After Chancellorsville
Nearly six decades after the Chancellorsville Campaign, Sgt. Wyman S. White of the 2nd U. S. Sharpshooters published his memoirs. Missing few particulars, White nailed Hooker’s command tenure leading up to Chancellorsville, and it is worth quoting at length:
But now Fighting Joe Hooker was in command and hope again hovered over that stricken army and all were ready for another trial. General Hooker at once set himself to work to organize the army. General McClellan had every brigade a unit. To each brigade of infantry was attached a squadron or more of cavalry and a battery of artillery. The transportation for quartermaster, commissary, and ammunition was also in very much the same broken condition.
Now this manner of formation of a large army was disorganization rather than Organization. General Hooker remodeled the structure of the whole army in keeping with its proportions and requirements. The cavalry, which had been almost a pest, was consolidated into a corps by itself and in command of General Stoneman and were given to understand that in the future there must be some dead cavalrymen seen on the fields of battle; for up to that time it was a common expression in the army, “Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?”
The artillery was put into a corps by itself, known as the reserve artillery and was in command of a competent officer and was an arm of the service that could be counted upon. The cavalry from that time advanced in efficiency and character until the world looked on with admiration. Commissary and quartermaster departments were consolidated, and the transportation consolidated in a proper manner, each department in a separate command.
The quarters, the clothing, and the equipment were looked after. Drills and inspections were in order. Discipline was brought up to proper form and finally hope again came to cheer up the men of the Army of the Potomac and, although not led to victory by General Hooker, all felt and knew the Army of the Potomac was indeed a real army.
… On Monday[, April] the 27th, General Hooker reviewed our corps and I thought that he was pleased with our performance and I think that the organization, morale, discipline and efficiency of the Army of the Potomac had never been so good before and was never any better afterwards.
Hooker had taken command of a disheartened, disorganized, demoralized army. He first organized the troops he had in hand into an army-proper form, then with a master and brought discipline in place of demoralization and the men were quick to see their own improvement and took heart and were ready to do their duty and again battle for the Union.
General Hooker seemed to have satisfaction in what he had accomplished and no doubt felt his time would come when he, with his redeemed army would reap victory and it ought to have been so.1
“A Wonder in Its Way”
During one brief, shining hour, the “finest army on the planet”—as Hooker had called it—looked to justify the commander’s praise.2 In a series of maneuvers, Hooker fixed Lee’s right flank at Fredericksburg and surprised him by putting three corps across at Kelly’s Ford and sweeping down from the west. If the fates had smiled, Hooker would have had four corps—some 73,000 men—at Lee’s rear and flanks and two corps—some 40,000 men—in his face. His cavalry corps would have swept into Lee’s lines of communication and routes of withdrawal, wrecking havoc.3
A May 1 letter from Sgt. John Cate of the 33rd Massachusetts Infantry provided a soldier-level progress report:
Here we are, nearly (100,000) one hundred thousand of us in the rear of Fredericksburg. We have cut off the Rail Road communications from Richmond. We broke camp at Stafford Court House on Monday April 26th. We marched 17 miles in the boiling sun. We had 8 days rations and all the other things to carry. The second day we broke camp at 2 o’clock in the morning and marched 16 miles to Kelly’s Ford on the Rappahannock. On this day our march was slow for there were so many troops, baggage trains, and ammunition trains that we had to halt quite often. About 6 o’clock we stopped and pitched tents, made coffee, and most of the men were asleep when the orders came to fall in. This was at 7 o’clock or a little later. We crossed the river on pontoon bridges, then marched about 2 miles and halted until morning. It was 1 o’clock when we stopped. The men were so tired many of them did not take off their equipments, but lay down on the ground with nothing over them and slept until morning.4
Sergeant Cate also mentioned the movement’s secrecy and difficulty. “All this time the greatest secrecy was used, not a drum was beat or a bugle blast was heard, and the men were not allowed to holler or cheer,” he wrote. “This was the severest marching I ever saw.”
By all the laws and arts of war, Hooker’s movement should have set up a true American Cannae on the Rappahannock and the last battle in the Eastern Theater. For 24 hours, it was the greatest maneuver in American military history.
And that would have remained the story but for one thing: the effective military partnership of Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee, defying all conventions, did not fight a retrograde action or attack in one direction to escape encirclement. He split his force—outnumbered more than two to one—leaving a portion of his army in Fredericksburg to decoy the Federal forces that had supposedly fixed him in place. The rest of the army moved westward to face Hooker’s flanking force.5 Lee’s total infantry forces disposed about 53,000 men. Stuart’s cavalry forces added 6,500 men.
Had Federal cavalry operated more effectively, it’s intriguing to ponder the effect they might have had countering Stuart’s movements. As it was, Stuart’s troopers harassed and otherwise impeded Slocum’s and Howard’s corps—the westernmost units of Hooker’s army—and it supplied key intelligence about the Union flank on May 1. Reportedly, Howard’s XI Corps was “in the air.” That, in turn, laid the groundwork for Jackson’s decisive flank assault on May 2.
