Stonewall Jackson in the moonlight: in the battle at Chancellorsville, Virginia, a full Moon may have changed the course of the American Civil War.
Among the storied tactics employed by both sides during the American Civil War, one of the most brilliant was a flank attack by Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson that routed the Union army's right wing on May 2, 1863, at the Battle of Chancellorsville in northeastern Virginia.Less than two hours of daylight remained when Jackson launched his assault. Then he did something unusual for the 19th century: He decided to continue fighting into the night. A full Moon was rising, and as historian Douglas Southall Freeman described it (in Lee's Lieutenants, 1943), "A kindly Providence seemed to be lifting that lantern in the sky to light the Confederacy on its way to independence."
Captain William Fitzhugh Randolph was riding at Jackson's side on that ill-fated night:
When night closed upon the scene the victory seemed complete. The infantry of the enemy had disappeared from our immediate front. ... The moon was shining very brightly, rendering all objects in our immediate vicinity distinct. ... The moon poured a flood of light upon the wide, open turnpike. (Confederate Veteran, December 1903.)
Then, without warning, the Southern cause was struck by a tragic accident. Jackson, who stood next in command to General Robert E. Lee himself, and whose bold, rapid movements proved decisive in several previous Confederate victories, was fatally wounded by "friendly fire." Most writers have framed the accident as a bitter stroke of bad luck. But as we'll show here, the event might have an explanation after all--for sound astronomical reasons.
Fatal Volley in the Moonlight
At about 9 p.m. Jackson's group rode forward to carry out a reconnaissance. If he could cut off Union troops from the fords and pontoon bridges along the Rappahannock River, this night's attack might deliver a crushing blow to the Army of the Potomac, the largest and most powerful of the Union's armies. Colonel Edward Porter Alexander of the Confederate artillery detailed the disastrous event when soldiers of the 18th North Carolina regiment fired on the riders, mistaking them for Union cavalry:
The moon was full that night. ... the experiences of this occasion will illustrate the difficulty of fighting, even when the moon is at its best. ... Jackson, followed by several staff-officers and couriers, rode slowly forward upon an old road, called the Mountain road. ... Jackson, at the head of his party, was slowly retracing his way back to his line of battle, when this volley firing began. Maj. Barry, on the left of the 18th N.C., seeing through the trees by the moonlight a group of horsemen moving toward his line, ordered his left wing to fire. (Military Memoirs of a Confederate, 1907.)
South Carolinian Berry Benson was close enough to hear the volley:
The full moon was shining brightly and objects were visible at a good distance. ... About 9 or 10 o'clock we halted ... a sudden volley in our front startled us ... we had lost Jackson, struck down by our own men. (Berry Benson's Civil War Book, 1962.)
A total of three bullets hit Jackson, one in the right hand and two in the left arm, though the wounds did not prove immediately fatal. Aides placed Jackson on a stretcher and carried him to a field hospital.
Around the same time, the Confederate lines came under fire from dozens of Federal guns massed on nearby Fairview Heights. According to Union artillery officer Thomas W. Osborn, they opened up on the Confederates around 9:30 p.m., and the "havoc in their ranks was fearful." Osborn explained that, although the opposing lines of battle were "closely engaged," the "beautiful moonlight night" enabled his artillerymen to arc shells just over the Union positions. The bombardment "tore the rebel lines to fragments" without wounding a single Federal soldier. Union artillerist Lieutenant George B. Winslow agreed that such precise aiming was possible at night since "a cloudless sky and a bright moon enabled us to sight our guns with a considerable degree of accuracy."
Night Fighting
The Confederates halted their advance after Jackson's wounding. Fighting continued, however, when Union Major General Daniel E. Sickles launched a midnight assault. Sickles recalled that the "night was very clear and still; the moon, nearly full, threw enough light in the woods to facilitate the advance."
