Today's weather -- hot and humid -- is probably a lot like it was on May 2, 1863 -- exact 162 years ago. On this day, Stonewall Jackson made a 17-mile roundabout march during the Battle of Chancellorsville and brought 30,000 men crashing into the Army of the Potomac's unprotected right flank. The attack eventually resulted in a complete victory for the Confederates, but at the cost of Jackson's death. His men had marched down narrow forest trails to reach the unsuspecting soldiers of the Union XI Corps under Oliver Howard. As March 3 dawned, the Union army still held the advantage, situated as it was between two wings of Robert E. Lee's army.
The fighting on the third was some of the bloodiest of the war. Its 17,500 casualties was almost as bloody as Antietam. Then the Federals withdrew and the campaign was over. It had cost an aggregate of 30,000 dead, wounded, and missing from both sides.
Two months later, the armies would clash again at a quiet Pennsylvania crossroads known as Gettysburg.