Battle Studies, Country Studies, & Staff Rides

Includes maps and plans of the campaign. Can also be downloaded or viewed online at the Internet Archive.

Contains multiple maps on the battle.

A variety of important but lesser-known dimensions of the Chancellorsville campaign of spring 1863 are explored in this collection of eight original essays. Departing from the traditional focus on generalship and tactics, the contributors address the campaign's broad context and implications and revisit specific battlefield episodes that have in the past been poorly understood.

Provides a description of the Battle of Chancellorsville and analyzes how the United States and Confederate Armies applied and/or violated the principles of war contained in Air Force Manual 1-1. Also provides discussion questions to reinforce and emphasize how the principles of war were applicable to the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Sears describes the series of events leading to General Robert E. Lee's radical decision to divide his small army.

A detailed description of the operations from Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, including data on both armies.

The battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, 1862-63, were remarkable in several respects. Both revealed the problems of mounting a serious attack at night and provided the first examples of the now-familiar trench warfare. Fredericksburg featured street fighting and river crossings under fire. Chancellorsville was marked by Stonewall Jackson's death and the rare instance of mounted cavalry attacking infantry. In addition, the latter battle also demonstrated in striking fashion the profound influence of the commander on the battle. The Union committed more soldiers, supplies, money, and better equipment than did the Confederacy, and yet Lee won. Eyewitness accounts by battle participants make these guides an invaluable resource for travelers and nontravelers who want a greater understanding of five of the most devastating yet influential years in our nation's history. Explicit directions to points of interest and maps--illustrating the action and showing the detail of troop position, roads, rivers, elevations, and tree lines as they were 130 years ago--help bring the battles to life. In the field, these guides can be used to recreate each battle's setting and proportions, giving the reader a sense of the tension and fear each soldier must have felt as he faced his enemy.

A good step-by-step reference with "hand drawn" maps that coordinate with different points during the battle.

The battle of Chancellorsville, fought in the spring of 1863 in Virginia’s Piedmont region, pitted a powerful Union Army under Major General Joseph Hooke against a significantly smaller but well-led Confederate force under General Robert E. Lee. Hooker had refit and reorganized his 130,000 men into a potent fighting force over the winter following the Union Army of the Potomac’s bloody defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, under Major General Ambrose E. Burnside. After Hooker had replaced Burnside, he developed a plan to hold Lee’s 60,000 ill-supplied Confederates at Fredericksburg with a small part of the Army of the Potomac, and march most of his troops in a wide flanking maneuver to the west to attack Lee’s flank and rear. Hooker hoped this daring move would either crush Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia or force it to retreat toward Richmond. Either way, he anticipated a glorious victory for his Federals over the fabled Confederate commander.In the end, it was Lee and his chief subordinate, Major General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, who achieved what many historians have called the South’s greatest victory during the American Civil War.