His plan was, with enormously superior numbers to turn both of Lee's flanks at once, compel the division of his already inferior army, overcome both wings of it in detail, and crush it completely. That done, Confederate resistance in Virginia would be at an end. Richmond would lie before him a helpless prey. Virginia would be a conquered state, and the completion of the war a mere matter of detail.
All military critics who have considered the subject, agree that this was the best planned campaign that any Northern general had as yet originated and that its promise of success, with the great superiority of means behind it, amounted almost to a certainty. Its failure in the end was disastrous in the extreme and discouraging beyond anything that had occurred since the first battle of Manassas.
These facts taken together—the brilliancy and the entire soundness of the plan of campaign, the stupendous superadequacy of the means at command for carrying it to success, and its conspicuous failure in the end—render the history of the campaign of Chancellorsville one of the most dramatic of the wonder stories of the Confederate war.
After three months of most intelligent and energetic work in perfecting organization and bringing all parts of the service into the highest condition of efficiency, Hooker was ready at last to begin his campaign. Omitting all the sick, all detachments, all forces sent to guard communications, all furloughed officers and men, he had "for duty equipped," according to his morning reports, no less than 131,491 men, with 400 pieces of highly effective artillery. Opposed to him was Lee with a total force, of all arms, of 58,100 men, of whom less than 50,000 were ready for duty, and about 170 pieces of artillery, mostly of an inferior sort. Some small reinforcements are believed to have come to Lee, swelling his force to about 60,000 men all told, or perhaps 55,000 effectives.
With numbers so overwhelming, Hooker was free to do pretty nearly whatever he might choose to do without risk of weakening himself at any point below the strength of his enemy.
His plan of campaign was simple and strategically admirable. Broadly stated it was this:
1. To push a strong force of cavalry, under Stoneman, around Lee's left and into his rear, to destroy his communications, and to harass and prevent his retreat towards Richmond—for Hooker's plans looked to nothing less than the capture of the whole Army of Northern Virginia.
2. To send a strong force of artillery and infantry under Sedgwick down the river to cross there, turn Lee's right, force whatever might be left of his army, by that time, out of their entrenchments, and mercilessly assail him in flank on his expected retreat toward Richmond, thus additionally making his surrender inevitable.
3. At the same time to march up the river with the main body of the Federal army, estimated by Lieutenant Colonel Theodore A. Dodge, U. S. A. , at 120,000 men, push the head of his column across the stream far up it, sweep down the southern bank, clear the several fords in succession and at each to send fresh columns across; then, in irresistible force to march through the Wilderness, as that tangled country is called, and emerge from it in appallingly overwhelming numbers at Chancellorsville.
This would completely turn Lee's left with the main army and force him either to retreat hurriedly toward Richmond with Sedgwick on his flank, or to give battle in the open, with utterly inadequate forces.