The Will of a Southerner to a roaring Confederacy victory - The Battle of Chancellorsville

The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, fought near the village of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, from April 30 to May 6, 1863. Called Gen. Robert E. Lee's "perfect battle" because of his risky but successful division of his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force, the battle pitted Union Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against an army half its size, Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's audacity and Hooker's timid performance in combat combined to result in a significant Union defeat. The great Confederate victory was tempered by the mortal wounding of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to friendly fire, a loss that Lee likened to "losing my right arm."

The Chancellorsville campaign began with the crossing of the Rappahannock River by the Union army on the morning of April 27, 1863. Heavy fighting began on May 1, and did not end until the Union forces retreated across the river on the night of May 5 to May 6. Although the South lost, and were deeply humiliated by their defeat, it was General Lee's conduct at such Battles as Chancellorsville that enabled Southerners to hold their heads up with pride in the face of the North's final victory. Without this, the scars and wounds of the war may have been so severe that the process of healing and of reconciling the nation after the war would have failed. Although technically one, the nation would have in practice remained divided.