“As I have written before our Brigade was out on a reconnaissance when the Rebels attacked,” recounted Cate, who survived the fighting on May 2 and 3. “One Division of our corps fought well but there were so many gave way, it was madness for them to stand any longer.” Cate listed all the equipment he lost as a result, quickly adding, “All these things are supplied by the Government free of charge. We were ordered to leave them by the General so that we could march more quickly.”6
It would take a brutal third day of fighting on May 3—the second-bloodiest day of the Civil War—before Hooker’s line finally collapsed. In the melee, Hooker himself was knocked out of action by an artillery shell that exploded a portion of the porch he was standing on; a support column smashed into him, knocking him senseless. Dazed, he nonetheless refused to relinquish command at the very moment his army desperately needed firm, decisive leadership. It would fall to his under-informed corps commanders—particularly Couch and Slocum—to maintain an orderly withdrawal and prevent the collapse from turning into a rout.
Hooker ordered the army into a tighter defensive position closer to the Rappahannock and then hunkered down to await the outcome of fighting along the eastern front at Fredericksburg and, later, at Salem Church and Banks’s Ford—but by the evening of May 4, Hooker had given up hope of victory. Despite a council of war with his corps commanders that recommended renewing the offensive, Hooker withdrew the army northward across U.S. Ford.
“To a military mind the nine days’ campaign of the Army of the Potomac is most full of instruction,” wrote an anonymous officer in the May 20 edition of a New Jersey newspaper. The critique of “Gen. Hooker’s Campaign,” attributed to “an officer of great experience and gallantry, who bore an active part in it,” was a reasonably good contemporary assessment. “The plan, so far as revealed by the actual operations in the field of our army and that of the enemy, was fine up to the occupation of the Cross Roads at Chancellorsville, the evacuation of Fredericksburg by the Confederates in consequence of the endangering of their communications by Stoneman and Hooker, and the adoption of a line of battle by our forces. But here, the commencement of our general failure, I reluctantly admit.”7
Complementing the article in that same edition of the paper—and also running in the Newark Daily Advertiser—was an assessment from a soldier from the 26th New Jersey. “Our late unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the rebels from Fredericksburg has neither destroyed the confidence of the army in itself nor in its commander,” he wrote. “On the contrary a greater faith seems to pervade the troops in their ultimate success, than prior to the battle …. I feel, as the whole army seems to feel, that our cause will yet triumph. The Government should put forth at this critical period, a tremendous effort, and strike now while the iron is hot.”
The soldier asked a question on the minds of many of his peers: “But if the Copperhead element can only be subdued in the North and the whole power of the nation be brought to the work, how can the rebellion last much longer? Our foes North do more harm than the whole Confederate army to our cause.” He rejected downheartedness, adding: “This is not what is wanted. A confidence on the part of the people, is needed to support the Administration in its herculean task. Without that, the effort may as well be abandoned now.”8
Sergeant John Cate, writing back to Massachusetts, was saying much the same thing in his letters. “You ask what seems to be the idea among the troops concerning the war,” he wrote on May 25. “We think that the Rebels have got to give up the unequal contest for it is impossible for them to hold out.”9
Cate’s assessment reveals the true import of the “Valley Forge” winter: the Army of the Potomac once more sallied forth to battle and once more met defeat at the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia—yet Cate and tens of thousands of soldiers like him did not feel defeated as they had earlier. By any measure, including its top commander, the army had generally performed better than ever before. Although defeated at Chancellorsville and Salem Church, their confidence paradoxically grew, patriotism was reinforced, and faith held strong.10
The army demonstrated it was ready to turn the page. When they re-crossed the Rappahannock and returned to Stafford, the army’s mood was predominantly disgust and anger mixed with a great deal of surprise. It was not, by comparison, the beaten, demoralized, and degraded force it had been after First Fredericksburg and following the “Mud March.” At the beginning of the “Valley Forge,” they knew they had been thoroughly beaten by the enemy, weather, and terrain in December 1862 and January 1863. After Chancellorsville, they were bitterly disappointed that they had not prevailed and had missed the opportunity to decisively defeat Lee’s army.
