21. Robert E. Lee Tore Up the Rulebook at Chancellorsville
Things began promisingly enough for Joseph Hooker. He stole a march on Robert E. Lee and crossed the Rappahannock River to bring his forces behind the Confederates at Fredericksburg. However, Lee was not one to leave the initiative to his opponent if he could help it. When he discovered what Hooker had done, Lee divided his army, already seriously outnumbered by that of his opponent, and left a small rearguard behind in Fredericksburg. He then set out with 45,000 Confederates to meet Hooker.
In so doing, Lee violated conventional wisdom against the division of one’s forces in the face of a numerically superior enemy. He was willing to defy conventional wisdom, however, and it worked for him. When he neared Chancellorsville, Lee doubled down on the defiance of conventional wisdom and further divided his already outnumbered army. He confronted 70,000 Union soldiers with only 13,000 Confederates east of Chancellorsville, and sent his chief lieutenant, General Stonewall Jackson, with the rest of the Confederates on a flanking march to fall on Hooker’s right flank.
