Stonewall Jackson's flank march at Chancellorsville

A battle is rarely transformed by the fourteen-mile-flank-march of an entire army-corps across the Wilderness in front of the unsuspecting-enemy. Stonewall Jackson took the Second-Corps of the Army-of-Northern-Virginia from the Confederate-position south of Chancellorsville at dawn on the second of May 1863, marched the twenty-eight-thousand-soldier column across the Catharine-Furnace-and-Brock-Road-route, and launched the attack at six in the evening of the same day. The Union-Army-of-the-Potomac right-flank collapsed in approximately two hours.

THE CLARKSBURG BOY

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born at Clarksburg in the Western-Virginia mountain-country (modern West Virginia) on the twenty-first of January 1824, third child of Jonathan Jackson, a Clarksburg-attorney of the Western-Virginia-Jackson Ulster-Scots-emigrant-family stock, and Julia Beckwith Neale. Both parents died of typhoid before Thomas's eighth year (his father died in March 1826 when Thomas was two; his mother died in December 1831 when Thomas was seven). He was raised at his paternal-uncle Cummins Jackson's Jackson's-Mill grist-mill-and-farm at the Lewis-County-and-Harrison-County Western-Virginia-borderlands from his seventh-year, was schooled at the Jackson's-Mill grist-mill local-school to the 1842-school-leaving-age of eighteen, and on the 1842 United-States-Military-Academy-cadetship-appointment took the West-Point cadetship in his eighteenth year on the Congressional-Representative-Samuel-Hays-of-West-Virginia patronage.

He graduated from West Point in 1846 in the seventeenth-place of the fifty-nine-cadet 1846 West-Point-graduating-class, took the second-lieutenant United-States-Army-Artillery-commission, and served across the 1846-to-1851 Mexican-American-War period under the General Winfield Scott Mexico-City-Campaign (the Veracruz-landing and the Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey and Chapultepec engagements that Jackson took on the Artillery-staff under the Captain John Magruder), was promoted-major and was decorated for the Chapultepec-Artillery-service.

He resigned the Regular-Army-commission in 1851 in his twenty-seventh year on the Virginia-Military-Institute-Professorship-appointment at the Lexington Virginia VMI-Lexington-campus, held the VMI-Natural-Philosophy-and-Artillery-Tactics-Professorship from 1851 to 1861 across the ten-year peacetime-VMI-Professor-period (the VMI-period during which Jackson developed the Presbyterian-religious-devotion and the personal-eccentric-mannerisms that became the foundational Jackson-personal-public-persona), and on the Virginia-secession of the seventeenth of April 1861 (Virginia's Civil-War secession-ordinance) took the Confederate-States-Army colonel-commission on the Virginia-State-Militia call-up of the twenty-first-of-April 1861.

THE STONEWALL NICKNAME

He took the Confederate brigade-command at the First Battle of Manassas (First Bull Run) on the twenty-first of July 1861 in his thirty-seventh year on the Confederate-First-Brigade Virginia-Infantry assignment under General P. G. T. Beauregard. The Confederate-position at the Henry House Hill on the afternoon of the twenty-first of July 1861 was the central single Confederate-line-of-battle on the Manassas battlefield; the Confederate-General Barnard Bee of South Carolina, attempting to rally his Bee-Brigade-of-South-Carolina-troops on the Henry House Hill, pointed at Jackson's First-Brigade-Virginia-Infantry which was holding the stone-wall-line on the Hill and said the quoted line that the Confederate-Manassas-after-action-reports preserved: There is Jackson standing like a stone wall, rally behind the Virginians. The Stonewall-nickname became the permanent-Jackson-military-byname from the First-Manassas afternoon.

THE STANDING-CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN

The 1863 spring-campaign in central-Virginia opened with the Hooker-Army-of-the-Potomac advance across the Rappahannock at the twenty-eighth-and-twenty-ninth of April 1863 (the Hooker Chancellorsville-campaign-plan involved the Army-of-the-Potomac main-body-crossing of the Rappahannock and the Rapidan at the United-States-Ford-and-Germanna-Ford crossings, with the V-and-XI-and-XII-Corps marching-and-flanking the Confederate-Army-position at Fredericksburg from the west-and-north-west).

