THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BARRETT R. RICHARDSON
LENGTH: 75 lines
WHAT PROMPTED Gen. Robert E. Lee to make his bold and ill-fated foray into the Union state of Pennsylvania, where he was severely beaten at Gettysburg and forced into a defensive strategy that unraveled his forces and led to his final surrender at Appomattox?
Lee's victory at Chancellorsville, that's what. It gave him the confidence to press the war into enemy territory.
In ``Chancellorsville,'' a masterful account of that epic May 1863 battle a few miles west of Fredericksburg, award-winning author Stephen W. Sears painstakingly but eloquently reconstructs the complex series of events that led up to the clash between the forces of Lee and Gen. Joseph Hooker. Sears then exhaustively chronicles the campaign's bloodletting and its aftermath.
The three-day battle cost the Union 17,000 casualties and the Confederacy 13,000. Although the Confederates' loss was smaller numerically, it was greater in proportion to their forces - they had 60,000 troops compared with Hooker's army of 130,000. For Lee, the greatest loss was that of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, the man he called his strong right arm. Jackson was killed by ``friendly fire.''
Sears skillfully sets the stage for the Chancellorsville clash. With the Union Army of the Potomac demoralized by defeat at Fredericksburg under Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Maj. Gen. Joseph ``Fighting Joe'' Hooker as his replacement. Lincoln was spurred to his decision by the ``revolt of the generals,'' who wanted to get rid of Burnside, leader of the disastrous ``Mud March'' and now remembered for his eponymous whiskers (sideburns). Sears' account of the conspiracy to oust Burnside offers a prelude to the drama at Chancellorsville.
Sears enlivens his narrative with quotes from participants' letters and diaries and gives it depth by using previously unavailable primary sources. The text is complemented by numerous photographs, sketches and maps that add dimension to the events.
Sears, whose intention was ``to restore campaign and battle to its original colors,'' sweeps the reader along the swift-moving currents of the Civil War.
When he inherited Burnside's army, Hooker had a daunting task of whipping up a fighting force. Desertions were epidemic. At one point, 2,922 officers and 80,000 men were reported absent without leave. Nearly 20,500 other men, due for discharge in the spring and early summer of 1863, were on the verge of mutiny.
After revitalizing the Union Army, demoralized by its defeat at Fredericksburg, Hooker carefully laid plans to cross the Rappahannock River and crush Lee's army. Although Hooker's crossing of the Rappahannock was heralded by at least one historian as equivalent to Hannibal's passage of the Rhone and Napoleon's of the Po and Danube, what ensued was not so glorious.
In an attempt to surprise Lee, Hooker crossed the river west of Fredericksburg and took up a position at Chancellorsville, a crossroads containing a single house. In a brilliant flanking maneuver, Jackson's forces attacked with bloodcurd-ling Rebel yells as they charged out of the impenetrable thickets known as the ``Wilderness.'' During the battle, the brush caught fire, and the inferno trapped wounded from both sides.
Although the Southern press gave high marks to the victory at Chancellorsville, Lee was initially depressed, saying, ``Our loss was severe, and again we had not gained an inch of ground, and the enemy could not be pursued.''
Sears' powerful narrative will undoubtedly be a benchmark reference for students of Civil War history. His straightforward reporting presents the gory as well as the glory and balances bravado with plain talk from participants on both sides. MEMO: Barrett R. Richardson is a retired staff editor who teaches
English part-time at Christopher Newport University and Tidewater
Community College. He lives in Portsmouth. ILLUSTRATION: BOOK REVIEW
``Chancellorsville''
Author: Stephen W. Sears
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin. 593 pp.
Price: $35