On 30 April 1863 Major General Joseph Hooker's Union Army of the Potomac, having crossed the Rappahannock River upstream of Fredericksburg, reached the crossroads at Chancellorsville in the Virginia Wilderness, on the flank of Robert E. Lee's army. Britannica and the American Battlefield Trust date the battle from this day. Over the next week Lee, with about half as many men, split his army, sent Stonewall Jackson around the Union flank and drove Hooker back across the river. It is counted as Lee's greatest victory, but it cost him Jackson.
Hooker's perfect plan
After the Union defeat at Fredericksburg in December 1862, the two armies spent the winter facing each other across the Rappahannock. Lincoln gave the Army of the Potomac to Hooker, who rebuilt its morale and drew up a plan to trap Lee. The American Battlefield Trust quotes his boast that his plans were perfect and that God should have mercy on Lee, for he would have none.1
On 27 April Hooker sent his cavalry behind Lee's army toward Richmond. Two days later a force under Major General John Sedgwick crossed the river below Fredericksburg to hold Lee's attention, while the main body of the Union army crossed upstream and marched round behind him. On 30 April Hooker's leading corps reached Chancellorsville, a crossroads dominated by the Chancellorsville tavern in the Wilderness, a densely wooded tangle of brush and thickets. Hooker had about twice Lee's numbers. The American Battlefield Trust gives about 130,000 against 60,000, with 97,382 Union and 57,352 Confederate soldiers engaged; Britannica also gives 130,000 and 60,000. Part of Lee's army under James Longstreet was away on a supply mission.2
Lee divides his army
Lee left a single division under Jubal Early to watch Sedgwick at Fredericksburg and marched west with the rest. On 1 May the two armies collided east of Chancellorsville, and Hooker, to the surprise of his own commanders, pulled back to a defensive line around the crossroads. Without his cavalry he could not see what Lee was doing.3
On 2 May Lee split his army again. Stonewall Jackson took nearly 30,000 men on a long march across the Union front to the open right flank, while Lee held Hooker's attention with about 15,000. At about 5 p.m., according to the American Battlefield Trust, Jackson's men burst out of the woods, and the surprised Union flank, held by the Eleventh Corps, was routed. That night Jackson was shot by his own men while returning from a reconnaissance.4
The Union retreat
On 3 May the Confederates fought their way into the Chancellorsville clearing, while Hooker, stunned when a shell struck a pillar he was leaning against, gave up key ground. Sedgwick broke through at Fredericksburg but was stopped at Salem Church. On 5 May Hooker overruled corps commanders who wanted to fight on and ordered his army back across the river. Britannica dates the battle from 30 April to 5 May.5 › Second Battle of Fredericksburg, 1863
Jackson's left arm was amputated. He seemed to recover, but he died of pneumonia on 10 May. Britannica calls his loss the South's greatest casualty of the battle.6
The cost
The figures differ slightly. The American Battlefield Trust estimates 17,304 Union and 13,460 Confederate casualties, the Confederate total made up of 1,724 killed, 9,233 wounded and 2,503 missing or captured. Britannica gives more than 17,000 Union casualties and more than 12,000 Confederate. Lee's smaller army lost a larger share of its strength than Hooker's.7
Encouraged by the victory, Lee invaded Pennsylvania that summer, and the armies met at Gettysburg in July 1863. The battle is told in full in our article on Chancellorsville, and Jackson's life in our biography of Stonewall Jackson.8
Also on this day
- 1975: Fall of Saigon. North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong entered Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, hours after a mass evacuation of Americans and South Vietnamese civilians.