Fighting eventually ceased for the night as both sides paused to regroup. Major General J. E. B. Stuart assumed command of Jackson's forces and ordered Colonel Alexander to determine the best gun positions for the next day's engagement. Alexander always remembered that night, when he carried out his mission under a "glorious, clear, calm, full-moon" (Fighting for the Confederacy, Gary W. Gallagher, editor, 1989). The next day, the Confederates drove the Union forces from Chancellorsville, ending the threat to the capital of Richmond, Virginia, and securing what scholars often refer to as Lee's greatest victory.
Moonlit Reflections
Historians looking back at the Chancellorsville campaign generally mention the Moon, of course. But details become much clearer when we look carefully at the times of moonrise and sunset, the duration of twilight, the exact lunar phase, and the Moon's location in the sky.
The table on the right shows that the nearly full Moon rose 42 minutes before sunset on May 2nd and was already rising higher into the sky as the twilight deepened. Therefore, the Chancellorsville battlefield was never totally dark. The light from the rising Moon emboldened Jackson to capitalize on the afternoon's success with a night attack.
We then realized that the calculated position of the Moon could help explain an especially significant point--why the soldiers of the 18th North Carolina regiment failed to recognize General Jackson and fired the fatal volley.
According to James Gillispie's Cape Fear Confederates (2012), the 18th North Carolina "unfortunately became famous and best known for accidentally wounding Stonewall Jackson." Gillispie commented that Major John Barry "felt extreme guilt over giving the command to fire" and that after the war Brigadier General James Lane was "understandably touchy about any criticism of his brigade generally or the 18th North Carolina specifically." Lane characterized the tragedy as a "misapprehension caused by the darkness."
In the 150 years since Chancellorsville, writers have offered conflicting opinions as to whether May 2, 1863, was a bright moonlit night or a murky dark night. Especially to those on the Confederate side, the idea that their soldiers could not recognize such an illustrious figure as Stonewall Jackson seemed inexplicable, and many insisted on the darkness of the night as the primary reason for the friendly fire.
The publication Confederate Veteran printed a letter in June 1902 from Virginian E. S. Anderson, who recalled, "I was in the battle of Chancellorsville, and saw Jackson when he fell. It was a beautiful moonlight night." But in the October 1902 issue, Georgian I. Roseneau retorted that Anderson's "statement is incorrect. ... General Jackson was shot to my left, and I remember distinctly that 'it was the darkest night I ever saw.'... Had it been a beautiful moonlight night, his comrades who shot him would have recognized General Jackson and avoided the terrible catastrophe."
This last account, however, is amply refuted by those quoted earlier, which clearly demonstrate that the opposing armies fought under a bright Moon.
We can offer a different explanation for Jackson's wounding, one based on the direction of the moonlight. Detailed battle maps show that the soldiers of the 18th North Carolina were looking to the southeast, exactly toward the rising Moon, which had reached an altitude of 25 [degrees] above the horizon at 9 p.m., the approximate time of Jackson's wounding. The moonlight therefore silhouetted Jackson and his party as they rode back toward the Confederate lines--a fact that has not been noted by historians, so far as we know. The riders would have appeared as dark figures, not recognizable, so our astronomical analysis partially absolves the 18th North Carolina from blame for the wounding of Jackson.
In the hours after the fatal volley, surgeons were forced to amputate Jackson's left arm. A few days later General Lee, who considered Jackson irreplaceable, was famously moved to say: "He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm." Jackson's condition continued to worsen, and he died of complications from pneumonia on May 10, 1863, at age 39.
Postscript
The United States is currently in the midst of a four-year commemoration of the Civil War, and the month of this issue marks the 150th anniversary of Chancellorsville. But an even more famous battle took place just two months later, on July 1-3, 1863, near the time of another full Moon. Widely seen as the turning point of the war, the Battle of Gettysburg lacked an important player for the Confederate cause: Stonewall Jackson.
The Confederate army initially had success at Gettysburg on July 1st but failed to seize the high ground of Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, key tactical landmarks that Federal troops eventually occupied in force. On July 3rd, the Southern cause suffered a crushing blow with the disaster of the infamous Pickett's Charge against the Union line on Cemetery Ridge.
