Book excerpt: Ben Fuller Fordney's Stoneman at Chancellorsville is the first comprehensive history to recognize the full impact of what, until now, was viewed simply as an offshoot of Joseph Hooker's Chancellorsville offensive. Valuable to the Army of the Potomac for both its morale-boosting and experience-gaining-aspects, Stoneman's raid ranks as one of the significant precursors to the turning point of the War in the East. It accomplished much more than hitherto believed, diverting George Pickett and John Bell Hood from where Robert E.