Defeated but Not Whipped or Beaten
“This second movement back to our old camp is something which I cannot begin to comprehend,” puzzled Corp. Uriah N. Parmelee of the 6th New York Cavalry, a highly commended orderly/courier for Caldwell’s 1st Division. Writing from “Camp near Falmouth,” he saw important distinctions as early as May 8. “The short campaign of ten days has been a wonder in its way,” he wrote. “General Hooker has certainly acted with the greatest energy, secrecy & dispatch, besides displaying the enviable qualities of personal daring & coolness.” A competent witness, Parmelee noted, “Our division has been from first to last in the extreme front.” Hooker, too, he asserted, “has always been in the front—the most conspicuous object on the field. He has spared himself no toil. His strategy was sublime. He has attended to everything in person. Even our little brigade went into battle under his immediate orders.”11
Parmelee condemned the XI Corps’s “Dutchmen,” and blamed Sedgwick for the consequent need to hold back reinforcements, but then added: “I will not be too sweeping—the men have had much to discourage them, but the present campaign was most splendidly planned—Hooker completely surprised Lee and exceeded all my expectations—I admit now we have a general & that too in the face of a seeming defeat.” Most significantly, he wrote, “I am more hopeful than ever before because I can see we are fighting for Liberty & believe that we will have a leader.”12
Parmelee’s spirits were widely reflected elsewhere. “Though the army has recrossed the river, we are not discouraged or down-hearted,” reported Chaplain John R. Adams of the 5th Maine and 121st New York Infantry Regiments; “we are in good spirits, and the bands are not idle. Neither has the army lost confidence in General Hooker, but are ready to try it again if need be.” His optimism did not prevent him from offering a realistic assessment of the situation, though. “The Rebels have superior generals, and interior railroads, to move troops rapidly. We have to march, and have had a violent rain-storm—one of the severest of the season—and now are in thick mud again,” he had written on May 7, before they had returned to their old White Oak Church camp. “We have been through trying scenes.”13
Some soldiers even refused to accept that they’d been defeated. “You are aware long before this that we have fought and you know the result better than I but I think it is far from a defeat,” wrote Abel G. Peck of the 24th Michigan Infantry from “Camp Way, Near Fredericksburgh.” Peck was allowing for the delay between letters and the stories that found their way into newspapers before letters found their way into mailboxes. “The troops are in good cheer. They feel as well as ever they did since I have been in the army.”14
George B. Wolcott of the 44th New York Infantry held a similar opinion. “Another battle has been fought, another victory won and I am left to tell the tale unharmed and well,” he wrote, “so you will please banish any fears that may have arisen in your mind concerning my welfare and safety.” Wolcott described the fighting, their opponents’ valor, and passed judgment on the army’s leadership. “Gen. Hooker might be seen riding about on his gray steed at all times regardless of shot or shell,” he recalled. “On Wednesday morning we were called up to pack our things and prepare to evacuate …. There was some disappointment manifested but it has long since worn away and the men have the most [unbounded?] faith in Gen. Hooker.”15
Wolcott finally went on to qualify his opening statement. “I said another ‘victory’ has been ‘won,’ although many in the north do not see it in that light,” he explained. “I think the result of good generalship which stole two days march upon the enemy, crossed the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers and succeeded in reaching Chancellorsville without losing any life with such an army was indeed a greater victory achieved than if we had fought to obtain it.”16
U. S. Sanitary Commission official, “Earnest,” wrote to the Vermont Watchman and State Journal on May 7th from Aquia Creek. After discussing care for the wounded, he urged readers: “Do not lose faith in our success. We shall be victorious. Unabated energy is every where apparent.”17 Another Vermonter wrote four days earlier, “This bitter alternative will cause the rebel army to fight desperately; but if Hooker only holds his own we win all.”18
Probably most representative were sentiments expressed by Lt. Cornelius L. Moore of the 57th New York Infantry. “[B]y the tone of your letter, I see, you think I am nearly discouraged—low spirited. I am really sorry you have got this impression, for I was never more hopeful for the future, more confident of the abilities of my commanding general, or more anxious to again renew the contest with the Rebel host on the south bank of the Rappahannock …” he wrote from “Camp near Falmouth, Va.” on May 15. “You know Adeline, there is nothing the American soldier dislikes so much as a backward step, and it was for this alone that I entertained, at the time, this petty feeling of dissatisfaction.” Like so many others, “Cornie” Moore focused blame squarely on the XI Corps, adding: “We had been defeated, in strict compliance with the meaning of the word, it is useless to deny; for Hooker had planned a most brilliant campaign, but had failed to carry it out—had been defeated in his main object. But in another sence, I most emphatically deny that the army was whipped or beaten.”19
Moore felt they had attacked the enemy; was gratified by Jackson’s death; and pointed out the Union could withstand “a dozen such ‘defeats’” while the South could not. “The Army of the Potomac has truly met with many reverses, severe enough to dishearten and demoralize a less determined noble souled body of men,” he asserted on May 25. “And when I speak of the ‘Army of the Potomac,’ I have reference to the ‘old Army’ that first borne that name (this does not include the 11th and 12th Corps.) I cannot help but express a feeling of pride at the mention of its name, and the remembrance of its deeds.”20
James H. Leonard of the 5th Wisconsin Infantry wrote on May 14 from “Camp near White Oak Church.” “In the squad over which I have charge, there were eighteen previous to the crossing of the river and now there is only seven. Every American in it was either killed or wounded,” he bemoaned. Unfortunately, Leonard’s sympathies for “American” comrades did not extend to the “Germans of the 11th Corps,” whom he blamed for the defeat. “With the exception of this sorrow for our fallen comrades,” he continued, “those of us that are left are in good health and good spirits, and just as ready to meet the enemy now as ever we were. I never knew the boys to come out of a fight so little discouraged as at present, excepting after the battle of Williamsburg. The fact of the case is, though we did come back to this side of the river, we do not consider ourselves as whipped by a considerable.”21
