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Hazel Grove, as seen from Fairview at
Chancellorsville
Click here for
the larger picture
Make sure you click the larger picture and take a good look at what
you see. The overgrowth in the foreground is the location of a
Union artillery gun pit, and in the distance silhouetted against the
trees you can see the shapes of four cannons, showing where the
Confederate artillery was placed on the morning of May 3, 1863.
This is what all the fuss has been about since on this day's
fighting. On the first day's fighting, May 2nd, General Sickles'
III Corps occupied both sides of the area from Fairview to Hazel Grove,
as well as Hazel Grove itself. What you see here is about right,
very much the way it was on the day of battle, although they say you
could see the Chancellorsville house itself (behind you, and left in
this picture) from Hazel Grove, which would mean the opening above was
possibly wider.
Obviously, General Sickles occupied a very long, thin salient, one
that would be difficult to defend (you can imagine how easily
Confederate troops could have attacked either side and isolated the men
on Hazel Grove, for instance), and Hooker decided to pull his lines back
to the position at Fairview. Unfortunately for him, that allowed
the Confederate troops to move into Hazel Grove without a fight, and set
up artillery there that enfiladed the line here at Fairview, facing
Stuart's men to the east (right in this picture).
From casually looking at maps of Hazel Grove and Fairview, I always
thought Hazel Grove had a dominating view of Fairview, and that was the
secret of their success on this day, but you can see this is not the
case. Instead, the Confederate forces under Archer were able to
concentrate their fire on the Union artillery here, which was being used
piecemeal, and did not effect any coherent counter-battery fire. With
it's superior ammunition, the Union artillery here could have possibly
driven the Confederate cannon from Hazel Grove, rather than the
reverse. The Confederate ultimately placed about 40 cannon
on Hazel Grove, while the Union troops had 36 here at Fairview.
In reality, by this time the entire Chancellorsville clearing (behind
you in this picture) had become a salient, and Hooker would have been
better to have withdrawn north earlier, where the Confederates
eventually drove him, or to have counterattacked Jackson's flank attack
with Meade's V Corps, and Reynolds I Corps, which had dug in along the
Ely's Ford Road and Hunting Run to the north (behind you, and slightly to
the right in this picture, a mile or so away). Those two reserves alone
were larger than Jackson/Stuart's flanking force, and an aggressive
commander would have realized the opportunity to flank it with those
reserves, and destroyed it in detail rather than waiting defensively to
see where the next attack would hit. Ultimately, those two Corps
remained in reserve, and never saw any real action during this battle.
On one hand, Hooker's decision to withdraw from Hazel Grove makes
sense, because it was going to be a salient I don't think he could
defend. However, by giving the Confederates a place to set up
their artillery and enfilade his line, he made a much greater
error. Realistically, the best action Hooker could have taken on
May 3 would have been a bold and aggressive counter attack against
Stuart, preventing Lee from reuniting his army, and overwhelming the separate
pieces of it.
But by choosing to remain on the defensive, he had no chance to win
on the second day's fighting. |
