After
his disaster at Chancellorsville despite two to one odds against Lee,
Northern General Hooker retreated northward and was relieved of
command. With Jackson’s corps of 30,000 enroute to his right flank,
Hooker unknowingly faced Lee’s thus reduced army of 30,000 with 120,000
men.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Stonewall Jackson Routs Lincoln’s Hessians
“[When]
I consider Chancellorsville, one of the most interesting battles of the
civil war . . . [never] did the Federals have a better opportunity to
crush Lee’s army. Lee only had Stonewall Jackson’s and A.P. Hill’s
Corps. Longstreet was at Suffolk, two hundred miles away. Hooker’s
army consisted of one-hundred and twenty thousand well-equipped,
well-disciplined men, who had the utmost confidence in “Fighting Joe.”
Here we had the finest exhibition of generalship during the war, and it won.
The
bulk of Hooker’s army crossed the Rappahannock about fifteen miles
above Fredericksburg . . . Jackson’s corps began moving about three o’clock Saturday morning, May 2, 1863, toward Hooker’s right. About 4PM
we reached Hooker’s right flank. We were in a thick woods, and the
enemy was two hundred yards in front in an open field. They were making
coffee, and evidently unconscious of the presence of so formidable a
foe, notwithstanding we had driven their pickets in.
Everything
was about ready for the attack. Stonewall Jackson was sitting on a log
by our company (B). Mr. Camp, a good man and Methodist preacher, a
member of our company, seeing the attack was imminent, suggested we all
kneel while he prayed. Jackson dropped his head, the others likewise.
Immediately after the prayer the attack was ordered.
We
were right among them before they could turn their cannon on us. They
broke, and the rout was complete. We pursued them, killing and capturing
them for two miles. Many who were not captured or killed “did not stop
south of Baltimore.”
[This enemy] corps was never again reorganized, I understand. All that I saw were foreigners, mostly Germans.”
(With Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, J. H. Taylor, Confederate Veteran, September 1900, pg 408)
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