Similar sentiments expressing the common wisdom were rendered by Edward R. Geary, son of Gen. J. W. Geary and a member of Knap’s Pennsylvania Battery. “We were not whipped, although we did retreat,” he wrote on May 30, “and we should have been successful had it not been for the cowardly conduct of one of our corps which run at the first approach of the enemy.”22
Bitter, often snide, remarks about the XI Corps made their way into letter after letter. However, soldiers also looked in other directions for factors that might have influenced their defeat. “[W]e felt almost discouraged for a day or two till we began to understand the real cause of the retreat,” explained Thomas P. Beath of the 19th Maine Infantry on May 17. “I believe the failure is [owing] to the unforeseen element and not to any fault of Hookers. I think it would have been utterly impossible after the heavy rains that we had to get supplies to the army, for when we were on the roads guarding the [telegraph] line they were in wretched condition and after the rain they must have been awful.” Most importantly, Beath said he hadn’t lost faith in “old Joe” yet. “I believe his plans were good and that his next move will be more successful. All the troops seem to have great confidence in him, even the McClellan men have to admit that they think the plans were good.”23
Lieutenant W. O. Blodget of the 151st Pennsylvania Infantry, at “Camp near FitzHugh Plantation, Va.,” cast his blame a little eastward and northward. “Why was not Dix [Fortress Monroe area] or Heintzelman [Washington Defenses] sent to Hooker’s assistance?” he pondered on May 10. “If Sedgewick could have been reinforced and sustained, the result would have been very different. It seems strange that so many men should be kept idle, but I do not presume to know.” Blodget was positive about one thing, though: the condition of his comrades. “It certainly is a fact that the men of our [I] Corps at least are in no way discouraged or demoralized—neither do I believe those of the other Corps are.”24
Sergeant Rollin L. Jones of the 29th Ohio Infantry, writing twelve days after Stonewall Jackson’s death, ascribed some of the blame to the dead Confederate general. “I presume you have read the General Order published by Hooker on the 30th of April. He promised a good deal, but made a grand failure,” he opined. “The success of his enterprise until the 2nd of May was all that could be wished. But Lee and Jackson were too much for him. But Jackson is out of the way, and hard work they will have to find a man to take his place. The rebels claim that he was killed by his own men by mistake. But it’s enough for us to know that he was killed in battle.” Jones was sharp to reckon Jackson’s death alone compensated for “Lee’s greatest victory.”25
Warren Banister Persons of the 64th New York Infantry, fighting along the Chancellorsville defense line, survived his first battle thanks to a miraculously available shovel. He threw up enough of a dirt embankment to slow a rifle round which struck him painfully in the chest. Unwounded, he joined in his unit’s stalwart defense. He was nevertheless disappointed as he wrote from “Camp near Falmouth” on May 30. “We failed to accomplish much this time, but we are bound to thrash the rebs, in the end,” he said. “I am confident we shall ultimately win. We are vindicating the cause of the downtrodden and oppressed. We are fighting the battles of Freedom, of Justice and of Right and my assurance of our final success comes from my faith in the justice and omnipotence of God.” Turning to the now familiar refrain, he said: “I do not think we have much to fear from copperheads. They will die of their own venom: We had Tories in the Revolution more numerous proportionately than copperheads are now, but the machinations of traitors can not avail anything against the decrees of Destiny.”26
The Army of the Potomac still had its own internal machinations churning away, though, especially among lingering McClellanites. One was temporary captain of cavalry George Armstrong Custer. Custer, notoriously last to graduate in his hurried-up West Point class of June 1861, had gained fame as a reckless courier while serving on the staffs of Generals McClellan and Pleasonton. He also commanded a company of Regular U.S. Cavalry as Pleasonton’s escort. On May 6, Custer wrote from division headquarters near the Lacy House to his old commander, McClellan. “I know you must be anxious to know how your army is, and has been, doing, particularly so if, as is reported here, the papers are prohibited from publishing the news,” the cavalryman said, somewhat convolutedly. “I cannot give you any of the details, nor is it necessary, it is sufficient to know the general result, we are defeated, driven back on the left bank of the Rappahannock with a loss which I suppose will exceed our entire loss during the seven days battles.” Custer proceeded almost gleefully to supply details of failures by Hooker, Stoneman, and Averell. “To say that everything is gloomy and discouraging does not express the state of affairs here,” he said, and “the universal cry is ‘Give us McClellan.’” Custer’s delusion notwithstanding, by May 1863, there was actually a distinct dearth of cries for McClellan in the army. Only people with political axes to grind or military allegiances to uphold were singing that old song. It was not that Hooker was so much better; the majority had simply moved on.27
More disconcerting than Custer’s was Gen. John Gibbon’s May 18 letter to McClellan. A proven officer, Gibbon had been wounded at Fredericksburg while commanding the 2nd Division of the I Corps and returned to duty three months later. His II Corps division, held back initially, fought in the Second Fredericksburg assault under Sedgwick. His letter was, by definition, disloyal, but, it was—despite betraying intra-army factionalism—analytical, balanced, nuanced and apparently principled. “The army has all returned and now occupies pretty much its old ground,” he wrote, “and there seems to be a prospect for a respite, that is if the enemy does not move, which it is not by any means certain he will not do.” Gibbon rightly worried that the pending discharge of two-year units and nine-months’ units might embolden Lee.
