The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-04
CHANCELLORsvILLE.


CHANCELLORsvILL
Yesterday was the anniversary of the
great Union defeat at Charlottesville, a
battle that is chiefly noteworthy as illus
trating the difference in simple native
force of character and moral courage be-
tween soldiers of the type of Hooker and
commanders of the quality of Grant.
Hooker was an admirable organizer and
disciplinarian, and when he moved against
Lee he had 113, 600 infantry and 1900
cavalry. Lee had about 10000 men, as
Longstreet's corps was absent besieging
Suffolk. Hooker, by the afternoon of
April 30. had succeeded in planting two
thirds OF his army at Charlottesville in
the rear of the very center Of Lees forth
fed line. Here he waited two days and en-
trenched, instead of promptly advancing
or occupying the ground commanding
Banks Ford, which would have brought
him twelve miles nearer Sedgwick,
who had been detached with the Sixth
corps, 10000 strong, to storm the
heights of Fredericksburg. On May 2 Lee
ordered Stonewall Jackson to march
across the front of Hooker's intrenched
position with 1900 men and attack the
Eleventh corps which, under Howard,
formed Hooker's right flank. It was
about 80 in the evening when the head
of Jackson's column found itself on the
right and rear of Rockers army. For a
time Jackson's attack created great con-
fusion. but the resistance of General
Berry's division of the Third corps and
the promptness and skill with which Gen.
eral Pieasonton concentrated the fire of
twenty-five pieces of artillery upon the
head Of Jackson's column, not only repulsed
the enemy and inflicted very severe loss,
but brought him to a stand in a position
that would have exposed him to destruc-
ton had Hooker's brains not become "rat-
tied" by sudden disaster to the Eleventh
corps.
For half an hour Jackson had the
army of the Potomac at his mercy, but he
halted to reform his troops in the woods
instead ofpushing ahead into the clearing,
men and where he could have seen lat
he was master of the situation. When he
advanced upon Pleasonton's twenty-five
guns, had his infantry been directed to fire
low, he would have disabled the can
noneers at the guns, carried the position,
cut Oft two divisions of the Third corps
and rolled up the Second and Twelfth
corps like scroll. Jackson in fact halted
the evening of the I'd when he had victory
in his grasp. As it was, he did not infiict
serious loss on our army, for the Eleventh
corps ran away rapidly, which was the
best thing they could do, because, caught
in false position, resistance would have
been impossible. Jackson's losses were
more severe than our own, and on the
next morning, May 3, General Couch, who
commanded the Second corps, says that
"the situation of Jackson's corps
was a desperate one. its front and right
flank being in the presence of not far from
$4,000 men, with the lett flank subject to
the assault of $1,000. che splendid corps of
Meade and Reynolds. 1t only required
that Hooker should brace himself up to
take reasonable. common-sense view of
the state of things to have turned the sue
cess of Jackson into an overwhelming de-
feat"
But Hooker became very respondent.
He had fine administrative qualities as an
officer, but lacked weight of character and
moral courage to behave with vigor and
Int ND ha atr Nf
sponsibilities. The dispatches of Lee to
General McLaws captured by Pleasonton
prove that Hooker really surprised Lee by
the brilliantly conceived and sx-
ecuted movement of his army to
Charlottesville, thus taking in re-
serve the entire system of the
eneuy's river defenses and COM
manding roads leading directly upon the
enemy's communications. To gain these
advantages Hookey hsd to divide his army
into two wings. The line of communities
ton between his right at Charlottesville
and his left under Sedgwick and Gibbon at
Fredericksburg was twenty miles long and
Hooker's first duty was to have shortened
this line by seizing Banks Ford and thus
placed his wings within easy support of
each other, but May /. when within reach
of success, Hooker lost heart and head
unaccountably, became vacillating and in
decisive and withdrew TO Chaneellorsville,
abandoning high open ground and losing
the prize of Banks Ford and the chance of
having his right wing within closer sup
port of Sedgwick.
Hooker without fight abandoned on
May the splendid initiative he had so
brilliantly gained by his surprise of Lee,
and put himself on the defensive without
the slightest excuse for his surrender of
the offensive. The last words that Lin
coin said to Hooker were: BE sure and
put in all your men," which was exactly
what Hooker did not do. Up to the even
ing of May ., when Jackson was shot by
his own men, the enemy had suffered Sc
verely, while the army of the Potomac had
lost but comparatively few men, but the
next day General J. t. b. Stuart saw his
advantage when Hooker evacuated Hazel
Grove, the position that Jackson had
failed to capture the evening before. The
evacuation of this position by Hooker
ana Its occupation by the enemy was as
iatai to his lines as the occupation OF
III