Battle of Chancellorsville

No. It is agreed that he was shot by his own men. But the circumstances are still much debated.

Stonewall and his patrol had come back from a reconnaissance when the light was fading, their uniforms were covered in dust, and the sentry could not immediately tell whether they were wearing grey or blue.

It is also known that an officer called Major Barry thought they were Union troops posing as Confederates, and shouted "It's a d**n Yankee trick!"

It is not known for certain if the sentry opened fire on them for this reason. Behind his posthumous hero legend, Stonewall was deeply disliked by many of his troops, and the Confederates were noted for fragging unpopular commanders.

It may have been a deliberate assassination. It may have been accidental. But it wasn't Northern spies.

In terms of human lives it cost at least 130,000 Okinawan civilians, 100,000 Japanese soldiers and about 12,000 US American forces (plus 50,000 wounded).

General Hooker actually got off to a good start, positioning his troops in good order, and outnumbering Lee nearly two to one, was set to smash the Confederates. But, Lee sent Jackson's corps on a flank march, and Hooker ignored reports off their movements. Hooker seemed unsure on what to do when confronted by the rebel army, and Jackson hit his right and rolled it up, leading to his defeat. Mostly, the battle had shown the domination of one man over another, Hooker was no match for Lee.

Robert E. Lee - he commanded that army, both before and after Chancellorsville, starting in the Peninsula Campaign, when he replaced the badly-wounded Joe Johnston, and ending with his surrender to U.S. Grant at Appomattox.

Chancellorsville is regarded as his greatest victory - but really it was the triumph of the Lee-Jackson partnership. Jackson was killed at this battle, and neither Lee nor his army was ever the same again. Lee's health seems to have started to fail just at this time (he was not feeling well at the next battle, Gettysburg) and this may have been psychosomatic, as though he realized, on one level, that the glory days were over.

The battle of Chancellorsville was fought after the battle of Fredericksburg.

No. Chancellorsville is the battle that took place before Gettysburg in Virginia, where Stonewall Jackson marched on an unprepared Union flank and rolled up much of their line before he was killed as night fell by the bullet of one of his own troops in a confused crossfire. Chancellorsville was, nonetheless, a victory for the Confederates, a victory which spurred Lee's invasion of the North, the first and only battle of which took place at Gettysburg. While they were back to back battles, they were not the same.

Union General Joseph Hooker suffered an injury that was costly for the Union. Problems for Union General Joseph Hooker began on May 3, 1863. Forces under the command of General JEB Stuart, who had replaced the fallen Stonewall Jackson, advanced towards Hooker's troop concentration at Chancellorsville. Hooker decided to consolidate the battle line held by Union General Sickle's 3rd Corps. This forced Hooker to make a grave mistake. He withdrew troops and artillery from the high ground at Hazel Grove. The Confederates immediately replaced the federals there and Rebel artillery had a clear shot at Union positions. One such cannon shot injured General Hooker. The blast from a cannon knocked him unconscious. A Confederate shell had hit his headquarters. His injury caused General Darius Couch to take command. His appeal to Sickle's for reinforcements went unheeded. This caused Hooker's combat line to crumble under Confederate assaults.

The Confederate army.

Most likely safety, comfort and cost effectiveness increases.

It's known as Lee's masterpiece, showing the audacity he was famous for.

William tecumseh Sherman

General Stonewall Jackson, accidently shot by his own men while riding with aides at dusk. He pressed his forces forward in an effort to destroy the Federal troops and was caught in a crossfire.

Two corps of the Union Army were called Cavalry Corps during the American Civil War. Gen. Joseph Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac.

The Confederates won that battle. Several very able senior officers were killed however, most notably Stonewall Jackson. As a result of these casualties, General Lee was forced signicantly to reorganize the army. The new officers were not as effective as the ones they replaced and, although the Army of Northern Virginia remained a galant and dangerous fighting force, it never again achieved the kind of remarkable victories against odds that it had up to that point.

For the Confederates it was a great victory as the Army of the Potomac under the command of Joseph Hooker was defeated. Many military historians say that this battle was Lee's greatest victory because of the way he outwitted his opponent while his army was outnumbered. Victory came at a tragic cost though for the Confederates as it was here that General Thomas J."Stonewall" Jackson was wounded by friendly fire. He died 8 days later. For the Union it showed that the "crisis in Command" continued in the Eastern Theatre.

The Union won the Battle of Vicksburg, led by General Ulysses S. Grant

Robert E. Lee

Before the actual Battle of Chancellorsville, "Fighting Joe" Hooker had been named by US President Lincoln to replace Ambrose Burnside as the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker's first move to position his army for an upcomong battle was to move it on April 27, 1863 from its camps around Falmouth, Virginia and moving it up the north bank of the Rappahannock River. This was a prelude in an attempt to turn the left flank of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Shattering victories by Robert E.Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia

At the time of the battle the larger area in which Chancellorsville was located was called "The Wilderness" because it was mostly densely forrested with little open ground.This made movement of troops and the use of artillery,and fighting in general very difficult.

