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MAP OF THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE (From Atlas accompanying Official Records)

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6th Corps

Route taken

6th Corp

Bank's Ford

River

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CH. XX.]

HOOKER OUTGENERALLED BY LEE

259

twice the weight of arm and as keen a blade," 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." 3 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.1 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.

Sickles,

"This continuous column was observed for three hours." 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 headquarters... at a distance of about two miles or over. I observed them plainly as they moved on." Schurz, p. 652.

CH. XX.]

1

JACKSON'S FLANK MOVEMENT

261

his corps across the river the previous day, received orders to harass the movement; he captured some prisoners whose tale indicated that Jackson was bent on fight, not on retreat. This certainly should have been strongly suspected from a study of the characters and past generalship of Jackson and Lee. Still Hooker would not be convinced. At 4.10 P. M. he sent word to Sedgwick: "We know that the enemy is fleeing, trying to save his trains. Two of Sickles's divisions are among them." It was equally impossible to make Howard see the truth. Carl Schurz, who commanded a division in his corps, urged upon him that the facts pointed unmistakably to an attack from the west upon their right and rear, and advised earnestly that they execute a change of front in order to be ready for it. But Howard would issue no such command, although Schurz on his own responsibility did change in accordance with his judgment the position of two of his regiments. The Eleventh Corps had been further weakened by the detachment on an order from headquarters of a brigade to the support of Sickles.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, after a march of fifteen miles, Jackson reached the place for which he had set out. He was west of the Union army, on the side of it directly opposite the position occupied by General Lee. Losing no time in forming his troops in battle array, he was ready soon after five and gave the order to advance.

The Eleventh Corps lay quietly in position, unsuspecting danger. The opinion at headquarters and of their own commander controlled the other officers, with a few exceptions, and pervaded also the soldiers. Some of the men were getting supper ready, others were eating or resting, some were playing cards. The warning came from the wild rush of deer and rabbits driven from their lairs by the quick march of the Confederates through the Wilderness. Twenty-six thousand2

1 O. R., vol. xxv. part ii. p. 363.

2 As I have computed it, the number of infantry. The artillery and cav alry must have made his force nearly if not quite 30,000.

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