Chancellorsville Was a Complex Confederate Win

The Chancellorsville Campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Chancellorsville, fought May 1–6, 1863, produced one of the most stunning and ambivalent Confederate victories of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Confederate general Robert E. Lee had trounced the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg the previous December, but since then, Joseph Hooker had thoroughly reorganized and revitalized his dispirited Union troops. Declaring that he had created “the finest Army on the Planet,” he set into motion an elaborate plan designed to quietly turn the left flank of the outnumbered and underfed Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was camped not far from Fredericksburg. In the face of Hooker’s attack, Lee dangerously divided his army, sending Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson through the Wilderness, a wild and tangled woodland, and around Hooker’s right side in what became one of the most famous flanking maneuvers of the war. A combination of bad Union generalship and good Confederate luck forced Hooker to retreat across the Rappahannock River. Jackson was accidentally killed by his own men in the fighting, and while his death may have been devastating for the Confederacy, so were the additional 13,459 casualties. Combined with the shocking losses at Gettysburg two months later, they nearly destroyed the army’s offensive capabilities.