The fighting 79Chancellorsville marked the apogee of
Lee's career as a soldier and cemented the
reciprocal trust between him and his men
that made the Army of Northern Virginia so
formidable. That trust radiated outwards to
civilians in the Confederacy, who looked to
Lee and his soldiers as their primary national
rallying point from late 1862 onwards.
Jefferson Davis gratefully thanked Lee
'in the name of the people ... for this
addition to the unprecedented series of great
victories which your army has achieved.'
The success had come at terrible cost.
Among the 12,674 Confederate casualties
was Stonewall Jackson, whose death on
10 May cast a pall over the Confederacy. Lee
would never find an adequate replacement
for the gifted lieutenant whom he called his
'right arm'.
On the Union side, Chancellorsville dealt
a telling blow to hopes for victory. Once
again a northern army superior in numbers
and equipment had suffered agonizing
defeat. Once again a Federal commander had
failed to commit all his troops to battle (two
of the Union corps had lost fewer than
1,000 men). The northern butcher's bill
totalled 17,287. News of the defeat rocked
Lincoln, who, while pacing back and forth,
moaned, 'My God! My God! What will the
country say? What will the country say?'
New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley
rendered a common verdict: 'It is horrible -
horrible; and to think of it, 130,000
magnificent soldiers so cut to pieces by less
than 60,000 half-starved ragamuffins!'
Chancellorsville exacerbated deep
divisions in the North. A recently passed
National Conscription Act, Lincoln's final
Emancipation Proclamation (which took
effect on 1 January 1863) and other issues
fueled acrimonious debate. Hooker's failure
increased unhappiness among northerners
already disposed to criticize the Lincoln
administration's conduct of the war. Even
loyal Republicans wondered whether the
rebels could be suppressed.Lee at the Chancellorsville clearing on the morning
of 3 May. where he and his soldiers experienced an
epiphany. The men believed victory would come
whenever he led them, and he believed they could do
whatever he asked. In this post-war engraving, Alfred R.
Waud chose to place Lee on a dark horse rather than
on the 'Confederate gray' Traveller. (Author's collection)