Flying Dutchmen: The XI Corps at Chancellorsville

/
Flying Dutchmen: The XI Corps at Chancellorsville

In the aftermath of defeat at Chancellorsville, the XI Corps received the bulk of the blame.  They had run, had crumbled under Jackson’s attack without resistance.  They were labeled cowards and forevermore known as the “Flying Dutchmen.”  The nickname was earned within a short period of time on the battlefield but the series of events that caused the XI Corps’ flight was put into action long before that moment, even before the armies knew they would meet in the Wilderness west of Fredericksburg.

Read More

The Reconstruction of Billy Mahone

/
The Reconstruction of Billy Mahone

The descriptions of him are priceless.  “He looked the image of a bantam rooster or a gamecock,” recalled a veteran.  Perhaps it was his odd dress:  “He wore a large sombrero hat, without plume, cocked on one side, and decorated with a division badge; he had a hunting-shirt of gray…while he wore boots, his trousers cover them; those boots were as small as a woman’s.”  Or perhaps he was just plain odd, “the sauciest-looking manikin imaginable” and “the oddest and daintiest little specimen.”  His five-foot stature and frail 125 pound frame didn’t help.

William "Billy" Mahone was a genuine character, and his life was as unique as his stature.  Although a rising star in the Army of Northern Virginia by the end of the war, his post-war political career in the darkness of Reconstruction and Redemption is perhaps his true shining moment.  “Bantam” Billy Mahone revealed his character not only as a fighter on the battlefield, but as a progressive on the political stage. 

Read More

Memories of Hazel Grove: The III Corps at Gettysburg

/
Memories of Hazel Grove: The III Corps at Gettysburg

Daniel Sickles was an infamous figure even before the war began.  Sickles is notorious for his role in the Battle of Gettysburg, a role that was debated between generals and officers after the war, a debate that continues today.  The III Corps under Sickles arrived at the battlefield over a period of time from the evening of July 1 after the fighting had calmed for the day into the morning of July 2.  Meade intended the corps to extend his line along Cemetery Ridge, attaching themselves to the end of the II Corps line and ending at the base of Little Round Top.  Whether Sickles misunderstood his orders or willfully disobeyed them, the III Corps ended up in another position entirely.

Read More

The Mayhem & Mystery of May 3: Joseph Hooker and the Battle of Chancellorsville

/
The Mayhem & Mystery of May 3: Joseph Hooker and the Battle of Chancellorsville

Complacency endangers history.  The first plausible answer is not always the correct or solitary one, yet all too often we content ourselves with simplistic solutions to murky questions.  Civil War historians have grappled with the Battle of Chancellorsville for nearly 150 years, and we (surprisingly) we still have very simple rejoinders for why Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac lost a struggle which they entered into with every advantage.  Joe Hooker lost the Battle of Chancellorsville because of his own arrogance and errors.  Joe Hooker lost Chancellorsville because he was no match for the Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.  Fighting Joe Hooker lost Chancellorsville simply because Fighting Joe Hooker lost confidence in himself.

In all likelihood, there are grains of truth to all these theories.  Yet one should be careful of placing too much emphasis on anyone of them singularly.  Instead, I wish to focus on a forgotten answer to the age old question of what went wrong for the Union army and Joe Hooker in May of 1863.  On the morning of May 3rd, General Hooker was wounded, probably suffering a severe concussion received from Confederate artillery fire.  This event, minimized and overlooked in many accounts of the battle, perhaps played a far greater role at Chancellorsville than history has given credit for.

Read More

The Red Badge of Courage and the 124th NY

/
The Red Badge of Courage and the 124th NY

Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage borders between classic literature and Civil War battle narrative.  In his unique style, he writes stories of battle without specifying names.  In The Red Badge of Courage most characters are not distinguished by name, nor does Crane specify what part of the battlefield, what troops, or what actions he is writing about.  He purposely avoids using real characters and creates a fictional regiment (the 304th New York Infantry) in order to focus the audience’s attention on the experience of the protagonist, Private Henry Fleming, and his comrades as they face their first battle.  The purpose of the books was to engage readers in the chaos, emotion, and uncertainty of battle and the experiences of a common soldier within the maelstrom.

Read More

18,000: A Comparison of May 3, 1863 and May 12, 1864

/

On the morning of May 3, 1863, Confederate soldiers slunk through the thick foliage that dominated the Wilderness around the Orange Turnpike and the tiny hamlet of Chancellorsville, Virginia. Around 5:30am, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, outnumbered, outgunned, and divided, unleashed a series of brutal frontal assaults on the Union positions around the Chancellor House. By the late morning, over a span of five hours, the Confederates had battered and broken the will of Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, compelling him to abandon the intersection near Chancellorsville and retreat back towards the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers.

Read More