The Battle of Chancellorville

[Lord Winter]

http://www.nps.gov/frsp/chist.htm
A few points for debate
1. Was the victory worth it with the death of stonewall Jackson?
2. Did Chancellorville influence the defeat at Gettysburg?
3. What was Hookers chief mistake?

[Atilius]

1. Was the victory worth it with the death of stonewall Jackson?

The victory was probably worth any price. In 1864 Grant forced Lee into the siege of Petersburg after the battles of the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Spotsylvania, all of which were fought in the general vicinity of Chancellorsville. Grant did this in spite of nearly destroying the Army of the Potomac. Had Lee lost at Chancellorsville, the morale of the Army of Northern Virginia would have suffered badly, having never before suffered consequential defeat on southern soil. The morale of the Army of the Potomac would have prospered. It's quite possible that a confederate loss might have resulted in the seige of Petersburg beginning over a year earlier than it actually did.

As to Jackson's loss, when he died (saying "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees"), his command passed to A.P. Hill. Hill was a consistently hard driving and courageous commander, but was never very effective after Chancellorsville. It should also be mentioned, though, that while Jackson was unquestionably a great commander, he was also occasionally completely ineffective. During the Seven Days battles he acted as if in a daze and accomplished almost nothing. However, its clear that the loss of the man Lee called his "strong right arm" was a terrible blow. But an exchange of Jackson for a victory which may have been necessary to preserve the Confederacy was probably well worthwhile.


3. What was Hookers chief mistake?
Ordering a pause at Chancellorsville when the advance began to encounter resistance. Meade and Couch were forced by this order to withdraw parts of their corps under fire. Hooker evidently wished to provoke a Confederate counter-attack on his front, but Lee and Jackson wouldn't oblige. Had the advance continued, Jackson would never have had time to reach, hit, and collapse Hooker's right flank.

[Don Corleone]

You could argue, using the cold hard logic of war that regardless of how talented a field commander Jackson was, the South had sufficient numbers of able field commanders and that the loss was more spiritual than strategic. Many claim that if Stonewall had lived to fight at Gettysburg, the South would have won. As I'll get into later, had Jackson been there, Gettsyburg would not have happened, and assuming it had, the defeat would have been smaller but more one sided. More on that later....

To your questions:
1) Yes and no. The loss of Jackson was a terrible blow to morale, but it didn't handicap Lee the way people thought. He still had the all star team when it came to commanders: Longstreet (with the big 3 divisional commanders: Hood, Pickett & McLaws); Ewell (with Early, Johnson & Rodes) and finally the iffy A.P. Hill and his trio (Heth (arguably the worst commander the CSA had), Anderson, and my favorite, Dorsey Pender). The senior leadership of the Army of Northern Viriginia was awash with talent. Only Heth was a notably bad commander (compared to the multitude lousing up the AOP). Hill was a dicey prospect (at times brilliant, at times MIA). They had a healthy mix of offensive and defensive geniuses, and Lee was smart enough to match division commnaders with corps commanders such that their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other. That being said, I don't think Chancellorsville was that big a loss (other than manpower and artillery pieces) for the AOP, that had become accustomed to defeat by that point. Clearly, as Meade showed 2 months later, they weren't the worse for wear coming out of the battle...

2) I'd say yes. Chancellorsville was a victory the CSA could have done without. It imbued the senior leadership of ANV with a belief that they were invincible. Where Chancellorsville was disastrous for the North from a morale standpoint, they recovered quickly from the loss of men and arms. Gettysburg was a crippling blow for the CSA. They didn't lose the war on July 3, but they did guarantee they would never win it from that moment on. Lee was like a gambling addict, throwing family heirlooms on the table with Pickett's charge by day 3. Even had Pickett broken the Union lines, the result would have been bad morale for the north and unacceptable manpower losses for the south.

3) I agree with Atilius, but a very close 2nd was Hooker's decision to conduct a large scale field expedition with no cavalry afront for scouting or screening. He was trying to lead 5 corps through some of the worst swamps and briar patches. At various points, due to the terrain and lack of coordinated movement, he left entire corps isolated and without flank support. Part of the reason Jackson's flank attack was so brutally effective was because Hooker left his flank 'in the air', absolutely nothing on the far end of the line to support the poor 5th Corps. It got hit hard from the unprotected side, and that was what began the large scale rout.

