[BroJoeK]

Chancellorsville could be called a "fatal victory" for General Lee because:

• Using brilliant tactics, leadership & soldiering Lee defeated a Union Army of 130,000 with only 60,000 Confederates.
• The battle cost Lee his finest Lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson. However, JEB Stuart temporarily took over Jackson's corps and won the day.
• At Chancellorsville, Lee defeated Hooker holed up on high ground -- Union tactics he would face again just two months later, at Gettysburg.

In short, at Chancellorsville Lee learned that his outstanding tactics, corps & division level leadership and amazing southern soldiers could defeat anything the Union might throw against him.

And now, what Lee needed most to win this war was a decisive, destructive victory over the Union Army in the north. Marching north would also hugely alleviate Lee's shortages of war supplies, and give him a choke hold over such strategic rail hubs as Harrisburg, PA.

So, it was a no-brainer for Lee: march north, gather up supplies, defeat & destroy the Union Army there, put a choke hold on the Union rail system.

Chancellorsville was a "fatal victory" for Lee because he didn't quite notice what had changed by the time of his march toward Gettysburg.

• Stonewall Jackson was now dead.
• Jackson's replacement, Richard Ewell was, well, no Stonewall.
• JEB Stuart was off gallivanting & gathering up union supplies.
• All three of Lee's corp commanders -- Longstreet, Hill and Ewell -- had become suddenly, unpredictably and decisively reluctant warriors, for reasons still not understood.
• Lincoln had now replaced Hooker with "Major Meade" (as Lee called him). Meade turned out to be exactly the right general to fight the defensive battle Hooker had hoped for at Chancellorsville.

So in June Lee and his entire army marched north, fully confident of victory, not really noticing the small but critical changes which would prevent them from doing again what they had accomplished at Chancellorsville.

In other words: if there had been no Union defeat at Chancellorsville, there could have been no Union victory at Gettysburg.

[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.