Military
6
The climactic fighting of the Battle of Chancellorsville took place in the woods and fields around Fairview. On the morning of May 3, 1863, Union troops struggled to hold their position long enough for General Hooker to establish a new line a mile to the north. Confederates fought desperately to reunite the two wings of Lee's command and complete the destruction of Hooker's army begun by Jackson the night before. They drove the Federals from Chancellorsville, but Hooker escaped with his army intact. Nicholas Weeks of the 3rd Alabama Infantry recalled the line melting away as men crawled over and under everything before them, woods set afire, a rush for the clearings and road, and soldiers huddled under canister and shell while flames swept by, leaving charred bodies on the ground and ashes showing where men had scratched away leaves in vain attempts to avoid burning alive.
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Lake Wilderness, Virginia · United States
