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Updated: October 3, 2025
When intelligence now reached Washington that the head of Lee's column was approaching the Upper Potomac, while the rear was south of the Rappahannock, the President wrote to General Hooker: "If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere could you not break him?"
After Jackson's assault, a Northern historian says: "The open plain around Chancellorsville presented such a spectacle as a simoom sweeping over the desert might make.
Just as the rear-guard passed on, the anticipated attack took place, and the regiment thus left, the Twenty-third Georgia, was suddenly surrounded and the whole force captured. The Confederate artillery, however, opened promptly upon the assailing force, drove it back toward Chancellorsville, and Jackson proceeded on his march without further interruption.
The report from Chancellorsville drifted slowly, ominously, appallingly, over Washington with the clouds and mists of the storm which swept up the Potomac and shrouded the city in a grey mantle of mourning. The White House was still. The dead were walking through its great rooms of state.
General Lee meanwhile awaited the sound of Jackson's guns west of Chancellorsville, and must have experienced great anxiety at this trying moment, although, with his accustomed self-control, he displayed little or none.
About a mile towards Chancellorsville the Federal cavalry was found in some force, and as the patrols gave way, a heavy force of infantry was discovered in movement along the pike.
Headquarters, Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, General, The Lieutenant-General commanding directs me to say that he is pressing up the plank road; also, that you will press on up the turnpike towards Chancellorsville, as the enemy is falling back. Keep your skirmishers and flanking parties well out, to guard against ambuscade. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Lee's army seemed scattered, and not "in hand" to oppose him; and there was some ground for the ebullition of joy attributed to General Hooker, as he saw his great force massing steadily in the vicinity of Chancellorsville. To those around him he exclaimed: "The rebel army is now the legitimate property of the Army of the Potomac.
But here he came face to face with the fatal defect of the lines he had selected, and also of the disposition he had made of his cavalry. The country near Chancellorsville was very unlike the rolling plains of Austerlitz or the bare downs of Salamanca. From no part of the Federal position did the view extend for more than a few hundred yards.
Harry saluted and withdrew. At the door he glanced back. Jackson had taken out Napoleon's Maxims and was reading the volume again. The brow was seamed with thought, but his countenance was grave and steady. Harry never forgot any look or act of his great chief in those days when the shadow of Chancellorsville was hovering near.
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