20. A Civil War Gamble That Paid Off
What Robert E. Lee did at Chancellorsville when he divided his army in the face of a numerically superior enemy – not once, but twice – was a huge gamble. It paid off for him on May 2nd, 1863. That day, while Confederate cavalry screened his flank to keep the Union forces from observing him, Lee sent his chief subordinate, General Stonewall Jackson, to lead about 28,000 Confederates on a 12-mile roundabout march. It brought Jackson and his men, undetected, to the Army of the Potomac’s right flank near Chancellorsville.
Jackson launched a surprise attack late that afternoon against the XI Corps on the Union army’s right flank, just as its men sat down for dinner. It caught them completely off guard and sent them on a panicked rout that soon sowed confusion throughout Hooker’s army. Jackson’s advance was only halted by the fall of darkness. The setback took the fight out of Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. Psychologically defeated and concussed from a shell that struck a post against which he was leaning, Hooker conceded defeat and withdrew. The Battle of Chancellorsville went down as Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle“, and is taught in military academies to this day.
