Stoneman's Raid is a cavalry operation of the federal army that was carried out from April 13 to May 10, 1863 in Virginia, simultaneously with the battle of Chancellorsville. The raid was an important part of the operations of Joseph Hooker against General Lee's Severo - Virginian army . The failure of Stoneman is one of the reasons for the failure of Hooker's Chancellorsville campaign, and led to the removal of Stoneman from the command of the Cavalry Corps.
| Raid Stoneman | |||
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| Main conflict: US Civil War | |||
 George Stoneman | |||
| date | April 13 - May 10, 1863 | ||
| A place | Virginia | ||
| Total | Confederate victory | ||
| Opponents | |||
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| Commanders | |||
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| Forces of the parties | |||
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| Losses | |||
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Content
Background
On April 12, General Butterfield (Chief of Staff of the Army of the Potomac) submitted to President Lincoln a plan of attack drawn up by General Joseph Hooker. Hooker offered to use Stoneman's cavalry corps for a raid to the rear of the enemy. When Lee’s supply lines are cut, he will be forced to retreat from the line of the Rappahanok River , and then the federal army will be able to cross the river without any problems. On the same day (April 12), Hooker sent a detailed order to General Stoneman. According to the order, Stoneman had to leave one cavalry brigade and all the other forces, numbering 9,895 people with the support of four horse artillery batteries, go over Rappahanok above Frederiksberg and go to the rear of the Lee army to destroy communications. Hooker demanded from Stoneman "quickness, audacity and decisiveness" [1] .
Already on April 13, the largest cavalry unit in the history of the war came out of the camps, and infantry units were ordered to prepare rations for eight days and receive 60 cartridges per person. The preparation was ordered to be completed by the morning of April 15. Meanwhile, on April 14, the cavalry reached the crossings and the brigade moved to the south side. However, at 02:00 on April 15, heavy rain began. The rains came from the west, and they had already passed in the mountains of the Blue Ridge Range, so the water in the Rappahanki River rose rapidly and rose to 7 feet by the end of the day. Davis and his brigade had difficulty returning to the north shore. On the evening of April 15, Hooker found out that his plan failed. [2]
While Hooker was pondering how to resume the offensive, the received new valuable information about the enemy. Intelligence counted 49,800 people in the Lee army: 28 brigades, combined into six divisions. It was also revealed that the Southerners protect the Banks-Ford and United-States-Ford ferries, but then their left flank is open. Based on this information, Hooker radically changed his idea. If it was previously planned to force Lee to retreat, and then pursue, now it was decided to leave the infantry units to his communications and force him to battle precisely where it is beneficial to Hooker [3] . Stoneman had to act in accordance with the original order, make a raid to the rear of the enemy and destroy his communications. With the army, only one cavalry brigade remained, but Hooker believed that in cavalry in the dense forests around Chancelorsville, there would be no benefit from the cavalry early on [4] .
On April 28, General Hooker met Stoneman in Morrisville and gave him new instructions, adjusting the raid plan of April 12. The main goal was still the same - to destroy the railways. But now Hooker ordered the cavalry to be divided into two columns. Stoneman argued that everything was clear to him in these orders and that he discussed them with his subordinates, although this is doubtful for researchers [5] .
Raid
On April 29, at 5:00 pm, the Stoneman detachment, numbering 7,400 people, crossed Rappahanok along the ford of Kelly Ford. Crossing the river, Stoneman stopped the convoy and began to confer with the officers to figure out what to do and where to go. As a result, by the end of the day he managed to walk only four miles from the crossing to the Medden-Tavern on the Culpeper Road. There were no clashes with the enemy's army all day, although, as Stephen Sears wrote, if Stoneman had arrived at Madden-Tavern a couple of hours earlier, he would have met Stewart's reconnaissance detachment there [6] .
Implications
Note
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 119 - 121.
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 122 - 123.
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 130 - 131.
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 132.
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 166.
- ↑ Sears 1996 , p. 166 - 167.
Literature
- Bigelow, John. The Campaign of Chancellorsville, a Strategic and Tactical Study. - New Haven: Yale University Press, 1910. - 521 p.
- Sears, Stephen W. Chancellorsville. - Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. - 593 p. - ISBN 0-395-87744-X .
- Powell, William S. Stoneman's Raid. ed. Encyclopedia of North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, NC 2006).