On the evening of May 2, 1863 General Thomas Jonathan"Stonewall" Jackson was wounded by "friendly fire". His troops(2nd Corps) had just "rolled-up" the right flank of the Union Army. Darkness had fallen,but Jackson wanted to complete the job while he had the momentum. He was riding with his staff officers assessing the situation between the lines and as they were returning to the Confederate lines the jittery soldiers mistook them to be Union cavalry. Jackson did not die directly from his wounds,he contracted pneumonia while trying to recover from his wounding. He died in a private residence near Guinea's Station,Virginia on Sunday, May 10, 1863.

Hooker did exceptionally well right up until the time when he stopped his advance in the Wilderness. He should have pushed on a few more miles to emerge in more open country where his enormous advantage in artillery could have been brought to bear. The Wilderness was a tangled, second-growth forest where visibility was limited to a few yards, and the fighting in these woods degenerated into a struggle between small groups of soldiers, and Hooker's artillery advantage was of little use. He failed to appreciate the value of one of the few cleared areas in the Wilderness, called Fairview. The Confederates seized this clear hill and placed their own artillery on it and bombarded the Federal positions at Chancellorsville. "Chancellorsville" was a single large home with a few outbuildings in another clearing. The bombardment of Chancellorsville injured Hooker, who was leaning against a pillar on the front porch of the house when it was struck by a shell, causing part of the pillar to fall on Hooker's head, knocking him unconscious for a time.

Had Hooker pushed on aggressively in almost any direction he could have gotten out of the Wilderness. In particular he should have pushed men from his Chancellorsville position eastward, to link up with Union troops coming west from Fredericksburg. All that was between these two converging groups of Yankees was Lee with a small portion of his thrice-divided army. Instead Hooker's men driving east stopped, and a communications snarl led his men coming west from Fredericksburg to cross back to the north side of the river. So Lee escaped being crushed between the two converging Federal columns.

Hooker's inertia allowed the Confederates to seize the initiative and gave time for Stonewall Jackson's powerful flanking column to make a long march of many hours to get into position to attack. Hooker and his subordinates ignored and ridiculed repeated reports of this flanking column when it was sighted, and refused permission for the commander at the threatened end of his line to turn his line from facing south to facing west, which would have put those troops across the path of the flanking Confederate attack. The attack was delivered late in the day after the hours consumed marching around into position, and only darkness and the wounding of Jackson saved Hooker from an even worse disaster than that which befell him.

Hooker then followed the pattern of all previous commanders of the Army of the Potomac. They would cross the river and get on the south side with the Confederates, fight a battle and have it not go particularly well, then they would withdraw to the north side, with nothing to show for the effort but thousands of casualties. Almost exactly one year later, in precisely the same spot, the Yankees again crossed the River and fought in the Wilderness. But this time Grant was in command. After a terrible day's fighting and carnage, an aide found Grant in his tent, crying over the thousands lost that day. The difference was, the next day, Grant went after the Confederates, instead of pulling back to the north side of the river, and he kept after them for almost a year until the war was over.

ADDITIONAL FACTORS.

In my opinion following factors also led to Hooker's defeat at Chancellorsville:

1) the decision of having thrown Gen. Stoneman's Cavalry Corps to raid Lee's

communication line south-westward, left the Unionists without sufficient cavalry to preceed and flank the marching columns and prevent them from being

"perforated" by Stuart's Cavalry units.

This lack of veil led :

A - to the capture of many prisoners who gave Lee precious information about the mass of troops concentrating in the area of Chancellorsville, enabling him to take the pivotal decision of withdrawing Jackson's II Corp from Frederickstown to line up it against Hooker's position at Chancellorsville;

B) The long stop Hooker ordered to the outflanking Corps there because surrounded by the thick woodland and broken terrain he ignored what was beyond his field of sight;

C) Had Hooker had sufficient Cavalry at disposal he probably would have prevented his right wing from being attacked and overwhelmed near Wilderness Church by Jackson's II Corp in the evening of 2nd May.

2) The authorization to attack and break through the Confederates position at Fredericksburg was given to Gen. Sedgwicks VI Corp only at dawn of 3rd May, too late to affect the outcome of the battle. Had Hooker not on April 29th peremptorily ordered Sedgwick to cross the Rappahannock, form a bridgehead and defend it without engaging in all out combat, but left him some

freedom of judgement and movement, the outcome of the battle may not have been so dreadful.

When Stonewall Jackson was wounded at Chancellorsville, General Lee replaced him with JEB Stuart.Stuart helped to rout the Union army under General Hooker.