The Battle of Chancellorsville was fought a few months after the Fredericksburg campaign, April 27-May 6, 1863.  Due to the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln appointed General Hooker as the new Union leader. Chancellorsville was named after the Chancellor family, who lived at an intersection of five roads that converged in front of the house.  The main road then, and now, is called Old Plank Road.

The house caught fire during the battle and this is all that's left.

      The driving part of the battlefield tour amazingly took us to a farmer's field off Plank Road, where we got to give a Texas "howdy" to the owners!  We hiked through the farmer's field for about a mile! That green strip of grass is the NPS trail!

 It's hard to imagine fighting took place here...

      Here's another intersection where Lee and Jackson made a daring plan.  Jackson discovered the right flank of the Union was unprotected. He had his men march 12 miles the next day, around the Union army, while Lee's men kept the Union soldiers busy, to make the destructive surprise attack.

     Meanwhile, the Union army leisurely built these lunettes (earthwork fortifications) in preparation for an attack.  See how they are to the right of the sign...

     To their shock, Jackson's men appeared to their left.  The Union soldiers hastily built these lunettes to try to resist the attack.  See how they are on the left of the sign...

      In the end, it was a bittersweet victory for the South. Because Stonewall Jackson was mistaken by his men for the enemy, he was shot.  His left arm had to be amputated.  General Lee said, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm." Jackson, one of the greatest military strategists of the Confederacy, died 8 days later.  

     During the Chancellorsville campaign, Old Salem Church, which means "peace" became the scene of some of the fighting.

      You can still see some of the damage today.  After the fighting, the church became a hospital...soaked in blood.

      A year later, the Battle of the Wilderness was fought a few miles west of Chancellorsville, May 5-6, 1864.  This time, General Grant was here!  General Grant had proven himself with astounding victories near the Mississippi River. President Lincoln put him in charge of the entire Union army because "...this man fights."  Although General Grant could have led the Union from behind a desk in Washington DC, he chose to be with the Army of the Potomac and their immediate commander, General Meade.  Many of the men complained that General Grant wasn't polished and was too Western.  By the end of the Battle of the Wilderness, the men would change their opinion of him.  When General Meade's decisions were weak, Grant overrode them and insisted on a strong resistance against the Confederates.  For the first time in the war, the Army of the Potomac did not retreat.  Instead, General Grant pushed on to Spotsylvania and ultimately the Confederate capital of Richmond.  As a result, Grant gained the respect of his men, as they marched to the next battlefield, hopeful that they could win the war.  

     The Wilderness was a difficult place for the men to fight because of the dense forests. Grant did not like the idea of fighting in the thick undergrowth, where the men could not see what they were shooting. He tried to work his men into a clearing, but the Confederates began the fight in the woods. The officers were anxious, as was Grant. Although Grant didn't express his concerns, he worked out his nervous energy with puffs of smoke from his cigar and furious whittling.  At the beginning of the battle, he wore white gloves. By the end they were tattered from all the whittling.   

     We got to hike through the Wilderness and walk through some of that dense undergrowth while trying to avoid muddy puddles from the previous two days of rain.  We even saw deer leaping up and over the undergrowth. For those with horses, there are horse paths to help them pretend they are in the cavalry!

     The Battle of Spotsylvania was fought a few days after the Battle of the Wilderness, May 8-21, 1864. In a funnel shaped farm field, the Bloody Angle was the scene of bloody hand-to-hand combat for a steady 20 hours in drenching rain. 

Some of the best earthworks can be seen here.

 There are some atypical earthworks at one end of the battlefield.

     From the air they look like centipedes.  Apparently they confuse the experts. The Confederates built them in such a way as to protect them from crossfire from the Union. On one side of the trenches are the traverses the Confederates built.  When the Union arrived, they built their own on the other side.