This Day in Civil War History May 3, 1863 Confederates take Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2004 ^

[mainepatsfan]

May 3, 1863

Confederates take Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville On this day, General Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac abandon a key hill on the Chancellorsville battlefield. The Union army was reeling after Stonewall Jackson's troops swung around the Union right flank and stormed out of the woods on the evening of May 2, causing the Federals to retreat some two miles before stopping the Confederate advance. Nonetheless, Hooker's forces were still in a position to deal a serious defeat to Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia because they had a numerical advantage and a strategic position between Lee's divided forces. But Lee had Hooker psychologically beaten.

Union forces controlled the key geographical feature in the Chancellorsville area: Hazel Grove, a hill that provided a prime artillery location. General J.E.B. Stuart, the head of the Confederate cavalry, assumed temporary command of Stonewall Jackson's corps after Jackson was wounded the night before (a wound that proved fatal a week later) and planned to attack Hazel Grove the next morning. This move was made much easier when Hooker made the crucial mistake of ordering an evacuation of the decisive hill.

Once Stuart's artillery occupied Hazel Grove, the Confederates proceeded to wreak havoc on the Union lines around Chancellorsville. Rebel cannons shelled the Union line, and the fighting resulted in more Union casualties than Jackson's attack the day before. Hooker himself was wounded when an artillery shell struck the column he was leaning against. Stunned, Hooker took a shot of brandy and ordered the retreat from the Chancellorsville area, which allowed Jackson's men to rejoin the bulk of Lee's troops. The daring flanking maneuver had worked. Hooker had failed to exploit the divided Army of Northern Virginia, and allowed the smaller Rebel force to defeat his numerically superior force.

[tcrlaf]

“JEB Stuart was off gallivanting & gathering up union supplies.”

Stewart gets blasted by the historians for leaving LEE blind, but the reality is that Stewart was following his orders, harrasing enemy movements.

He was screening, and at times engaged with, an entire Union Corps when the orders reached him to proceed to Gettysburg, and the speed of the Union Movements from washington to the north took everybody by surprise.

Buford’s forward units weren’t detected until they were within about 16 miles of Gettysburg, and a lot of the infantry moved by rail, rather than by march.

And almost all of the armchair Generals forget the political situation at the time of Gettysburg, too.

[Non-Sequitur]

Allow me, the "drunken" bastard reponded by trading bodies with the Great Army of Northern Virgina almost 2:1.

Absolute nonsense.

[Non-Sequitur]

In general, not always, Gettysburg day three and the Battle of Franklin being major exceptions.

Add to them the Seven Days battles, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Stones River, etc., etc.

[BroJoeK]

"Stewart gets blasted by the historians for leaving LEE blind, but the reality is that Stewart was following his orders, harrasing enemy movements."

Not just by historians, first by Lee, the evening of July 2, 1863.

There was some "confusion" in JEB Stuart's orders around June 23, 1863. The result was that Stuart launched an escapade which Lee neither knew about nor approved -- with Stuart disappearing from Lee's service until after dark on July 2, end of the second day's battle. By then Stuart's cavalry brigades were utterly exhausted and were defeated the next day by Gen. George Armstrong Custer's outnumbered Wolverines.

Here's what Bowden & Ward say (2001, p124):

"For six days the cavalier had been out of contact with his army, even though Lee's orders on this point had been clear ("In either case, after crossing the [Potomac] river, you must move on & feel the right of Ewell's troops, collecting information, provisions &etc.")

This point is extraordinarily important: Lee's written orders were for Stuart to stay in close contact with Ewell's corps (Ewell was Stonewall Jackson's replacement). Stuart made no attempt to do that.

"Only once during that period -- the same day that he had begun his raid -- had Stuart bothered to send Lee a dispatch that would never arrive. Instead of being in position to shield Lee's vulnerable columns and provide him with valuable intelligence information, Stuart had worn out the army's three finest cavalry brigades on an unauthorized raid that violated his orders.

"It would take days of rest to get them back in their normal fighting trim. In return, Stuart had captured 200 wagons, 72 ambulances, 3,000 horses, 1,200 mules, and 746 officers and men (half of whom had been paroled).

"With the enemy close at hand and the whereabouts of his own army still a mystery, one wonders when Stuart anticipated he would be able to give his command the rest it so desperately needed.

"The gallant cavalier, whose exploits had made him a legend in his own time -- he was the very embodiment of the romantic chivalric myth the South held so dear -- was failing miserably in the most important assignment Lee had ever given him. And he knew it. He could not have helped but have known it."

[BroJoeK]

"trying to "preserve" a union that nobady wanted"

I'd say: that Union, which "nobady wanted," was wanted by a large majority of northerners plus a sizable minority of southerners, especially in border states, most especially slaves.

[central_va]

I agree, the entire war of Northern Aggression was non-sense. Having a drunk meat cleaver for a General was non-sense also. But what do you expect, good decisions from a butcher?

[central_va]

I'd say: that Union, which "nobady wanted," was wanted by a large majority of northerners plus a sizable minority of southerners, especially in border states, most especially slaves.

Typical. The FedsYankees/Northerners out number you so shut up do as we say, might makes right.

I'm starting to get a handle on this, it's not pretty.

PS: Read history, nobody in the years after Confederation really wanted a centralized Federal Government (Union). That was the whole point of the Constitution, an attempt to control centralized power. It has failed in that regard miserably.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Non-Sequitur]

I agree, the entire war of Northern Aggression was non-sense. Having a drunk meat cleaver for a General was non-sense also. But what do you expect, good decisions from a butcher?

It apparently bugs the hell out of you that that general who you dismiss as a 'drunken meat cleaver' kicked the ass of each and every Southern general who went up against him. Including your sainted Bobby Lee. Well, you'll just have to live with that.

[BroJoeK]

"PS: Read history, nobody in the years after Confederation really wanted a centralized Federal Government (Union). That was the whole point of the Constitution, an attempt to control centralized power. It has failed in that regard miserably."

The US Constitution was crafted largely by Virginians like Washington, Madison & Jefferson -- in order to increase the Federal Government's authorities, compared to the old Articles of Confederation, while still limiting federal power to the bare essentials. These same Founders built a whole new city -- Washington, DC -- to centralize the government closer to Virginia.

As to how successful the Constitution was these past 221 years, well, consider this: at about that same time, our great Revolutionary War allies -- the French -- were also undergoing a Revolution to overthrow their monarchy and replace it with republican government. But by the time Jefferson was reelected in 1804, the French had given up on their Republic and crowned Napoleon Emperor.

When we get our first emperor crowned, then I'll admit, our Constitution was no more successful that the French. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

"Typical. The FedsYankees/Northerners out number you so shut up do as we say, might makes right."

"Might makes right," you say? And just what, exactly, made slavery "right" in the South, if not the might of a very small minority of slave owners?