Chancellorsville

As Lee was savoring his victory at the Chancellorsville crossroads, he received disturbing news: Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick 's force had broken through the Confederate lines at Fredericksburg and was headed toward Chancellorsville.

Battle May 1: Hooker loses his nerve Chancellorsville, actions on May 1 Battle of Chancellorsville, 1 May 1863 (Situation at Dark).

In 1863, Confederate forces commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee routed Union troops under Gen. Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.

After Longstreet rejoined the main army, he was highly critical of Lee's strategy, saying that battles like Chancellorsville cost the Confederacy more men than it could afford to lose.

Although cavalryman Stuart had never commanded infantry before, he would turn in a very creditable performance at Chancellorsville.

At Chancellorsville in May 1863, the division was kept in reserve.

Because the three battles happened in a small geographic area and had overlapping timelines, this article covers both the battle around the village of Chancellorsville and the full campaign.

By the afternoon of May 2, when he should have been digging in on the Union right at Chancellorsville, he was still marching to the Rappahannock.

Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because his risky decision to divide his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force resulted in a significant Confederate victory.

Chancellorsville was the only occasion in the war in Virginia in which Confederate gunners held a decided advantage over their Federal counterparts.

Confederate hatnote In reaction to the death of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson after Chancellorsville, Lee reorganized his Army of Northern Virginia (75,000 men) from two infantry corps into three.

Confederate pickets accidentally shot him at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863.

Despite Lee's brilliant victory at Chancellorsville, Longstreet once again came under criticism, claiming that he could have marched his men back from Suffolk in time to join Lee.

Despite the objections of his subordinates, Hooker withdrew his men to the defensive lines around Chancellorsville, ceding the initiative to Lee.

Finally, Doubleday made no mention of such a confession from Hooker in his history of the Chancellorsville Campaign, published in 1882.

He became convinced that Sedgwick's force would demonstrate against him, but not become a serious threat, so he ordered about 4/5 of his army to meet the challenge from Chancellorsville.

He decided to summon the I Corps of Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds to reinforce his lines at Chancellorsville.

He ordered an advance at 11 a.m. along two roads toward Chancellorsville: McLaws's division and the brigade of Brig. Gen. William Mahone on the Turnpike, and Anderson's other brigades and Jackson's arriving units on the Plank Road.

He published two important works on the Civil War: Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (1876), and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882), the latter being a volume of the series Campaigns of the Civil War.

Hooker's plan for the Chancellorsville Campaign Confederate Union Hooker's army faced Lee across the Rappahannock from its winter quarters in Falmouth and around Fredericksburg.