorsville. There on the night of April 30 four corps were assembled with General Hooker in person in command. "It had been,' writes Couch, "a brilliantly conceived and executed movement. . . . All of the army lying there that night were in exuberant spirits at the success of their general in getting' on the other side' without fighting for a position. As I rode into Chancellorsville that night, the general hilarity pervading the camps was particularly noticeable; the soldiers, while chopping wood and lighting fires, were singing merry songs and indulging in peppery camp jokes."2 Hooker was full of confidence which displayed itself in a boastful order. “The operations of the last three days," he declared, "have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."3 That "with 1 O. R., vol. xxv. part ii. p. 243. But see Hooker's testimony, C. W., 1865, vol. i. p. 113. 2 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 157. 8 O. R., vol. xxv. part i. p. 171. twice the weight of arm and as keen a blade,”1 and in spite of the splendid initiative, the Army of the Potomac met with disaster, is easily understood. Hooker was completely outgeneralled by Lee. The Confederate commander had the perfect co-operation of Jackson, while the shortcomings of the Union general were aggravated by the carelessness of Howard, the commander of the Eleventh Corps. Lee had early information of all of Hooker's movements, and by the afternoon of April 30 divined that his object was to turn the Confederate left. He ordered an advance to meet the Union troops who had taken position at Chancellorsville. When they pushed forward from the Wilderness, May 1, the enemy, instead of flying ingloriously, resisted and took the offensive. Hooker lost nerve and issued an order to his men to fall back. He had better left the movement to his corps and division commanders, who were at one in the opinion that they should make a vigorous attempt to hold the ground in the open country which they had gained. "My God," exclaimed Meade, "if we can't hold the top of a hill, we certainly cannot hold the bottom of it."2 Hooker's own explanation of his decision to retreat is unsatisfactory. To abandon the offensive and take up a line of defence, when he had two men to his opponents' one and knew it, was certainly a glaring fault of generalship. Couch heard the reason of it from his own lips, and "retired from his presence with the belief that my commanding general was a whipped man." 8 All but one of the military writers with whom I am acquainted agree that the retrograde movement was unnecessary, that it was the abandonment of the prime object of the campaign, and demoralizing to officers and soldiers. This note of 1 T. A. Dodge, The Campaign of Chancellorsville, p. 5. 2 Walker, History of the Second Army Corps, p. 224. 3 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 161; Hooker's testimony, C. W., 1865, vol. i. p. 125. For Hooker's explanation of the retrograde movement, see his despatches to Butterfield, May 1, O. R., vol. xxv. part ii. pp. 326, 328. The exception is Hamlin. See the Battle of Chancellorsville, p. 10. despair must have run through rank and file: "It is no use. No matter who is given us, we can't whip Bobby Lee." Hooker's position of defence was in the Wilderness, a tangled forest, an almost impenetrable thicket of dwarf oak and shrubbery. He deemed it a strong one, and so did Lee, who considered that a direct attack upon the Union army, which Hooker was hoping for, "would be attended with great difficulty and loss." 2 On the night of May 1 Lee and Stonewall Jackson might have been seen seated on two old crackerboxes taking counsel together. The result of the deliberation evinced their supreme contempt for the generalship of their opponent, for, in the presence of superior numbers, they decided to divide their own forces. Early on the morning of May 2 Jackson, "the great flanker," with thirty thousand men started on a march which took him half-way around the Union army, his design being to attack its right, which was held by Howard and his Eleventh Corps. Hooker was up betimes, making an inspection of his lines, which resulted in a joint order to Howard and Slocum,3 written at 9.30 A. M., warning them to be prepared against a flank attack of the enemy.1 Jackson's column, marching along, was plainly seen by our men.5 The movement might be interpreted in two ways, either that the Confederates were on the retreat southward, or that they were on their way to attack our right. Frequent reports of the progress of Jackson's column came to Hooker and to Howard, but they could see it in one light only, that the enemy was retiring before the superior force which threatened him. At noon Sickles, who had brought 1 Dabney, Life of Jackson, p. 668. 2 Hooker to Butterfield, May 1, Lee to Davis, May 2, Lee's report, O. R., vol. xxv. part i. pp. 797, 798; part ii. pp. 328, 765. 3 Commanding the 12th Corps. 4 O. R., vol. xxv. part ii. p. 360. 66 5 This continuous column was observed for three hours."― Sickles, ibid., part i. p. 386. "In the course of the forenoon I was informed that large columns of the enemy could be seen from General Devens's headquarat a distance of about two miles or over. I observed them plainly as they moved on." - Schurz, p. 652. ters |