The Moneychanger
On 1 May 1863 began yankee General Joseph Hooker's advance against CS General Robert E. Lee, planning to encircle Lee front and back. Didn't quite turn out that way. It was Lee's perfect battle, with the perfect subaltern, Stonewall Jackson. In the face of Hookers vastly superior numbers (over 2 to 1), Lee split his Army of Northern Virginia. On 2 May he sent Jackson on a flanking march. Stonewall caught a corps of the yankee army waving in the breeze, and rolled 'em up, routing the entire corps. By the morning of 6 May, Hooker had withdrawn.
On 2 May 1863 occurred one of the chief events that may have lost the South the war: Stonewall Jackson was wounded, tragically by his own troops. He lost an arm and seemed to rally, but succumbed to pneumonia on 10 May 1863. All that is in the providence of God, but it's hard not to guess that if Jackson had been at Gettysburg instead of Longstreet, Meade would have been demolished and we'd have our own country.
Longstreet was a wise and effective leader of the First Corps. Had Jackson survived his wounding he would have been in charge of the Second Corps at Gettysburg, instead of General Ewell. Jackson would probably have taken the high ground on the first day of the battle (as Ewell declined to do), which might have changed the outcome, but even Jackson would have failed were he forced to attack the entrenched Federal positions on the third day, as Pickett had to. Frontal assaults against entrenched defenders were almost invariably a failure throughout the War; Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Kennesaw Mountain, Cold Harbor; both sides tried, both sides failed.
ReplyDeleteYes and we will always wonder.....what if JEB Stuart had been successful that day.
DeleteLearned something new today: Very interesting to find that he has THREE burial markers - one for his arm, a temporary grave site and his final resting place. All three have a fascinating story behind them.
ReplyDeletePhyllis (N/W Jersey)
Yes indeed, Ma'am.
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