Chancellorsville: The Battle and Its Aftermath

282 Pages·1996·20.68 MB·English

by  Gary W. Gallagher

Chancellorsville
Military Campaigns of the Civil war
Chancellorsville
The Battle and its aftermath
Edited by Garf W. Gallagher
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill and London
©1996
The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chancellorsville : the battle and its aftermath / edited by
Gary W.Gallagher.
p. cm. — (Military campaigns of the Civil War)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8078-2275-3 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8078-5970-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
i. Chancellorsville (Va.), Battle of, 1863. I. Gallagher,
GaryW. II. Series.
£475.35.047 1996
973-7'34—dc20 95-43508
GIF
The paper in this book meets the guidelines
for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
cloth oo 99 98 97 5 4 32
paper 12 n 10 09 5 4 3 21
For
Norma Lois Peterson
and
John E. McDaniel,
who set an admirable
standard of scholarship
and teaching for their
students to emulate
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Contents
Introduction, ix
We Shall Make Richmond Howl:
The Army of the Potomac on the Eve of
Chancellorsville, 1
JohnJ. Hennessy
East of Chancellorsville:
Jubal A. Early at Second Fredericksburg
and Salem Church, 36
Gary W. Gallagher
Stoneman's Raid, 65
A. Wilson Greene
The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed
the Confederacy, 107
Robert K. Krick
The Valiant Rearguard:
Hancock's Division at Chancellorsville, 143
Carol Reardon
Medical Treatment at Chancellorsville, 176
James L Robertson, Jr.
Disgraced and Ruined by the Decision of the Court:
The Court-Martial of Emory F. Best, C.S.A., 200
Keith S. Bohannon
Stern Realities:
Children of Chancellorsville and Beyond, 219
James Marten
Bibliographic Essay, 245
Contributors, 249
Index, 251
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Introduction
R. E. LEE'S stunning tactical victory at Chancellorsville
capped a remarkable eleven-month period during which he built the Army of
Northern Virginia into a self-confident and formidable weapon. Conditioned to
expect success after defeating the Army of the Potomac at the Seven Days
battles, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg, the officers and men of Lee's
army entered the spring of 1863 with abundant faith in their commander and his
principal lieutenants. Their triumph at Chancellorsville cemented a bond with
Lee unrivaled on either side during the Civil War. Even the costly defeat at
Gettysburg two months later failed to weaken that bond, which sustained the
Army of Northern Virginia for nearly two more years. Beyond its effect on the
internal dynamics of the Confederate army, Chancellorsville contributed to a
growing impression among white southerners that the future of their incipient
nation lay with Lee and his men in Virginia. The comments of a British
observer in March 1865 suggest that faith in Lee's ability to carry Confederate
hopes for independence—a legacy of Chancellorsville and other victories in
1862-63—continued during the final grinding year of the conflict: "Genl R. E.
Lee ... [is] the idol of his soldiers & the Hope of His Country.... The prestige
which surrounds his person &, the almost fanatical belief in his judgement &,
capacity ... is the one idea of an entire people."1
The sheer odds against Confederate success at Chancellorsville elevated the
battle to a special position among Lee's victories. Union general Joseph Hooker
had rebuilt and reinspirited the Army of the Potomac in the wake of Ambrose E.
Burnside's removal from command in January 1863. Hooker entered the Chan-
cellorsville campaign at the head of a force with ample equipment, strong
discipline, and high morale. He pronounced it "the finest army on the planet,"
and as astute an observer as Confederate artillerist Edward Porter Alexander
spoke of it after the war as "Hooker's great army—the greatest this country had
ever seen."2 During the difficult winter, Lee had dispersed his cavalry to secure
sufficient fodder and detached two divisions under James Longstreet to South-
side Virginia to forage on a wide scale and block threatened enemy movements
from Norfolk or the Carolina coast. Lee could count on the redoubtable spirit
of his men, but he knew their ranks were dangerously thin to hold off a
determined enemy offensive. With more than 133,000 men to Lee's 61,000,
Hooker enjoyed the widest margin of manpower of any Union general who had
fought against the Army of Northern Virginia to that point in the conflict.3