The clash at Chancellorsville in 1863 was an enormously complex ten-day campaign. At its conclusion, General Joseph Hooker, the confident commander of the Army of the Potomac, was in disgrace, while Confederate General Robert E. Lee had won a decisive victory but at the loss of the irreplaceable Stonewall Jackson, killed by friendly fire.At age nineteen Theodore Ayrault Dodge volunteered for the Union cause. As part of the Eleventh Corpssurprised and routed by Stonewall Jackson's celebrated flank attackhe participated in the battle's fiercest and costliest fighting. (Dodge would later lose a leg at Gettysburg.) This second 1886 edition of his classic study, first published in 1881, is marked by Dodge's unsparing analysis and astute interpretations, which have retained their value and vigor for over a century.
Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge (18421909)served in the New York volunteer infantry during the Civil War. His books includeAlexander, Hannibal, The Campaign of Chancellorsville, A Bird's Eye View of Our Civil War, Gustavus Adolphus, Cesar,andNapoleon(in four volumes).