The battle of Chancellorsville, fought in the spring of 1863 in Virginia’s Piedmont region, pitted a powerful Union Army under its newly appointed commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, against a significantly smaller but well-led Confederate force under General Robert E. Lee. Hooker had refit and reorganized his 130,000 men into a potent fighting force over the winter following the Union Army of the Potomac’s bloody defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, under Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. After Hooker had replaced Burnside, he developed a plan to hold Lee’s 60,000 ill-supplied Confederates at Fredericksburg with a small part of the Army of the Potomac, and march most of his troops in a wide flanking maneuver to the west to attack Lee’s flank and rear. Hooker hoped this daring move would either crush Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia or force it to retreat toward Richmond, Virginia. Either way, he anticipated a glorious victory for his Federals over the fabled Confederate commander.
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