Chancellorsville, Virginia

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Chancellorsville, Virginia
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Ruins of George Chancellor's house at Chancellorsville battlefield
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Chancellorsville, Virginia
Location within the Commonwealth of Virginia
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Chancellorsville, Virginia
Chancellorsville, Virginia (Virginia)
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Chancellorsville, Virginia
Chancellorsville, Virginia (the United States)
Coordinates: 38°18′30″N77°38′4″W / 38.30833°N 77.63444°W / 38.30833; -77.63444
CountryFlag of the United States.svg United States
State Flag of Virginia.svg  Virginia
County Spotsylvania
Time zone UTC−5 (Eastern (EST))
  Summer (DST) UTC−4 (EDT)
GNIS feature ID1492743 [1]

Chancellorsville is a historic site and unincorporated community in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, United States, about ten miles west of Fredericksburg. The name of the locale derives from the mid-19th century inn operated by the family of George Chancellor at the intersection of the Orange Turnpike and Orange Plank Road. The Battle of Chancellorsville occurred there during the American Civil War in May 1863, and the Battle of the Wilderness was fought nearby in May 1864. During the 1863 battle, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson was wounded by friendly fire, dying eight days later on May 10, 1863, from pneumonia.

Portions of both the Chancellorsville and Wilderness battlefields are protected within Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, although both battlefields have come under threat from development in recent years. The site of the Chancellorsville Inn, where Union Gen. Joseph Hooker had his headquarters during the 1863 battle, is preserved in the national military park, as is the site of Jackson's wounding. The site of Jackson's death is located at Guinea Station in Caroline County, south of Fredericksburg, and is also preserved as part of the park.

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The Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30 – May 6, 1863, was a major battle of the American Civil War (1861–1865), and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Fredericksburg</span> Major battle (1862) of the American Civil War

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The combat, between the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee, included futile frontal attacks by the Union army on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders along the Sunken Wall on the heights behind the city. It is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the war, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. A visitor to the battlefield described the battle as a "butchery" to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Hooker</span> American Union Army general (1814–1879)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">William T. Poague</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Tiffin Harrison Warren</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">4th Virginia Infantry Regiment</span> Infantry regiment in the Confederate States Army

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment</span> Military unit

The 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Major George H. Gordon, a West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican–American War, organized the unit's recruitment and formation. The 2nd Massachusetts was trained at Camp Andrew in West Roxbury, Massachusetts on the site of the former Transcendentalist utopian community, Brook Farm. Roughly half the regiment was mustered in on May 18, 1861 and the remainder on May 25, 1861 for a term of three years. The regiment saw extensive combat as part of the Army of the Potomac particularly during the Battle of Antietam and the Battle of Gettysburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellwood Manor</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Ellwood Manor is the Georgian-style home completed c. 1790 by William Jones, formerly in Spotsylvania County, Virginia but now in Orange County, Virginia. For more than a century, it was the center of a large, thriving plantation not far from the Chancellorsville crossroads on the Plank Road between Fredericksburg and Orange, Virginia which is now Virginia State Route 3. Not long before the American Civil War, J. Horace Lacy married William Jones' younger daughter and inherited both Ellwood and Chatham Manor.

Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, and his left arm was amputated by Hunter McGuire. Chaplain Beverly Tucker Lacy had the arm buried at Ellwood Manor. Jackson died on May 10. Confederate staff officer James Power Smith had a granite monument erected for the gravesite of the arm in 1903, although it is not known how accurately Smith's marker represents the true location of the arm. Legend holds that American military officer Smedley Butler had the arm exhumed in 1921, although the factual accuracy of this story is dubious. While it is unknown where the arm is now located, or if it even still exists, the marker has become a tourist site.

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