Chancellorsville, 1863: The Souls of the Brave.  By Ernest B. Furgurson.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.  405 pp.

            Many scholars and buffs have pointed to the May 1863 battle at Chancellorsville, Virginia as Gen. Robert E. Lee’s finest tactical display.  With this work, Ernest B. Furgurson, a former U.S. Marine with ancestors who fought under Lee, seeks to dent this reputation and finds instead that the result of the battle ultimately resulted from failures on the part of Union Gen. Joseph Hooker.  The author traces the course of the campaign from the December 1862 battle at Fredericksburg until the opening shots of Gettysburg in July 1863, ostensibly through the “private’s-eye view” (xiv).  Nevertheless, he largely fails to see the battle from these trenches, preferring the standard tactical narrative, though Furgurson does offer some astute analysis and intriguing interpretations of Lee and Hooker.

            This work primarily serves as a battle narrative of the Chancellorsville campaign.  Initially, after Fredericksburg, Furgurson finds, Union morale remained low, especially after Gen. Ambrose Burnside failed to move his men from the scene of the carnage because of rain and mud.  Morale improved once President Abraham Lincoln replaced Burnside with Hooker, an ambitious general with a reputation for fighting, on 25 January 1863.  Hooker devised a battle plan in mid-April, on Lincoln’s urging, to maneuver to force Lee to fight on Hooker’s chosen terrain in a Napoleonic battle of annihilation south of the Rappahannock River.  Thus, while keeping forces under Gen. John Sedgwick behind to oppose Fredericksburg, Hooker secretly crossed the Rappahannock west of Fredericksburg and stood at Lee’s rear on 29 April.  The following day, Lee, “against all military dogma” (115) split his army to meet Hooker’s men at Chancellorsville.

            At this town, actually an inn and a road crossing, Lee met Hooker, beginning on 1 May.  Hooker “handed the initiative to Lee” (130) by ordering his men to defensive works, a mistake Furgurson attributes to the Hooker’s personality, specifically his fear of failure and his hesitancy.  On 2 May, Lee further divided his force as Jackson marched right into the Union rear, outflanking them and destroying the Union’s XI Corps, but paying with his life, after his own troops mortally wounded him that night.  Thereafter, Hooker retreated to defensive works and, after Sedgwick’s failure to relieve him from Fredericksburg, re-crossed the Rappahannock on the night of 5 May.

            Furgurson concludes with some astute analysis.  He finds that the Chancellorsville was “Lee’s greatest victory,” coming through “daring . . . skill . . . [and] luck,” and it “would evoke tactical brilliance for decades to come” (320).  At the same time, Hooker’s attack proved to be a “psychological blow to Richmond,” temporarily cut communications between Lee and the Confederate capital, but did “little more” (324).  Ultimately, Furgurson faults Hooker for the outcome of the battle, finding that Hooker served admirably as a corps commander but failed to see the larger picture from the Army of the Potomac’s central headquarters.  Even so, Furgurson notes that the battle along the Rappahannock influenced the subsequent encounter at Gettysburg for two reasons.  First, Jackson’s death forced Lee to replace him with fellow Virginian Richard Ewell, whose hesitancy allowed Union forces to capture the high ground at Cemetery Ridge on 1 July.  Second, Furgurson conjectures that Lee overly confided in his men’s ability to defeat larger forces, as they did at Chancellorsville, resulting in his ordering George Pickett’s division forward on 3 July.

            This work has both positive and negatives aspects.  On the positive side, the reader should credit Furgurson for his intriguing analysis and his use of maps.  Furgurson astutely analyses the successes and failures of the battles, offering a balanced view of both Lee and Hooker, though ultimately faulting Hooker more than praising Lee.  Likewise, he narrates the battle in such a way as to keep the reader engaged and, with clear maps, never fails to lose the reader’s train of thought. 

Nonetheless, while Chancellorsville, 1863 offers such grounded analysis and gets the reader way from the myth of Lee’s perfect battle plan, it fails to bring in the common soldier’s view in any meaningful way.  Indeed, while the reader does find some of the soldier’s voice within the narrative, especially at the beginning, most of Furgurson’s evidence thereafter comes from secondary sources and the official records, giving the reader principally the generals’ voices.  As such, this monograph serves as another tactical battle narrative, with some new interpretations and an engaging narrative flow.

J. Knarr