Showing results for "Chancellorsville"
America’s First Air Force: Union Aeronauts and McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, Part Three – Gaines’ Farm Station
ECW welcomes back guest author Jeff Ballard Read Part One and Part Two. The final week of May 1862 denoted the high-water mark of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign as five corps of the Army of the Potomac partially encircled Richmond. By the 23rd, both the Gaines’ Farm and the Mechanicsville stations, nine and six miles north-northeast […]
Read more...“Battlefield Season”
“Battlefield season,” as I refer to early May, is always an especially busy time of year for me. Of the five battlefields I live among, the battles of Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania all took place in early and mid-May, with North Anna (another of my favorites, and nearby) taking place immediately thereafter.[1] In the midst […]
Read more...Week in Review: May 1-8, 2022
It’s been a full week of battle anniversary posts with a variety of perspectives and “emerging” accounts…
Read more...The Absalom McGee Family: The Farm becomes a Cavalry Camp during the Overland Campaign
Part 2 The trials of the Absalom McGee Family did not end in 1863 with the battle of Chancellorsville. While Frances and the children tried to put their home back together, Absalom had trailed the retreating Federal army, seeking safety from his own neighbors who hated his Unionist beliefs. Unfortunately, his plan backfired. Returning home, […]
Read more...Words “in Praise of General Berry”: Hiram Berry Memorial Poems
“Not a word in praise of General Berry’s services, but half a column laudatory of Stonewall Jackson can be found in the Bath Courier,” a newspaper reader complained on May 23, 1863, in a letter to the Bangor, Maine, Whig & Courier. He was referring to Maj. Gen. Hiram Berry, commanding a division of the […]
Read more...Question of the Week: 5/2-5/8/22
What is your favorite “What If” related to the Battle of Chancellorsville?
Read more...The “Fighting Naturalist” of the 19th Massachusetts
It was hot and muggy most of the time. It rained frequently and the men made acquaintance of the “wood tick,” and enumerable bugs and specimens of insect life hitherto unknown to them. The very earth moved with “new life.” Sticks and twigs were endowed with motion. The men would watch a black twig two […]
Read more...Occupied Cities of the South: Alexandria, Virginia
Part of a Series Ripples of fear and uncertainty spread throughout the United States when war broke out between the North and the South in 1861. In every state, citizens worried that war could arrive at their front door at any moment. Nowhere was this fear more intense than in Alexandria, Virginia. Alexandria was a […]
Read more...Sunrise at Salem Church
Historic Salem Church looked exceptionally pretty in the morning light earlier today. This sanctuary was fought over during the Chancellorsville Campaign in May 1863 as Union General John Sedgwick tried to advance west and Confederates hurried to block his route.
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