Existing comment:
Chancellorsville Campaign
Hooker vs. Lee
"May God have mercy on General Lee for I will have none."
-- Gen. Joseph Hooker, U.S. Army
On May 1, 1863, the head of Union Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac arrived on these fields, apparently completing one of the most successful and elaborate maneuvers of the war. A column that eventually numbered 80,000 men had crossed two rivers, pushed through the tangled Wilderness of Spotsylvania County, and now stood poised to descend on the left flank and rear of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, posted on the Rappahannock River above and below Fredericksburg.
Momentarily deceived by the 30,000 Union troops left hovering opposite Fredericksburg, Lee was slow to respond. But on April 30, reports from scouts and other units on the Rappahannock confirmed Hooker's sweeping flank movement. Lee moved quickly to blunt Hooker's advance. Leaving just 10,000 soldiers at Fredericksburg, Gens. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson marched with 42,000 men to confront Hooker's main force. The columns collided here, on these open fields, on May 1. |