be enlarged. His request denied, Sigel angrily resigned his command. Replacing him was Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, who had lately been complaining that he deserved a corps command since General Daniel Sickles, his junior in rank, had gotten one. Howard quickly established a poor relationship with the troops due to his intense religious fervor, which especially alienated the anti-clerical Germans, and for bringing in two new, unpopular generals, Francis Barlow and Charles Devens. Devens, formerly a brigade commander in the IV and VI Corps, was given command of the 1st Division over Nathaniel McLean, who got demoted back to brigade command. The relationship between the two generals was touchy. Barlow, formerly of the II Corps, had a habit of being an aggressive martinet. General Howard commanded the corps at Chancellorsville, May 1–3, 1863, at which time it numbered 12,169 effectives, and was composed of the divisions of Generals Charles Devens, von Steinwehr, and Schurz. It contained 27 regiments of infantry, of which 13 were German regiments. The men of the XI Corps were good soldiers, for the most part, tried and veteran troops, but their leadership let them down. On May 1, Robert E. Lee and his subordinate, "Stonewall" Jackson, came up with a risky, but daring, plan of attack. They would split their 40,000-man force at Chancellorsville, with Jackson taking his Second Corps of 28,000 men around to attack the U.S. right flank. On May 2, Jackson flawlessly executed his stealthy flanking march, whose target was the unlucky XI Corps. The right flank of the U.S. line was in the air; it was not anchored to any geographic barrier, such as a river or mountain. Although General Howard had been warned of Confederate movement across his front, he took no steps to prepare his command against Jackson's attack; only two inoperative artillery pieces were pointed at the Wilderness. When Jackson's corps struck at about 6 p.m., the XI Corps was utterly unprepared, with many men eating supper. The attack was a complete success and the high point of Jackson's military career, but it was an utter disaster for the XI Corps. Some of the brigades changed front to meet the attack, barely resisting, and were pushed back, hardly slowing the enemy down, but most of the corps fled to the east, running down the Orange Turnpike past the crossroads at Chancellorsville. The loss to the corps at Chancellorsville