“[T]here appears to be no doubt that our force was great enough and in a condition to have won a decisive battle,” he wrote. “Hooker who is so well known to possess personal bravery seems to have yielded entirely to his nerves and to have shown a complete want of backbone at the wrong moment, to the surprise of every one.” He offered tribalistic credit to the West Pointers who tried to shore Hooker up: “At the council Monday [May 4th] night every one of the West Point Corps Commanders urged Genl. Hooker to remain and fight.” He singled-out Sickles’s objections, dubbing him “a political Genl with no military experience and no character, public or private,” because he urged “a retreat, contending with the old doctrines that the army occupied a political as well as a military position and that if it was destroyed Washington, that great bugbear, would be taken.” Gibbon believed Hooker had succumbed to Sickles’s and Butterfield’s unmerited influence and both lacked “principle” (apparently meaning a West Point diploma). Hooker’s injury was apparently unknown to Gibbon.
Gibbon admitted the army had begun the campaign “feeling every confidence in Hooker and his success,” but he blamed Hooker’s “congratulatory order on the operations of the 5th, 11th & 12th Corps” as “a great mistake and now after his failure no one can help referring to it.” Finally came the gross disloyalty: “I do not believe [the West Pointers’] confidence in you is a particle less than it ever was, but if you cannot come back the Govt. had better take things in time & send either Franklin back, or appoint Meade in whom every one seems to have confidence.”28
Gibbon’s confidence in Meade was valid, but his prejudice against non-West Pointers as “men without character and without principle” betrayed an unconscionable level of professional snobbery. His insider’s gossip also conveniently omitted mention of Hooker’s West Point education (or Halleck’s, for that matter).
The right principle—to use Gibbon’s term if not his meaning—was that the army’s generals and officers needed to concentrate on defeating Lee’s army, eliminate endless factionalism, and pull together. That, after two years of war, good officers like Gibbon were so ignorant of this and so unknowledgeable of the men with whom they served confirms the assertion. If men at war distrust one another and fail to know one another, little success is possible, especially amid difficulty and adversity.
Chancellorsville’s object lesson was the army had demonstrably improved. It now needed to execute its plans with single-minded purpose. The soldiers’ correspondence points to the prevailing post-Chancellorsville attitude of frustrated anger rather than the hopeless despondency after Fredericksburg. The soldiers were rightly angry because they had allowed a victory to slip from their grasp.
“I hope people will be mild in their judgments of Hooker and above all I hope he will not be superseded,” the pseudonymous “VT. SIXTH,” wrote plaintively in a letter home. “I cannot believe it was a fault of his and he has shown his bravery and good generalship.”29
New Eyes
Fresh to the post-Chancellorsville army was Maj. John Irwin Nevin, a former teacher who had served from the war’s beginning. As a 28th Pennsylvania Infantry lieutenant he’d been held prisoner in Libby Prison from February through August, 1862. After October of that year, he raised and then commanded Independent Battery H, Pennsylvania Artillery, in the Washington Defenses. Resigning under a cloud in February 1863, on April 1st he was appointed major in the 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry, a unit in 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, VI Corps, which was then without any field-grade officers. A dispassionate observer, Nevin arrived at Aquia Landing on May 5, just as the battles were concluding.30
Passing the night on dry straw in a quartermaster’s shed, he joined his unit on May 6. His entry was illuminating. “Started at 8 o’clock on horseback for Falmouth. A rough road in places—knee deep mud—ugly gullies, swollen streams, and bridges torn away,” he wrote. “Scenery monotonous on account of the desolation occasioned by army occupation, i.e., Army destruction. The road was almost anywhere one chose to go. So that he [the horse] kept a general southerly direction as the hills and valleys around were every where cut with deep wagon tracks.”
At Falmouth, Nevin saw “mule teams, straggling parties of soldiers, trains of pack mules carrying ammunition,” and III Corps returning in a “sad plodding, listless way in which they drag themselves along through the mud. A sad sight is a retreating army after a great defeat. I will not dwell on it.” After interacting with the men, he concluded:
I hope for happier times for the poor Army of the Potomac! The army is depressed but not demoralized; the feeling that prevails is not in the least fear, but an angry sadness, a reluctance to return from victory almost in our grasp to the tiresome, objectless camp life—and unwilling belief that the death of the Confederacy has been, for many months postponed.
Nevin noted that VI Corps men “as far as I have observed are not very much affected by the late reverse although scarcely a corps of the army has suffered as severely as they have. The men have the careless devil-may-care manner of taking any event that may happen as entirely a matter of course, a characteristic of the old soldier everywhere. They have become so used to the most tremendous excitements that they are (case) hardened, in fact seem to lose a goodly portion of their sensibility entirely.”
“They talk with the most matter of fact tone in the world about fearful scenes and hairbreadth escapes sufficient to satisfy the demand of many sensations,” he continued. “They joke about the bullet holes in each others clothes, talk with a shocking indifference about the loss of comrades struck dead at their sides. Truly this cruel war will demoralize the soldiers, patriots though they be, to a frightful extent.” Perhaps most importantly he observed, “And patriots they are for I find not a single copperhead here—some may be tired of the war—of soldiering—wish they were home, but not a man but intends to fight it out to the last.”
This was assuredly not the army of January 1863.
