Book Thoughts: "Chancellorsville" by Stephen Sears

Another first rate Civil War campaign study by Stephen W. Sears. Honestly, I couldn't imagine another single volume book containing this much quality information on a battle as this volume does.

The battle of Chancellorsville in April-May 1863 is often told as General Lee's greatest victory, however, as Sears notes, it wasn't destined to be so from the get go. General Hooker had revitalized the Army of the Potomac after the debacle that was Burnside and Fredericksburg. Hookers campaign plan was well thought out and may well have succeeded if not for three factors: The breakdown of Yankee communications via telegraph and signal corp, the failure of General Stoneman to complete his objective of destroying Lee's lines of supply and communication, and the general ineptness of several of the Corps commanders in the army including Gens Howard of the 11th, Sickles of 3rd, and Sedgwick of the 6th. Indeed it was the 11th corps under Howard that was torn to pieces by Jackson's flank march.

Still, Sears gives Robert E. Lee ample credit, particularly in his bold choice to divide his army into essentially 3 parts. Lee's army was already missing most of it's first corps, with Longstreet and his divisions under Hood and Pickett deployed far to the south on a forage mission. Of course, the sheer audacity of Jackson's flank march is noted as one of the great moments in the war. Unfortunately, this great victory came at a great cost, most notably a large amount of Lee's infantry and the death of Stonewall Jackson, who would be sorely missed in the next encounter at Gettysburg.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Sears rather intense defense of General Hooker. Almost everything else I had ever read about this battle puts the defeat square on Hooker's shoulders, yet Sears does a great job of dissecting what went wrong and what Hooker could have controlled, and what he couldn't. All in all a stunning book that should be in any Civil War library.