I’ve always had a weird relationship with Chancellorsville, but I like to think it’s not entirely my fault. Growing up in Virginia it’s hard to avoid it, especially if, like me, you lived an hour away and your dad liked to take you and your brothers there on random weekends to get out of the house. Chancellorsville looms large in the mythic lives of Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. It was also top of the pile in the “what’s the biggest Civil War Battle” debates that were somehow considered small talk in my home state. With all that baggage, it was hard for me growing up to not develop a slightly contrary preference for battles like Gettysburg and The Wilderness. That meant that I never really dug all that deeply into Chancellorsville, and I let the battle’s myths define it rather than learning about it for myself. On a recent trip to my parents’ house, I decided to correct this and I chose my father’s copy of Chancellorsville as the method since I had previously been really impressed with Stephen W. Sears’ book on Gettysburg. I am pleased to announce that Chancellorsville is at least as good as Gettysburg and may even be a bit better. This is a great book.
Chancellorsville picks up its narrative right after the disaster at Fredericksburg and charts both sides’ efforts to reorganize their armies in the wake of that battle. Lee’s supply issues frustrated him from taking the offensive while a revolt of the generals in the Army of the Potomac resulted in Burnsides’ eventual replacement with Joe Hooker. Hooker’s revival of the army and plans for a grand offensive in spring 1863 set the stage for the battle narrative proper, which takes up the bulk of the book as you would expect. I really appreciate how Sears takes a wider campaign focus in his battle histories. While he assumes some familiarity with the subject – someone ignorant of the events of 1862 would struggle with Chancellorsville – he doesn’t just drop you into the main event without context. That context is key to good analysis and this emphasis lays a strong foundation for the reader to better interpret the significance of what happened when the armies started shooting.
The main battle narrative doesn’t look for easy answers and does a lot to challenge popular misconceptions about Chancellorsville. I really appreciated how much detail he provided for Hooker’s campaign leading up to the battle which gave me a newfound respect for the general. Sears also doesn’t rely on easy answers – he doesn’t point to a single event as where the battle was lost or one. Instead, Chancellorsville shows a battle that teetered on the brink for days on end. It remained winnable by both sides for a very long time, and a compounding series of bad luck and bad choices helped to push it over against Hooker and his generals. I also particularly liked the coda in the appendix that examined the “romance of Chancellorsville”, focusing on many popular myths that cropped up in subsequent decades.
Sears spends significant time on the many things that went wrong and right for both sides. More than just listing mishaps, Sears goes into detail about how the mishap came to be and the decisions that made it such a disaster. For example, consider the frequent problems Hooker had coordinating the disparate parts of his army once he divided it for his grand turning movement. Sears goes into great detail about the available wire telecommunication technology available to Hooker, what he chose to use, what factors influenced that choice (such as infighting between military departments), and the ramifications of that choice. This kind of detail provides valuable information beyond just the movement of troops and shows the complexities of command. Sears doesn’t use these mishaps to excuse the poor decisions that commanders made. Instead he provides a holistic view of the campaign, not pinning success or failure on any one moment.
Overall, this is an engaging narrative of the Chancellorsville campaign that provides plenty of detail without getting too lost in the weeds. I mildly criticized Gettysburg because I thought it went into a little too much detail, but I didn’t have the same problem with Chancellorsville. This book hit a real sweet spot for me and gave me newfound respect for and interest in one of the Civil War’s most famous battles.