Battle of Chancellorsville

Jasjeet Kandola

US History

12/12/2016

Civil War Essay

Battle of Chancellorsville

        The Battle of Chancellorsville was considered as (Confederate) General Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory during the Civil War. Dating from April 30th to May 6th (1863), the Confederate Army was fighting against an Union army around twice their size and with only a defensive stance to attack and to retreat back to. Despite this huge disadvantage, Robert E. Lee and his subordinate, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, planned an attack while splitting their armies in half (although this seems like a disadvantage, it was not), which had surprised the Union General, Joseph Hooker. Since this sudden change in attack/defense occurred, Hooker wasn’t aware of what to do and decided to fight them back defensively, rather than pushing his advantage in numbers onto the Confederate. This led to Lee commanding his army to split up once again and to attack the Union again, forcing them back onto Rappahannock River. Although both sides had casualties around fifteen-thousand (Union had around 18000 and the Confederates had 13000), none of these deaths were as resonating as the death of Stonewall Jackson (the general of the Confederate). The loss of Jackson was what gave the drive to the Confederates to win the battle, although it was an unlikely outcome.

        In the woods of Virginia, the battle of Chancellorsville was a defensive victory due to Robert E Lee’s initiation and battle knowledge. On April 30th, around 60,000 Confederate troops had found that 80,000 Union troops were behind their back, ready to attack. The Union had intentions of winning this battle due to having a larger army and having a successful march led by Joseph Hooker. The confidence of the Union was also high, since Hooker gave the option for the Confederates to either flee or surrender or to fight on their land.  Intimidated by counterattacks by the outnumbered Confederates, Hooker threw away his advantage of numbers by switching to defenses near a Chancellor farm. If Hooker held an all-out attack on the Confederate army, he had a better chance of winning this battle, which could have ended the battle earlier. However, General Hooker waited for enemy attacks, which Lee took advantage of and attacked the Union heavily with flanks and attacks from multiple directions. These thoughts/ideas occurred on May 1st, where Lee and his assistant, Stonewall Jackson, planned their flanks and followed up on their attack plans the day after.

        On May 2nd, Jackson takes around half of his 60,000 men on a roundabout to attack Hooker’s weak right side, as it was left open due to his placement. Since the attack occurred sometime in the afternoon, Jackson was held back from obliterating Hooker’s army due to the night. Jackson led his army to destroy at least half of Hooker’s defenses; however, he was fatally wounded by one of his own men and later died. After pushing the Union back up to the Rappahannock, the Union lost around 5,000 more men than the Confederates had (17,000 to 12,000). Due to the Union backing off, this led to the battle of Gettysburg, which occurred 3 weeks later. Although, the battle of Chancellorsville was a great success for the Confederates, they should have backed off after the Union had “surrendered”. It can be interpreted that since the Confederates became overconfident of Lee’s strategic success, and later loss to the Union in Gettysburg (which decided the war at that point).