Small Talk-Trivia

Chancellorsville

By Stephen Davis · Originally published May 2019 · pp. 39–40

It’s May and time to think about Robert E. Lee’s historic victory. My questions and answers come from Stephen W. Sears’ Chancellorsville (Boston, 1996). 1. The Union XI Corps had the ill fortune to be positioned on the right flank of the Federal line in the Wilderness. Who was its commander? 2. Lee wrote President Davis on May 4: “I regret to state that General _____was killed. General Jackson was seriously, and Generals Heth and A. P. Hill slightly wounded.” Which Confederate general was killed at Chancellorsville? (a) Lewis Armistead (b) Isaac Trimble (c) William Pendleton (d) Frank Paxton. 3. “My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.” Who said this? 4. The Confederate infantrymen who fired into Jackson’s and A.P. Hill’s parties on the evening of May 2 were from which state? 5. Commander of the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, was this general, who set out on April 13 in a diversionary raid against the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad. Who? 6. Who was the Confederate surgeon who performed the amputation of General Jackson’s left arm? 7. Commander of the Union V Corps at Chancellorsville was this major general, who seven weeks later would become commander of the Army of the Potomac. Who? 8. “At Chancellorsville we gained another victory; our people were wild with delight—I, on the contrary, was more depressed than after Fredericksburg; our loss was severe, and again we gained not an inch of ground and the enemy could not be pursued.” Who wrote this? 9. On his way to review the Federal army in early April, this politician heard his driver cursing at his mules. He asked the driver if he were an Episcopalian. No, came the reply; he was a Methodist. “Well, I thought you must be an Episcopalian, because you swear just like Governor Seward, who is a churchwarden.” Who said this? 10. Stonewall Jackson’s cartographer estimated that his march route to get in position for the Confederate flank attack of May 2 was ten to twelve miles. Who was the mapmaker? Answers found on page 40.

Steve Davis is the Civil War News Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at: [email protected].

Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard (1830–1909). Brig. Gen. Elisha Franklin Paxton (1828–1863). Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker (1814–1879). North Carolina. Maj. Gen. George Stoneman (1822–1894). Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire (1835–1900). Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade (1815–1872). Gen. Robert E. Lee. The source is General Harry Heth’s letter to J. William Jones, June 1877, published in the Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 4, no. 4 (October 1877), 154. 9. Pres. Abraham Lincoln. 10. Capt. Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828–1899).