Lee responded by dividing the Confederate-Army-of-Northern-Virginia: the First-Corps-Division under General Jubal Early was left at Fredericksburg with approximately ten-thousand-soldiers to hold the Union-VI-Corps-and-I-Corps demonstration at Fredericksburg, and the main-body of approximately forty-five-thousand-soldiers under Lee and Jackson marched west to meet the Hooker-main-body at the Chancellorsville crossroads in the Wilderness-of-Spotsylvania.

On the evening of Friday the first of May 1863, after the initial Confederate-engagement at Tabernacle Church on the east-edge of the Wilderness, Lee and Jackson met at the Lee-Jackson-bivouac at the Catharine-Furnace-and-Brock-Road junction. The Lee-Jackson-conference of the evening of the first-of-May 1863 was the foundational Confederate-tactical-conference of the campaign: Lee's tactical-question was whether the Confederate-Army-of-Northern-Virginia could attack the Hooker-Army-of-the-Potomac in the Wilderness despite the three-to-one Union-numerical-superiority. Jackson's tactical-answer was that the Hooker right-flank on the north-western edge of the Wilderness was open and could be approached by a flank-march around the Catharine-Furnace and the Brock-Road. Lee approved the Jackson-flank-march-plan at approximately midnight of the first-of-May 1863.

THE SECOND OF MAY

Jackson's Second-Corps began the flank-march at the 7 AM of the morning of the second-of-May 1863. The column was approximately twenty-eight-thousand-soldiers of the Second-Corps under the Jackson divisional-commanders A. P. Hill, Robert Rodes, and Raleigh Colston. The route ran south from the Confederate-position at the Catharine-Furnace-and-Brock-Road junction, south-east to the Welford-Furnace, west on the Brock-Road, north-west across the Orange-Plank-Road, and finally north on the Orange-Turnpike to the Wilderness-Church position on the extreme-right-flank of the Union-Eleventh-Corps under General Oliver O. Howard. The fourteen-mile march took approximately seven hours; the Second-Corps reached the flank-attack-position at approximately five in the afternoon of the second-of-May.

Jackson took up the attack-formation on the Wilderness-Church-position at approximately 5:15 PM and launched the attack at approximately 6 PM with the three-divisional attack-line (Rodes on the right, Colston in the centre, A. P. Hill in the reserve). The Union-Eleventh-Corps under Howard was the completely-unsuspecting flank-position; the Eleventh-Corps was preparing the evening-meal and was caught in the camp-position-and-not-in-the-battle-formation. The Jackson-attack collapsed the Eleventh-Corps right-flank within approximately ninety-minutes of the attack-opening, drove the Eleventh-Corps approximately two miles back across the Wilderness from the Wilderness-Church to the Dowdall's-Tavern-position, and produced the foundational Confederate-tactical-victory of the Battle of Chancellorsville.

THE STANDING-LEGACY

Jackson was wounded at the 9 PM of the same evening of the second-of-May 1863 by the friendly-fire of the 18th-North-Carolina-Infantry on the Orange-Plank-Road return-from-reconnaissance; he died of the Resulting pneumonia complications at the Chandler-house-plantation eight days later on the tenth of May 1863 at the thirty-ninth-year of his age. Lee's quoted response to the Jackson-death (he has lost his left arm but I have lost my right) became the foundational Confederate-quotation of the Chancellorsville campaign. The Battle of Chancellorsville continued under the Lee single-command across the third-and-fourth-and-fifth of May 1863 and closed with the Hooker-Union-Army-of-the-Potomac retreat back across the Rappahannock; the Chancellorsville-Battle is universally remembered as the Lee-tactical-masterpiece of the American-Civil-War, but the Jackson-loss removed the Confederate-Second-Corps Lieutenant-General-of-the-Army-of-Northern-Virginia at the moment of the Confederate's-greatest-tactical-momentum. The Jackson name in modern American military-tactical history carries the weight of the afternoon of the flank-march and the evening of the attack on the second of May 1863.