Now, earlier I said, if Jackson had been there, Gettysburg never would have happened. Why? Lee had put the ANV under strict orders to avoid detection and engagement once they entered Pennsyvlania. His objective was Harrisburg, or if the planets aligned just right, maybe even Philadelphia. Gettysburg itself was just a milestone. Had Jackson still been around, instead of Hill comanding what became the 3rd corps, Jackson would have had Henry Heth (the instigator) under his rule. He NEVER would have allowed such a direct violation of Lee's rules of engagement as allowing Heth to try to kick in a cavalry picket, especially not to just go get some shoes. If one of his divisional commanders had done that, he probably would have shot him himself out on the field. He certainly wouldn't have supported and escalated. Hill, being a new corps commander and seeking to curry favor with both Lee (his superior) and Heth (one of his divisional commanders) allowed Heth to blunder into a mess. Jackson never would have. Let's say Jackson got himself into this mess, hypothetically. In typical fashion, Jackson would have assessed the situation and realized he was facing two cavalry brigades (who just happened to have excellent position). He would have ordered up another division, probably Dorsey Pender, to split off from the corps and circle around the back of the Lutheran Seminary and hit Buford from the rear. And he would have watched Pender get utterly destroyed as they walked right into the oncoming First Union Corps, under Reynolds. Jackson would then have been in a really bad way, two of his divisions: Heth and Anderson, and the remains of a 3rd, Pender's, would have been cut off from the main body of the ANV. Longstreet was still 12 hours march away, and that early, Howard's 11th corps would have arrived early enough to keep Jubal Early and the boys from pressuring the Union back on their right flank (northeast part of town). All in all, it would have been over in about 7 hours, and it would have been a small to middling but lopsided defeat for Jackson.

That's my theory anyway.

[Atilius]

...but a very close 2nd was Hooker's decision to conduct a large scale field expedition with no cavalry afront for scouting or screening. He was trying to lead 5 corps through some of the worst swamps and briar patches. At various points, due to the terrain and lack of coordinated movement, he left entire corps isolated and without flank support. Part of the reason Jackson's flank attack was so brutally effective was because Hooker left his flank 'in the air', absolutely nothing on the far end of the line to support the poor 5th Corps. It got hit hard from the unprotected side, and that was what began the large scale rout.


Don, I agree that the failure to protect the right flank was the 2nd big mistake made in the battle, but I'm going to disagree with you about the cause.

Hooker's plan to put virtually all his cavalry in the rear of Lee's army certainly made reconnaissance more difficult. However, Jackson's westward movement had been observed along much of the union line. The corps anchoring Hooker's right flank (the 11th Corps under O. O. Howard) had seen it too.

When information concerning this movement reached Hooker, he sent a dispatch to Howard instructing him to protect the right flank. Before this message reached him, Howard sent a message to Hooker saying he was "taking measures to resist an attack from the west". But Howard's measures were inadequate: with about 8000 men at his disposal, he posted only about 900 men and just 2 guns facing west on his right flank.

So, I think the responsibility for the collapse of the 11th Corps rests more heavily on Howard for failing to protect the army's right than upon Hooker for misusing his cavalry.

O. O. Howard is a mystery to me. He fought at both Bull Runs, at Fair Oaks where he lost an arm, at Fredericksburg, and at Antietam. He apparently commanded with distinction in these battles, but with little success. His 11th Corps was routed at Chancellorsville and again at Gettysburg, where Meade ordered him to turn over command to Hancock. Yet Sherman put him in command of the Army of Tennessee which Howard led during the March to the Sea.

He evidently had command qualities that historians have had difficulty detecting. Incidentally, O. O. Howard was the founder of Howard University, the historically black college in Washington, DC.

Really like your "had Jackson lived" scenario!!

[Don Corleone]

Oops! My apologies to General Sickles and the boys of the 5th Corps of the AOP. You're absolutely correct, it was the 11th, under Howard. Sickles would have wait 2 months until his debacle in the Peach Orchard to really screw the pooch.

You are right that Jackson's movements were observed and noted, but this is my point... everyone, Howard, Hooker, etc. thought it was at most a single division. Nobody was expecting 60% of the ANV to come crashing in on their right flank like that. Cavalry raids harrassing supply lines are very useful when attempting to halt an advance or dislodge an entrenched army. But they are downright foolhearty when you're trying to move a large army through unknown, inhospitable and dangerous territory. Think about it for a second... they didn't even know that Jackson was marching along a plank road...heck the ANV didn't know about it until a local pastor sent his son out to serve as a guide.

The other thing I've heard about Chancellorsville is that Hooker was dead drunk through most of the battle, hence the decidedly slow response and poor judgement. Certainly not unheard of for Fightin Joe, who lent his name to the professional ladies he frequented. Yes, that's where they get that particular euphimism.

[Lord Winter]

Even after the flank march there was multiple moments were the Army of the Potomac could of crushed the ANV. Hooker hung back and waited for his calvary to come and hit Lee's rear, were in reality he could have crushed the spread out AMN with his superior forces.

[Marshal Murat]

I think more that the battle was worth it, that Jacksons death was a side effect.
It was not like sending a "Forlorn Hope" at an enemy, but more a casualty of war, not calculated and was actually an accident.

[Atilius]

...everyone, Howard, Hooker, etc. thought it was at most a single division. Nobody was expecting 60% of the ANV to come crashing in on their right flank like that.

Right of course, but even against a single division, the two regiments Howard deployed facing west were not nearly enough.

I've read that Hooker began to believe that this westward movement was actually Lee withdrawing from the battle. If Howard thought the same thing, it might explain (though not excuse) his faulty disposition.