Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/9

 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. i, C. V., May 2oth, 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 sub- mit my personal recollections is not the Battle of Chancellors- ville, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of May, 1863, in which the Fed- eral Army of the Potomac, under General Hooker, which num- bered more than 130,000 men, was defeated by a part of the Con- federate 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 Armv ot Northern Vir-