Old Eyes
Given his earlier brilliance, one might hope Rufus R. Dawes, now a lieutenant colonel, had provided similarly clear insights. If he did, they were omitted from his 1890 memoirs. Instead, Dawes reflected the men described by Maj. Nevin. “The reason General Hooker recrossed the river was because he was outgeneraled and defeated,—a humiliating confession, I own, but I believe true,” he wrote on May 18, from camp. “I have taken up my work again …. The weather is fine and we are beautifully located in a grove near the White Oak Church. The church is mythical, but it is a pleasant name to mark a pleasant locality. Drilling, parading, reviewing and court martialing go on again as usual before the battle.” If Dawes was looking for a cathedral in White Oak, he never noticed it: the frequently disrespected church was diminished even by those who recognized it; one soldier even compared it to his barn. More importantly, Dawes’ post-Chancellorsville letters reflected increased unit pride, which was the nearest substitute for victory.31
That was another step in the right direction.
If anyone had reason to look for silver lining, it was XI Corps commander Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard. Despite absorbing many criticisms for the army’s defeat, he provided a good assessment of the “Valley Forge” and its battle connections. “My own feeling at that time [after Fredericksburg in II Corps] was that of a want of confidence in the army itself. The ending of the peninsular work, the confusion at the termination of the second battle of Bull Run, the incompleteness of Antietam, and the fatal consequences of Fredericksburg did not make the horizon of our dawning future very luminous. We had suffered desertions by the thousands,” he summarized. “I brought two commissioned officers about that time to trial for disloyal language, directed against the President and the general commanding. Mouths were stopped, but discontent had taken deep root.”
He then professionally assessed Hooker’s role and reinforced this study’s thesis:
Hooker, however, by his prompt and energetic measures, soon changed the whole tone of the army for the better. Desertions were diminished, and outpost duty was systematized. The general showed himself frequently to his troops at reviews and inspections, and caused the construction of field works and entrenchments, which, with the drills, occupied the time and the minds of the soldiers. The cavalry became a corps, and Stoneman was put in command of it. The artillery reserve, given to General Hunt, was brought to a high degree of efficiency.
“In truth,” he added, “during February, March, and April, the old cheerful, hopeful, trustful spirit which had carried us through so many dark days, through so many bloody fields and trying defeats, returned to the Army of the Potomac; and Hooker’s success as a division and corps commander was kept constantly in mind as an earnest of a grand future.”32
Fresh Eyes
The single most remarkable post-Chancellorsville document related to the “Valley Forge” appeared before the smoke had even cleared the battlefield in the May 5, 1863 New York Times from the pen of correspondent William Swinton. Written three days earlier on May 2, it reveals how the first historian of the army viewed his subject at the time.33 Important is his direct testimony that he had been absent for the previous “couple of months,” so Swinton was returning to the army with fresh eyes. “The army, in all its aspects is in splendid condition,” he began. Swinton continued:
The army is larger than it was before materially. The health of the troops is better than it ever was before. From the first day General Hooker took command, it was felt that a directing brain animated the mass. Mens agitat molem. Great mobility has been secured by prodigiously cutting down the amount of transportation, and by employing pack mules, which go anywhere in all weathers, instead of our heavy wagons, which are always stuck in the mud. But two wagons are allowed to a regiment. The army is no longer encumbered with that ponderous impediment which used to be the marvel of all who beheld it. In fact, we now approximate the French standard, which enables an army to carry fourteen days’ provisions without a wheel behind it.
The moral transformation is not less complete. It may be in the recollection of some of your readers that I had occasion two months ago to give a minute dissection of the condition of the Army of the Potomac as it was at the time of the last bungling campaign on the Rappahannock. I was accordingly much interested, after an absence of a couple of months, to make a comparative study of the internal change that had come over it in the interval under the new military regime. The metamorphosis could hardly have been more complete, and I have often had difficulty in convincing myself that that army, where general croaking, jealousies, disaffection, desertion and universal demoralization prevailed, is the same with this in which a new vitality animates the men. System, harmony and organization are seen, and a true military spirit pervades the troops.
Nothing in this line of phenomena struck me more than the admirable secrecy that existed in regard to the plans and movements of the opening campaign. It was a new and somewhat tantalizing sensation; for any one who has followed the movements of the army in the field will bear me out when I say that hitherto projected operations have always been known and discussed by nearly every body—even the negro servants in the camps—for days and weeks before they took place. In this case absolute ignorance prevailed. Not even corps commanders knew what was intended, and had only their specific individual order for the day.
Accordingly, early in the week every one was rubbing his eyes, and asking where is the army? No one could tell. There was a column moving up, another moving down, and the column that was up yesterday proves to be down today. I confess I was heartily glad of the general bewilderment, though it was rather puzzling for a correspondent to observe movements along a line twenty-five to thirty miles in length. In this case it was the spectators of the great game of chess that were blindfolded. The master planner alone had his eyes open.
In the great game of war, time and space are the elements with which the General has to deal. Celerity (and for that purpose the greatest possible mobility) with secrecy are the indispensable conditions of all military combinations. The mind of General Hooker is one that will put forth all the resources of these elements.
