The Campaign of Chancellorsville

by Theodore Ayrault Dodge

At noon of the 6th, he assembled his entire command at Orange Springs; thence marched to Raccoon Ford, and crossed on the 7th.

On the 8th, the command crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's, having to swim about twenty yards.

Leaving Buford to guard the river from the railroad to Falmouth, he then returned to camp.

During the latter part of the time occupied by these movements, the roads had been in very bad order from the heavy rains of the 5th.

Hotchkiss and Allen say, with reference to this raid: "This failure is the more surprising from the fact that Gen. Lee had but two regiments of cavalry, those under W. H. Fitz Lee, to oppose to the large force under Stoneman, consisting of ten or eleven thousand men. The whole country in rear of the Confederate Army, up to the very fortifications of Richmond, was open to the invader. Nearly all the transportation of that army was collected at Guineas depot, eighteen miles from Chancellorsville, with little or no guard, and might have been destroyed by one-fourth of Stoneman's force."

And further:—

"Such was the condition of the railroads and the scarcity of supplies in the country, that the Confederate commander could never accumulate more than a few days' rations ahead at Fredericksburg. To have interrupted his communications for any length of time, would have imperilled his army, or forced him to retreat."

They also claim that this column seized all the property that could be of use, found in their line of march. "The citizens were in many cases entirely stripped of the necessaries of life."

Stoneman certainly misconceived his orders. These were plainly enough to throw his main body in Lee's rear, so as substantially to cut his communications by the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad. To accomplish this, he was to mask his movement by a body of troops, which should keep whatever Confederate cavalry there might be in the vicinity of Orange Court House and Gordonsvile, busy, until his main column was beyond their reach, and then should rejoin him; and to select a rallying point on the Pamunkey, so as to be near the important scene of operations. Every thing was to be subordinate to cutting the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad.

If Stoneman had properly digested his orders, and had pushed night and day for any available point on the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad, he might have reached it by Sunday. A thorough destruction of Lee's line of supply and retreat, would no doubt have so decidedly affected his strength, actual and moral, as to have seriously changed the vigor of his operations against both Hooker and Sedgwick.