Having raised his effective force to about one hundred and thirty thousand men, and learning that Lee’s army was weakened by detachments to perhaps half that number, Hooker, near the end of the month, prepared and executed a bold movement which for a while was attended with encouraging progress.  Sending General Sedgwick with three army corps to make a strong demonstration and crossing below Fredericksburg, Hooker with his remaining four corps made a somewhat long and circuitous march by which he crossed both the Rappahannock and the Rapidan above the town without serious opposition, and on the evening of April 30 had his four corps at Chancellorsville, south of the Rappahannock, from whence he could advance against the rear of the enemy.  But his advantage of position was neutralized by the difficulties of the ground.  He was in the dense and tangled forest known as the Wilderness, and the decision and energy of his brilliant and successful advance were suddenly succeeded by a spirit of hesitation and delay in which the evident and acknowledged chances of victory were gradually lost.  The enemy found time to rally from his surprise and astonishment, to gather a strong line of defense, and finally, to organize a counter flank movement under Stonewall Jackson, which fell upon the rear of the Union right and created a panic in the Eleventh Corps.  Sedgwick’s force had crossed below and taken Fredericksburg; but the divided Union army could not effect a junction; and the fighting from May 1 to May 4 finally ended by the withdrawal of both sections of the Union army north of the Rappahannock.  The losses suffered by the Union and the Confederate forces were about equal, but the prestige of another brilliant victory fell to General Lee, seriously balanced, however, by the death of Stonewall Jackson, who was accidentally killed by the fire of his own men.

In addition to his evident very unusual diminution of vigor and will, Hooker had received a personal injury on the third, which for some hours rendered him incapable of command; and he said in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War: 

“When I returned from Chancellorsville I felt that I had fought no battle; in fact, I had more men than I could use, and I fought no general battle for the reason that I could not get my men in position to do so probably not more than three or three and a half corps on the right were engaged in the fight.”

Hooker’s defeat at Chancellorsville had not been so great a disaster as that of Burnside at Fredericksburg; and while his influence was greatly impaired, his usefulness did not immediately cease.  The President and the Secretary of War still had faith in him.  The average opinion of his qualities has been tersely expressed by one of his critics, who wrote:  “As an inferior he planned badly and fought well; as a chief he planned well and fought badly.”  The course of war soon changed, so that he was obliged to follow rather than permitted to lead the developments of a new campaign.