So great was the superiority of the Northern army Hooker divided his forces for an enveloping movement, each wing of his being still greater than the whole force under Lee.
Sedgwick's corps crossed the river below Fredericksburg and began a flanking movement from the south while Hooker threw the main body across the Rappahannock at three fords seven miles above.
On April thirtieth, he issued an address to his men. His forces were all safely across the river without firing a shot. He had Lee's little army caught in a trap between his two grand divisions.
In his proclamation he boldly announced:
"The operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him."
His enemy was not slow in coming out from behind his defenses. With quick decision Lee divided his little army by planting ten thousand men under Early on Marye's Heights to stop Sedgwick's division and moved swiftly with the remainder to meet Hooker in the dense woods of the Wilderness near Chancellorsville.
With consummate daring and the strategy of genius he again divided his army. He detached Jackson's corps and sent his "foot cavalry" on a swift wide detour of twenty-odd miles to swing around Hooker's right and strike him in the flank while he pretended an attack in force on his front.
It was nearly sundown when Jackson's tired but eager men saw from the hill top their unsuspecting foe quietly cooking their evening meal.
When the battle clouds lifted at the end of three days of carnage, Hooker's army of one hundred and thirty thousand men had been cut to pieces and flung back across the Rappahannock, leaving seventeen thousand killed and wounded on the field.
In the face of his crushing defeat Hooker issued another address to his army.