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Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. XXXIV Richmond, Va., January-December. 1906
General Lee's Strategy at the battle of Chancellorsville.
A paper read by request before R. E. Lee Camp, no. 1, C. V., May 20th, 1906.
By T. M. R. Talcott, Major and Aide de Camp to General R. E. Lee, in 1862-63, and later Colonel 1st Regiment Engineer Troops, A. N. V.
[For the parole list of Engineer Troops surrendered at Appomattox C. H. and graphic account of the retreat from
Petersburg, Va., see Vol.
XXXII,
Southern Historical Society Papers.—Ed.]
Comrades of Lee Camp;
The subject upon which you have called upon me to submit my personal recollections is not the
Battle of Chancellorsville, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of May, 1863, in which the
Federal Army of the Potomac, under
General Hooker, which numbered more than 130,000 men, was defeated by a part of the Confederate Army of
Northern Virginia, numbering less than 60,000 men, for history has already recorded how that field was fought and won.
The hearing you have kindly afforded me as a member of the personal staff of
General R. E. Lee at the time of that battle.
is on the subject of ‘
General R. E. Lee at
Chancellorsville,’ and what you wish to know particularly is, I presume, whether or not he conceived and directed the movement around the right flank, and the attack on the rear of
Hooker's army.
Both
General Lee and
General Jackson were so pre-eminent for their modesty that we cannot conceive of either of them claiming for himself any credit for the movement in question.
and when various authors of the Life of
Jackson awarded to him the credit of the success gained by the Army of Northern Virginia,
