UNION. Killed and Wounded. Missing. Total. First Corps (Reynolds). . . . . 192 100 292 Second Corps (Couch). . . . . . 1,525 500 2,025 Third Corps (Sickles) . . . . . 3,439 600 4,089 Fifth Corps (Meade) . . . . . . 399 300 699 Sixth Corps (Sedgwick). . . . . 3,601 1,000 4,601 Eleventh Corps (Howard) . . . . 568 2,000 2,508 Twelfth Corps (Slocum). . . . . 2,383 500 2,883 Cavalry, etc. . . . . . . . . . 150 150
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,197 5,000 17,197
CONFEDERATE. Killed and Wounded. Missing. Total. Early's Division . . . . . . . 851 500 1,351 A. P. Hill's Division . . . . . 2,583 500? 3,083 Colston's Division . . . . . . 1,868 450? 2,318 Rodes' Division . . . . . . . . 2,178 713 2,891 Anderson's Division . . . . . . 1,180 210 1,390 McLaws' Division . . . . . . . 1,379 380 1,759 Artillery and Cavalry . . . . . 227 227
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,266 2,753 13,019
The following extract from Harpers' "History of the Great Rebellion" states the causes of Hooker's defeat in a very able manner, but I do not agree with the author in his estimate of the great danger Lee ran from the converging columns of Sedgwick and Hooker. It is true Lee tried the same system, and succeeded, by sending Jackson around to attack Hooker's right, but the success was due solely to the utter lack of all preparations on the part of Howard to meet the emergency, and to Hooker's failure to make use of the ample means at his disposal to prevent the junction of Stuart and Anderson.
Mr. Alden, the author of the work in question, says:
"There was not, in fact, any moment between Thursday afternoon and Tuesday morning when success was not wholly within the grasp of the Union army. The movement by which Chancellorsville was reached, and the Confederate position rendered worthless, was brilliantly conceived and admirably executed. The initial error, by which alone all else was rendered possible, was that halt at Chancellorsville. Had the march been continued for an hour longer, or even been resumed early in the following morning, the army would have got clear of the Wilderness without meeting any great opposing force, and then it would have been in a position where its great superiority of numbers would have told. The rout of Howard's corps was possible only from the grossest neglect of all military precautions. Jackson, after a toilsome march of ten hours, halted for three hours in open ground, not two miles from the Union lines. A single picket, sent for a mile up a broad road would have discovered the whole movement in ample time for Howard to have strengthened his position, or to have withdrawn from it without loss. The blame of this surprise can not, however, fairly be laid upon Hooker. He had a right to presume that whoever was in command there would have so picketed his lines as to prevent the possibility of being surprised in broad daylight. But even as it was, the disaster to the Eleventh Corps should have had no serious effect upon the general result. That was fully remedied when the pursuit was checked. On Sunday morning Hooker was in a better position than he had been on the evening before. He had lost 3,000 men and had been strengthened by 17,000, and now had 78,000 to oppose to 47,000. The Confederate army was divided, and could reunite only by winning a battle or by a day's march. The only thing which could have lost the battle of that day was the abandonment of the position at Hazel Grove, for from this alone was it possible to enfilade Slocum's line. But surely it is within the limits of military forethought that a general who has occupied a position for two days and three nights should have discovered the very key to that position, when it lay within a mile of his own headquarters. The disabling of Hooker could not, indeed, have been foreseen; but such an accident might happen to any commander upon any field; and there should have been somewhere some man with authority to have, within the space of three hours, brought into action some of the more than 30,000 men within sound, and almost within sight, of the battle then raging. How the hours from Sunday noon till Monday night were wasted has been shown. Hooker, indeed, reiterates that he could not assail the Confederate lines through the dense forests. But Lee broke through those very woods on Sunday, and was minded to attempt it again on Wednesday, when he found that the enemy had disappeared. The golden opportunity was lost, never to be recovered, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia gained a new lease of life."