In his reminiscences written after the war's end, General Lee again lamented Jackson's absence, commenting, "If I had had Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, we should have won a great victory." Confederate Major General Lafayette McLaws expressed a similar view about the need for Jackson's initiative at this crucial battle:
If he had been at Gettysburg on the evening of July 1st, when the enemy were in full retreat and in confusion upon the hill and ridge ... there would have been no delay in the onward march of his then victorious troops; he would ... have gone forward, with his characteristic dash and daring, and those important positions would doubtless have been ours, and the battle of Gettysburg of the 3d would not have occurred. This was the reputation he had made for himself, to last forever. (Quoted in Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson, 1895.)
We will never know how the American Civil War would have unfolded, or if the Battle of Gettysburg would have even taken place, had Stonewall Jackson not been mortally wounded on the fateful night of May 2, 1863. One thing we do know is that the Union advantages in manpower and industrial capacity were brought increasingly to bear as the conflict dragged on year after year. But without question, the full Moon at Chancellorsville played a role in changing the course of the war.
MOONLIGHT VOLLEY Above left: This woodcut from John Casler's 1906 memoir Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade correctly shows the position of the rising full Moon, shining behind Jackson and his scouting party. The riders would have appeared as even darker silhouettes, explaining why the North Carolina men failed to recognize Jackson as one of their own.
BINDING JACKSON'S WOUNDS Above right: This artwork from The Story of American Heroism (1897) shows Major General Ambrose Powell Hill, Jr. binding Stonewall Jackson's wounded left arm minutes after he was shot. Eight days later Jackson died from complications resulting from his injuries, depriving the Confederates of one of their ablest commanders.
To see a list of references and to see more images, visit skypub.com/Chancellorsville.
RELATED ARTICLE: THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE
The Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker, entered the Battle of Chancellors-ville with an estimated 130,000 men. After Confederate attacks drove the Federals from the field, President Abraham Lincoln reportedly exclaimed, "My God! My God! What will the country say?" The Union suffered about 18,000 casualties. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, led by General Robert E. Lee, started the battle with about 60,000 troops. Lee's strategic victory was tempered by the loss of about 13,000 men, including Stonewall Jackson.
MAY 2, 1863 CHANCELLORSVILLE, VIRGINIA
77[degrees]39' west longitude, 38[degrees]19' north latitude
LOCAL MOON'S MOON'S AZIMUTH EVENT
MEAN ALTITUDE
TIME
6:10 p.m. 0 [degrees] 110 [degrees] Moonrise
6:52 p.m. 6 [degrees] 116 [degrees] Sunset
7:20 p.m. 11 [degrees] 121 [degrees] End of civil
twilight
7:55 p.m. 16 [degrees] 127 [degrees] End of nautical
twilight
8:32 p.m. 22 [degrees] 135 [degrees] End of
astronomical
twilight
9:00 p.m. 25 [degrees] 141 [degrees] Approximate time
of Jackson's
wounding
The times are expressed in local mean time, [5.sup.h] [11.sup.m]
behind UT. Virginia did not adopt standard time zones until 1883.
The Moon was 99.6% illuminated on the evening of May 2. The exact
instant of full Moon fell on May 3, 1863, at [14.sup.h] [52.sup.m] UT.
Donald W. Olson teaches physics and astronomy at Texas State University and is the author of the forthcoming book, Celestial Sleuth (Springer, 2013). Laurie E. Jasinski is a Texas State graduate and the editor of The Handbook of Texas Music, Second Edition (Texas State Historical Association, 2012). The authors are grateful for research assistance from Margaret Vaverek of the Alkek Library at Texas State.
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| Title Annotation: | The Moon in History |
|---|---|
| Author: | Olson, Donald W.; Jasinski, Laurie E. |
| Publication: | Sky & Telescope |
| Geographic Code: | 1U5VA |
| Date: | May 1, 2013 |
| Words: | 2166 |
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