Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction by Allen Guelzo (self help books to read TXT) 📕

recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator,” wrote Lincoln in a letter he quietly handed to Hooker after summoning the general to the White House to appoint him as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. … I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the Army, of criticizing their Commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you.15

Hooker now proceeded to confirm every one of those reservations. To begin with, his plans were little more than a variation on Burnside’s: the Army of the Potomac would again attempt to cross the Rappahannock and force a fight with the Army of Northern Virginia above Richmond. Since the Fredericksburg crossing was obviously too dangerous, Hooker left two of his infantry corps opposite Fredericksburg as decoys under Major General John Sedgwick and actually crossed the Rappahannock about twelve miles to the west with his remaining five corps (between 70,000 and 80,000 men). In theory, this would bring the bulk of the Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock and down onto Lee’s left flank at Fredericksburg before the Confederates could act; Lee would be forced to fight pinned against the Rappahannock or else fall back on Richmond. In that case, Hooker trumpeted, “our enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him.”16

When Hooker crossed the Rappahannock on April 29, 1863, the country on the other side of the river turned out to be a dark, unsettled tangle of woods and scrub underbrush, crisscrossed by few usable roads. Hooker plunged firmly into this impassable and spooky terrain, known as the Wilderness, and within twenty-four hours had managed to penetrate all the way to a little country crossroads called Chancellorsville (which was not much of a town at all, but actually a large, rambling hostelry owned by the Chancellor family). “This is splendid,” cried George G. Meade, the commander of the 5th Corps, “Hurrah for old Joe; we are on Lee’s flank, and he does not know it.” If Slocum and the 12th Corps would “take the Plank Road toward Fredericksburg,” Meade claimed, “I’ll take the Pike, or vice versa, as you prefer, and we’ll get out of this Wilderness” and hit Lee before he knew what was coming. Hooker’s real plan was nothing so venturesome. He hoped that his advance through the Wilderness would entice Lee to attack him rather the other way round, and so Hooker decided over the protests of his corps commanders to entrench the army around Chancellorsville. Slocum was aghast: “Nobody but a crazy man would give such an order when we have victory in sight!” But Hooker was convinced that “I have got Lee just where I want him; he must fight me on my own ground.” So he waited to see what would happen—which was usually a fatal thing to do in the vicinity of Robert E. Lee.17

Lee had been as surprised by Hooker’s move as by Burnside’s back in December, but he took full advantage of Hooker’s hesitancy the same way as he had of Burnside’s difficulty with his pontoon bridge. While Hooker pulled back to Chancellorsville, Lee left only a thin line of Confederate troops to guard Fredericksburg and pulled the rest over to confront Hooker in the Wilderness. He had only 43,000 men (one entire corps of the Army of Northern Virginia was absent on detached service) to face Hooker. Yet Lee scarcely hesitated before throwing the single most dramatic gamble of the Civil War. Dividing his already understrength army into two parts, he yielded to the prompting of “Stonewall” Jackson to allow him to march his 29,000-man corps entirely around the right flank of Hooker’s army and use the advantage of surprise to crumple Hooker’s line like a piece of paper.18

Jackson began his flank march late on the morning of May 2, 1863, and after twelve hours of marching under the shadows of the Wilderness’s impenetrable tree cover, his men were in position on the edge of the unsuspecting flank of the Army of the Potomac. Shortly after five o’clock, Jackson pulled his watch from his pocket and serenely informed his lead division commander, Robert Rodes, “You can go forward, then.” As Jackson’s men came bounding through the woods, yip-yipping their dreaded rebel yell, the unprepared Federals fell to pieces. The Army of the Potomac’s entire 11th Corps dissolved into “a dense mass of beings who had lost their reasoning faculties, and were flying from a thousand fancied dangers… battery wagons, ambulances, horses, men, cannon, caissons, all jumbled and tumbled together in an apparently inextricable mass, and that murderous fire still pouring in upon them.” Only the fall of darkness prevented Jackson from rolling right over Hooker’s headquarters. Over the next two days, Lee pressed home his attack again and again, while Hooker simply drew his lines in tighter, abandoning a position at Hazel Grove, which allowed Confederate artillery to bombard his own headquarters in the Chancellorsville tavern. One solid shot smashed into a porch pillar that Hooker was leaning against, temporarily concussing Hooker, and drawing a veil of paralysis over his decisions.19

Finally, on May 5, Hooker had had enough and pulled his army back over the Rappahannock. He had lost nearly 17,000 men and a major battle; what was more, he had lost them to a force nearly half the size of his own, and had done it while nearly one-third of his own army stood idle for want of orders from its confused and vacillating commander. It was now Hooker’s turn to fall prey to the same rumor mill he had so often turned himself, and on May 13 Lincoln