Of significance from a historiographic perspective, Swinton—the first writer-observer to attempt to describe and analyze the Army of the Potomac’s entire war service—was not present to witness its “Valley Forge.” His extreme enthusiasm on May 2 was all the more revealing because he had not experienced firsthand the resurgence during the months leading up to Chancellorsville. Swinton’s later history did not maintain that contemporaneous enthusiasm, his reaction dampened by the battle’s outcome and the time to reflect on Hooker’s performance. As the first of numerous army historians, Swinton’s views indelibly affected subsequent analyses.34
Fittingly, Rufus Dawes of the Iron Brigade supplies us with a final significant observation comparable to the insight offered by newcomer Major Nevin or correspondent William Swinton. After Chancellorsville, Dawes’ 6th Wisconsin experienced several minor skirmishes and numerous false starts. “I must brag a little about our regiment,” Dawes wrote on June 10, reflecting on the entire post-battle period. “We have the healthiest regiment in the corps. We have a harmonious, quiet and satisfied set of officers. There is no intriguing, court-martialing or backbiting, which is common in the army. The arms, accoutrements and clothing are kept in excellent condition.”35
Two days later, they began their long, arduous march to Gettysburg. Dawes and his men—and the rest of the army’s combat troops—were now veteran soldiers who had learned everything they would ever need to know about army life, taken their own measure, recognized competent leadership, and understood the military character required of a good soldier. They had become Shakespeare’s “band of brothers.” These priceless lessons would play out on their next battlefield in Pennsylvania and for the remainder of their war.
Assessment
A century later, an interim judgment of history was passed on Joseph Hooker’s performance at Chancellorsville, dispassionately pronounced by military professionals, predominantly veterans of a Second World War and Korea, at Hooker’s alma mater:
And then—with every opportunity at hand for a decisive victory—Hooker’s courage failed. Over the indignant protests of his corps commanders, he ordered the troops back into their positions of the night before around Chancellorsville. Later, he countermanded this order, but by then his troops had withdrawn. Meanwhile, Sedgwick received several conflicting orders, and so did nothing aggressive. It is difficult to explain Hooker’s unwarranted surrender of the initiative under such favorable circumstances. He was personally brave; he had built up a splendid army; and he had planned skillfully. It may have been that it was difficult for him to visualize and assess properly a military operation on such a large scale that many of its phases were beyond the range of his direct control. Possibly it was the inward knowledge of this inadequacy which, at a critical moment, weakened his determination. Later, as a corps commander in more restricted operations, he again proved to be a fine leader.36
The judgment of this study concurs with that assessment, but also believes Hooker lost his focus before and—through injury—during the operation. As importantly, Hooker did not demonstrate flexibility in readjusting his plans, given General Stoneman’s failures and Lee’s actions. But, critical to the outcome of the war, during their strategic pause in Stafford, Hooker’s army turned around their fortunes with retrospectively masterful leadership actions and reforms during the core 93-day “Valley Forge.”
For as much success as Hooker achieved during that difficult winter, more key reforms remained, particularly among the army’s leadership. The reorganization and reform of the cavalry corps, intelligence system, medical system, and tactical logistics—all spectacular—were not yet completed or perfected.
Had the Federals won, the army’s complete resurrection could have been readily recognized at Chancellorsville/Second Fredericksburg. But, that slipped from its immediate grasp, and the true picture would not resolve until the army successfully defeated Lee’s army at Gettysburg. What the army did demonstrate at Chancellorsville was that it could fight and defeat Lee militarily. At the end of the campaign, there was little doubt in the minds of intelligent contemporary observers that the corner had finally been turned.
If history were linear, the “Valley Forge” would have flowed neatly into victory at Chancellorsville; Lee would have surrendered or fallen back on Richmond; and, after a bitterly fought finale, victory parades would have commenced in 1863 or 1864. The Army of the Potomac, however, had more rivers to cross and battles to fight. No longer a beaten and discouraged army, they were ready to advance Hooker’s and Butterfield’s reforms and move on to fight again.
It remains to be seen whether history—that reality which Abraham Lincoln cautioned no administration, person, or group of persons could ultimately escape—will ever see the “Valley Forge” in the same way it is described in this work.
1 BV 150, part 1, FSNMP, diary of Wyman S. White, 166-167.
2 3:00 p.m., April 29, 1863, to be exact.
3 OR, 25, parts I and II.
4 BV 183, part 4, FSNMP, letters of Sgt. John Cate, 33rd Massachusetts Infantry.
5 Ibid. Keep in mind that General Lee had already split his army weeks earlier by sending a large portion of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s First Corps—nearly one-quarter of his army—to southeastern Virginia on what would become a complex foraging mission with many conflicting objectives that we recognize today as the Suffolk Campaign.
6 Ibid.
7 BV 193, part 33, FSNMP. This volume contains a large number of letters and editorials from various Northern newspapers.
8 Ibid.; Newark Daily Advertiser, May 26, 1863.
9 Newark Daily Advertiser, May 26, 1863.
10 The Second Battle of Fredericksburg, meanwhile, could without exaggeration be counted as an unqualified victory, albeit a slowly achieved one—“the only success obtained” in the campaign explained VI Corps commander John Sedgwick in a June 3, 1863, letter to his sister. For a deep and rich assessment, see Chris Mackowski and Kristopher White, Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church (Savas Beatie, 2013).
