The clash at Chancellorsville in 1863 was an enormously complex ten-day campaign. At its conclusion, General Joseph Hooker, the confident commander of the Army of the Potomac, was in disgrace, while Confederate General Robert E. Lee had won a decisive victory but at the loss of the irreplaceable "Stonewall" Jackson, killed by friendly fire.At age nineteen Theodore Ayrault Dodge volunteered for the Union cause. As part of the Eleventh Corps--surprised and routed by "Stonewall" Jackson's celebrated flank attack--he participated in the battle's fiercest and costliest fighting. (Dodge would later lose a leg at Gettysburg.) This second 1886 edition of his classic study, first published in 1881, is marked by Dodge's unsparing analysis and astute interpretations, which have retained their value and vigor for over a century.
My greatgrandfather lost his leg the morning after "Stonewall" Jackson was mortally wounded at Chancellorsville and within a few hundred yards of the site. Therefore, over the years, I have read everything I could find on the battle, including Bigelow's classic account and the more recent accounts by Furgurson and Sears. Theodore A. Dodge (1842-1909) describes what it was like to be surprised and routed by Jackson's troops at the end of the historic "Flank March" and how his Eleventh Corps of the Union Army participated in the fierce and costly fight. Although it was first published in 1881, we can thank Da Capo for reprinting Dodge's book with an Introduction by Stephen Sears. The correspondence between Hooker, Lee and Lincoln that is printed at the end of the book furnishes insight into the aftermath of a horrendous battle. Recommended.
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