May 7, 1863---The Battle of Chancellorsville: Day Eight

MAY 7, 1863:    

The Battle of Chancellorsville (Day Eight):

Hearing of the Union defeat, a large Union cavalry force under Brigadier General George Stoneman moved eastward back to Union lines along the Virginia coast. Although Stoneman had been tasked with disrupting the Confederate rear in a series of hit-and-run attacks during Chancellorsville, he had contributed nothing to the battle, merely joyriding his 10,000 man force through the Virginia countryside.  Hooker subsequently blamed Stoneman for the entire defeat at Chancellorsville, and Stoneman was reassigned to desk duty for the remainder of the war. With Stoneman’s decision to withdraw, the battle ended.

Chancellorsville is considered by almost everyone to be Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle.” Lee’s stratagems all worked to perfection, aided in part by the tentative nature of Union responses. Lee even rewrote the book on tactics by dividing his forces on two separate occasions, moves which should have led to his destruction. However, some critics (including his subordinate General James Longstreet) criticized Lee for wasting his men’s lives for limited objectives---Chancellorsville was not decisive, it was not a strategically important place, and though it diverted Union efforts to take Richmond, the protection of Richmond was the crux of almost all of Lee’s efforts in northern Virginia throughout the war in any event. With only 60,000 men engaged, Lee suffered 13,303 casualties (1,665 killed, 9,081 wounded, 2,018 missing), losing some 22% of his force in the campaign—men that the Confederacy, with its limited manpower, could not replace. (It needs to be remembered that Civil War wounded were most often permanently lost to combat action.) Just as seriously, he lost his most aggressive field commander, Stonewall Jackson.

Of the 133,000 Union men engaged, 17,197 were casualties (1,606 killed, 9,672 wounded, 5,919 missing),  a percentage (12%) much lower than Lee's, particularly considering that it includes 4,000 men who were captured en masse on May 2nd. “Fighting Joe” Hooker (who hated his euphonious nickname, and apparently did everything he could to live it down) made grave errors in the battle, which included abandoning his offensive push on May 1 and ordering Sickles to give up Hazel Grove. His orders to Sedgwick to withdraw prematurely uselessly expended another opportunity to hold an advantage, and his own decision to turn tail at United States Ford was scarcely more rational. He also erred in his disposition of forces; some 40,000 men of the Army of the Potomac scarcely fired a shot.  It may be that the concussion he suffered affected his judgment or that his brush with death filed him with fear.  He himself said, “I had lost confidence in Joe Hooker.”

The fact is that at Chancellorsville, Lee read Hooker like a psychic, predicting almost all his moves, and acting to neutralize them or to turn them to his own advantage. Chancellorsville reinforced Lee’s seeming aura of invincibility, but to an extent where even Lee began to believe himself immune from errors. Ultimately, he would pay the price eight weeks later at Gettysburg.

With a loss of 35,000 men (21,000 just in a single day) but a decided Southern victory, public reaction was to the Battle of Chancellorsville was unsurprisingly muted; Confederates could not rejoice in the bloody victory which had cost them their lionized Stonewall Jackson, and the Union public despaired, none more than President Lincoln, who is reported to have said, "My God! My God! What will the country say?"