Showing results for "Chancellorsville"
Shaping Chancellorsville: The Second Battle of Chancellorsville
part eleven in a series Easily the highest-profile land acquisition at Chancellorsville in the last two decades has been the Day One battlefield. On May 1, 1863, east of the Chancellorsville intersection, Confederate forces intercepted the Federal advance, much to the Federals’ surprise. As a result, the Federal army withdrew into a defensive position around the […]
Read more...Shaping Chancellorsville: Guarding the Flank
Part ten in a series In 1998, fresh off its acquisition of McLaws’ Wedge, the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust (CVBT) turned its attention to the far end of the Chancellorsville battlefield and began buying property associated with Jackson’s Flank Attack, targeting small lots as they came on the market. They purchased the first piece in […]
Read more...Shaping Chancellorsville: Change in the Landscape
Part nine in a series By the mid-90s, the threat of development reached unprecedented levels because of exploding population growth in central Virginia. Additionally, the market value of land inflated well beyond the National Park Service’s legal or financial ability to purchase it. “We can’t do everything in the marketplace we need to do,” John […]
Read more...Shaping Chancellorsville: Cementing the Story
Part eight of a series The area on the Chancellorsville battlefield known as Fairview was a central point of action during the fighting on May 3. Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP) already owned much of the land there and had established a tour stop at the location because of highly visible earthworks. However, […]
Read more...Shaping Chancellorsville: The New “Heart of the Battlefield”
Part seven of a series Throughout the seventies, Fredericksburg and Spostylvania National Military Park (FSNMP) continued to fill interior gaps in its land holdings. A pair of major acquisitions came in 1973 and 1975 that opened new ground and, ironically, redefined “the heart of the battlefield.” “Of the many historic sites on the four battlefields […]
Read more...Shaping Chancellorsville Revisited
In advance of the Chancellorsville sesquicentennial, I started a series called “Shaping Chancellorsville: How Memories of the Battle Shaped the Battlefield,” which looked at the way in which the Chancellorsville battlefield park was created. I never got around to finishing that series, but the Civil War Trust recently announced that it has helped preserve more land […]
Read more...A Different View of Chancellorsville
Sometimes, the coolest things I see on the battlefields have nothing to do with the Civil War. Nature is always up for offering some wonder. The challenge, of course, is leaving ourselves open to seeing it. Today, I hit the Chancellorsville battlefield to take some pictures for a new book Kris and I are working […]
Read more...A Quick Note about “Shaping Chancellorsville”
We’ve had a couple questions about Chris Mackowski’s series about the history of the Chancellorsville battlefield, “Shaping Chancellorsville,” which he started in late April. The series has been examining what has and hasn’t been remembered about Chancellorsville as “public memory” over the past 150 years and, specifically, how those memories have been employed over time […]
Read more...The Smoothbore Volley and the Calamity at Chancellorsville
Physician Matthew Lively says historian Bob Krick is wrong about the wounding of Stonewall Jackson. In the mid-nineties, historian Robert K. Krick redefined the story of Jackson’s wounding with his groundbreaking essay “The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy.” In 2002, he updated and improved upon his study with a revised edition published in a […]
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