22. Throughout the Civil War, 1862 Might Have Been the Most Dismal Year for the Army of the Potomac
1862 was rough on the Union’s Army of the Potomac. The spring started off well with the Peninsula Campaign, which brought Union forces to the outskirts of Richmond. It ended in a hasty retreat after a series of vicious Confederate counterattacks. Then came an embarrassing defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run that summer, followed in the early fall by a stalemated battle at Antietam, the bloodiest day not just of the Civil War, but of America’s history. Winter was no kinder to the Army of the Potomac, which suffered a bloody setback when it crossed the Rappahannock River and attacked the Confederates in strong defensive positions near Fredericksburg. That triggered another change of command, and the arrival of a new leader, Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker.
Aware that another frontal assault on the Confederates near Fredericksburg was doomed to fail, Hooker decided to get at them from the rear. He had about 134,000 men, while the Confederates, under Robert E. Lee, had roughly 61,000. On April 30th, 1863, Hooker left 28,000 men in front of Fredericksburg to keep Lee occupied, and marched westward with 106,000 men to cross the Rappahannock upstream from the Confederates. Hooker’s goal was to fall on Lee’s rear and catch him in a pincer between the forces under his command and those he had left behind at Fredericksburg. He stole a march on Lee and got in his rear by crossing the Rappahannock in heavily wooded terrain north of Chancellorsville. Then things began to go wrong.
