On April 30, 1863 Joseph Hooker’s infantry concentrated and set up camp near the Chancellor family home, known at Chancellorsville.
Utilizing the Union force remaining at Falmouth, commanded by John Sedgwick, which faced Fredericksburg, Hooker planned a double envelopment which would threaten Lee’s Confederates from both the front and rear and place Federal troops between Lee and Richmond.
A confident Hooker announced to his army that “the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind their defenses and give us battle on our ground, where certain destruction awaits him.” While Hooker predicted “splendid successes” for his army, at Fredericksburg Robert E. Lee gathered intelligence about the movement of the Federal army and carefully planned his response.