11 BV 36, FSNMP. Uriah N. Parmelee letters.
12 Ibid.
13 BV 354, part 7, FSNMP, Memorial and Letters of Rev. John R. Adams, D.D., Chaplain, 108-109.
14 BV 212, part 4, FSNMP, letters of Abel G. Peck, 24th Michigan Infantry.
15 BV 110, part 12, FSNMP; which contains a letter of May 13, 1863, from George B. Wolcott, 44th New York Infantry Regiment. He is listed as George B. Wolcott, a private in Company E, 44th New York, in the NPS/CWSSS (M551 Roll 155), which coincides with his letter.
16 Ibid.
17 BV 193, part 70, FSNMP, letters published in Northern newspapers. This letter from “Earnest” appeared in the May 15 edition.
18 BV 193, part 65, a letter written to the same paper, written four days’ earlier.
19 BV 147, part 1, FSNMP, letters of Lt. Cornelius L. Moore, 57th New York Infantry.
20 Ibid.
21 BV 353, part 23, FSNMP, R. G. Plumb, ed., “Letters of a Fifth Wisconsin Volunteer” in Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 3 (September 1919 - June 1920), 72-73, pertaining to Lt. James H. Leonard, 5th Wisconsin Infantry. Leonard provided an interesting insight on relations between the armies.
22 BV 184, part 1, FSNMP, letter of Edw. R. Geary, Knap’s Battery.
23 BV 69, part 2, FSNMP, letter from T. P. Beath to Brother Ed, dated May 17, 1863. The 19th Maine was in 1-2-II Corps. Beath rose to the rank of captain prior to Appomattox. The NPS/CWSSS relates that Thomas P. Beath was mustered in as a corporal and out as a captain. M543 Roll 2.
24 BV 210, part 15, FSNMP. Letters of Lt. W. O. Blodget, Company F, 151st Pennsylvania Infantry.
25 “ALS, 6pp, 8vo.” letter for sale by North Carolina Civil War documents dealers Brian and Maria Green, Vol. XVII, 2009, Fall, No. 66. The writer, identified as “R. S. Jones,” is listed as Rollin L. Jones, Company C, 29th Ohio Infantry Regiment, in NPS/CWSSS (M552 Roll 56).
26 BV 73, part 7, FSNMP. Warren B. Persons enlisted as a private in August 1862 and was mustered-in to the 64th New York Infantry, in October 1862. (M551 Roll 110, NPS/CWSSS.)
27 BV 56, part 5, FSNMP, letter from Capt. G. A. Custer to Gen. G. B. McClellan in McClellan Papers, Library of Congress, Reel 35.
28 BV 56, part 6, FSNMP, letter from Gen. J. Gibbon to Gen. G. B. McClellan in McClellan Papers, Library of Congress, Reel 35.
29 BV 193, part 74, FSNMP, a letter from the May 22, 1863, edition of the Vermont Watchman and State Journal.
30 Here and for subsequent paragraphs in this section, see Dana B. Shoaf, ed., “‘On the March Again at Daybreak’: The Gettysburg Diary of Major John I. Nevin, 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry,” in Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War (Mason City, IA, 1999), Volume Six, Number 3, 107-138.
31 Dawes, Service With The Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, 142, 150.
32 Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General, United States Army (New York, NY, 1907). Memoirs quoted from: http://www.russscott.com/~rscott/26thwis/oohowmem.htm (accessed November 20, 2009). It is important to note that in July of 1864, Howard was promoted over Hooker for command of the Army of the Tennessee. By that time Hooker was already disgruntled with Howard and blamed him for the loss at Chancellorsville. That bad blood gave Howard every reason to withhold any generous assessment of Hooker’s performance. Thus, it is of some note that Howard’s memoirs treat Hooker as fairly as they do.
33 Swinton’s outstanding early history was entitled Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac: A Critical History of Operations in Virginia Maryland and Pennsylvania from the Commencement to the Close of the War, 1861-1865 (New York, 1866).
34 The New York Times, May 5, 1863, 1, 8. Dispatch was written by William Swinton on May 2, 1863. A copy of Swinton’s 1866 book Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac is located in the FSNMP Library. It contains a handwritten note by R. K. Gould (August 1964): “Swinton (William) and [L. L.] Crounse were two principal correspondents of The N.Y. Times with the Army of the Potomac—these two Times men were a study in contrasts: Swinton, tall and well-formed, with eyes large and luminous, and with a well modulated voice which failed to betray his Scottish birth; Crounse was small and dapper. Swinton had emigrated from Scotland to Canada with his family when he was ten, had prepared for Presbyterian ministry at Knox College in Toronto and at Amherst, had done some preaching and had then left the pulpit to teach languages in a female seminary in Greensboro, N. C. In 1858 he joined the staff of The New York Times probably with the help of his brother John, already an employee of the paper. Whereas Crounse was deliberate, cautious, and reliable, Swinton discussed military movements and criticized generals with such freedom that he was constantly in difficulties with the military authorities.” See also Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War, 65; Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 18, 252-253; Grant, Memoirs, vol. 2, 145.
35 Dawes, Service With The Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, 150.
36 Esposito, ed., West Point Atlas, Map 84.