Chancellorsville, 30 April – 6 May 1863
From 30 April to 6 May 1863, Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac, more than 130,000 strong, tried to turn Robert E. Lee's 60,000-man army out of Fredericksburg by marching around its flank to Chancellorsville. Lee divided his army in the face of superior numbers, sent Stonewall Jackson on a daring march around the Union right, and routed the XI Corps on 2 May, then drove Hooker back across the Rappahannock. Often called Lee's greatest victory, it cost him Jackson, mortally wounded by his own men, and its confidence led him north into Pennsylvania two months later — to Gettysburg.
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The battle, stage by stage
- 30 April 1863, evening
Hooker behind Lee
After a brilliant march up the Rappahannock and across the Rapidan fords, four of Hooker's corps — about 70,000 men — have concentrated at Chancellorsville, a lone brick house at a crossroads in the Wilderness, behind Lee's army at Fredericksburg. Sedgwick's VI Corps waits below the town. Anderson's division falls back to a line at Zoan Church.
- 1 May, 11:20 AM
Hooker turns back
Instead of waiting, Lee leaves Early at Fredericksburg and marches west with Jackson. The armies meet in the open country near Zoan Church on the Turnpike and the Plank Road. Hooker, unnerved, pulls his columns back into the Wilderness and digs in around Chancellorsville. That night Lee and Jackson, sitting on cracker boxes at a road junction, plan a flank attack.
- 2 May, 8 AM–4 PM
Jackson's flank march
Jackson takes some 28,000 men on a 12-mile march by woods roads past Catharine Furnace and round the Union right, leaving Lee with barely 14,000 facing Hooker. Sickles sees the column and attacks at the furnace, capturing most of the 23rd Georgia, but Hooker reads the movement as a retreat. Howard's XI Corps, facing south on the Turnpike, ignores warnings.
- 2 May, 5:30 PM
The XI Corps routed
Jackson's lines burst out of the woods on the open right flank of the XI Corps. Deer and rabbits run ahead of them. Devens's and Schurz's divisions collapse past Wilderness Church; Buschbeck's brigade makes a stand at Dowdall's Tavern before it too is overrun, and the corps streams back toward Chancellorsville.
- 2 May, night
Jackson is shot
Darkness and the tangled woods stop the attack short of Fairview, where Union guns are massed. Riding ahead of his lines to scout, Jackson is fired on by the 18th North Carolina; his left arm is amputated and he dies eight days later. Stuart takes command of his corps. Sickles's men are cut off at Hazel Grove.
- 3 May, 5:30–10 AM
Hazel Grove and Fairview
Hooker orders Sickles to give up Hazel Grove, and Confederate guns there enfilade Fairview. Stuart's infantry storms the Fairview line while Anderson and McLaws push in from the south and east. A shell stuns Hooker at the Chancellor house; by 10 AM Lee rides into the burning clearing to the cheers of his reunited army. Hooker falls back to a line covering U.S. Ford. At Fredericksburg Sedgwick carries Marye's Heights.
- 3–5 May
Salem Church and the withdrawal
Sedgwick marches west toward Chancellorsville but is stopped at Salem Church by Wilcox's brigade and McLaws's division. On 4 May Lee attacks him from three sides and he withdraws across Banks' Ford before dawn on the 5th; Hooker recrosses at U.S. Ford on the night of 5–6 May. Lee's greatest victory cost him about 13,000 men and Jackson; Hooker lost about 17,000.
Paintings and photographs
