LIST OF MAPS. 1. SITUATION OF THE ARMIES AT 6 P.M. ON SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1863. 2. SITUATION AT DAYLIGHT ON SUNDAY, MAY 3, 1863, AT CHANCELLORS VILLE, AND ABOUT NOON AT FREDERICKSBURG. 3. SITUATION AT NIGHTFALL ON MONDAY, MAY 4, 1863. 4. MAP OF A PORTION OF CENTRAL VIRGINIA. T must seem to the casual reader of the history of IT the war of 1861-65, that enough has already been written upon the campaign of Chancellorsville. And there are numerous brilliant essays, in the histories now before the public, which give a coup-d'œil more or less accurate of this ten-days' passage of arms. But none of these spread before the reader facts sufficiently detailed to illustrate the particular theory advanced by each to account for the defeat of the Army of the Potomac on this field. The stigma besmirching the character of the Eleventh Corps, and of Howard, its then commanding general, for a panic and rout in but a small degree owing to them; the unjust strictures passed upon Sedgwick for his failure to execute a practically impossible order; the truly remarkable blunders into which Gen. Hooker allowed himself to lapse, in endeavoring to explain away his responsibility for the disaster; the bare fact, indeed, that the Army of the Potomac was here beaten by Lee, with one-half its force; |