Photo of Joseph Hooker courtesy of National Archives.

Part I: A New Thrust into Virginia
CHANCELLORSVILLE: April—May 1863

Of trees and a quick march

A NEW COMMANDER

AFTER the Fredericksburg disaster President Lincoln appointed Gen. Joseph ( "Fighting Joe") Hooker to succeed Burnside. Hooker realized his first job was to restore morale and discipline to the demoralized Union army, and in this he showed rare administrative ability that few suspected he possessed. Abandoning Burnside's unwieldy Grand Divisions, he reorganized the army on the corps level, forming the cavalry into a separate corps. The quality and quantity of the rations was increased, camp sanitation and living conditions improved. By spring of 1863 the Army of the Potomac, numbering about 135,000 men, was probably the best equipped and supplied army in the world. It was now becoming evident that the South could win victories and emerge permanently weakened, and that the North could suffer defeats and emerge still stronger.

Yet when Lincoln reviewed the army early in April, he seemed to have a premonition of disaster. What bothered him was Hooker, who prefaced almost every sentence with the words "When I get to Richmond. . . ." This led Lincoln to remark that "the hen is the wisest of all of the animal creation because she never cackles until the egg is laid." And he gave Hooker and Couch, next in command, some sage advice. "In your next fight gentlemen," he told them, "put in all of your men." Unfortunately for the North, the suggestion went unheeded.