Stonewall Jackson At Chancellorsville: The Principles Of War And The Horns Of A Dilemma At The Burton Farm by Canty Major Jeremiah D.;

Author:Canty, Major Jeremiah D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
Published: 2015-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

MANEUVER

“Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage thorough the flexible application of combat power.”{170}

In FM 100-5 it states, “maneuver is dynamic warfare that rejects predictable patterns of operations.”{171} Ironically, Jackson’s move was anything but unpredictable.{172} Past experience with both Lee and Jackson revealed them at their most dangerous when faced with extreme crisis, and the usual solution to a situation where they found themselves outnumbered was to gain a local superiority by virtue of finding an exposed Federal flank.{173} Many individuals commented that the situation was not new to the Confederates, nor to Jackson in particular, and that a flanking maneuver was their Modus Operandi in such cases.{174} Once the retreat by Hooker uncovered the Plank Road and the Turnpike as far west as the Furnace Road, Lee was presented with an opportunity he would not otherwise have had, to use those exterior lines to move around Hooker.{175} The sheer audacity of Lee’s fixing attack in the west goes a long way to explaining the success of an attack that was quite predictable and purely Napoleonic in concept and execution.{176} Poor Federal intelligence processing, despite good information gathering,{177} allowed Jackson to move inside Hooker’s decision making process. The relative speed of Jackson, exploiting exterior lines to move to a position beyond the expectations of the Federal command and control system, versus the inertia of Hooker, is best explained as Jackson’s moving inside Hooker’s decision cycle.{178} The tempo of Confederate operations was faster than Hooker’s primarily because the Confederate plan was simple and the command and control system flatter. Jackson acted independently once his corps was on the road, Lee the same, while Hooker, given the complexity of the Federal army, was overwhelmed with conflicting messages and various opportunities. Even though the information was there to indicate to Hooker that a flank attack was coming, other key elements of information were coming in that contradicted such a maneuver. Lee’s diversionary attack in the east was so effective that many Federals believed it was the main attack.{179} Sickles’ somewhat effective attack toward the Catherine Furnace also suggested to Hooker that Lee’s army that was spilt and open to attack on an increasing scale. The opportunity of Jackson’s movements to be seen as a retreat toward Gordonsville all made sense in the particular context in which the Federals viewed them, and undoubtedly made more sense than the dangerous splitting of Lee’s army in the face of a well-disposed army defending along interior lines.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.