What happened at the Battle of Chancellorsville?

Answer 1

Lee managed to wrong-foot Hooker, enabling Stonewall to mount a shattering charge that made for a decisive victory. But Stonewall was mortally wounded by his own men in the evening, possibly due to confusion in bad light, but believed by some to have been an assassination.

It was Lee's finest hour, but also the beginning of the end for him and his army. Without Stonewall, he could never carry out the same bold thrusts as before. Also it was from this time that his health began to fail - perhaps due to this psychological blow.

Answer 2

Union General Joseph Hooker was attempting to force Lee to attack his much larger army, sending General Sedgewick with 45000 towards Fredricksburgh, while he held Lee with nearly 90,000 men. Lee, whose total force (without Longstreet's corps) numbered just over 50,000 men, sent General Jubal Early with 10,000 men to keep an eye on Sedgewick at Fredricksburgh, occupying the heights west of town as they had done the previous December, when Lee inflicted a smashing defeat on Burnside.

He then sent Stonewall Jackson's corps of 28,000 on a 12 mile force march to Hooker's unprotected right flank. In late afternoon, Jackson's men came storming out of the forest, attacking in a mile long line three divisions deep, screaming the high falsetto of the rebel yell.

General Oliver Howard, commanding Hooker's right, was totally surprised, and his XI Corps was routed. Sedgewick attemped to force Early off the heights at Fredricksburgh, and finally succeeded. But by now Hooker was a beaten man, and withdrew his army in disarray. Jackson was accidently shot by his own men and died a week later.

The strategy that Lee employed has been studied at West Point for decades, and is considered the greatest military victory on the continent.