In the spring of 1863, Chancellorsville was the home of Mrs. Sanford Chancellor and seven of her children, and the old inn received a steady flow of Southern military men as soldiers and officers from Lee’s army stopped to pay their compliments to Mrs. Chancellor’s six unmarried daughters. As late as April 29, Generals J.E.B. Stuart, Richard Anderson, William Mahone, and Carnot Posey enjoyed the hospitality of the house while discussing ways to thwart the imminent Union advance. The tide of battle crested around Chancellorsville on May 3, and Confederate artillery fire forced the Federals, who used the building as army headquarters, to fall back closer to the river. Colonel Joseph Dickerson of General Hooker's staff remembered the civilians huddled in the basement and ushered them to safety behind the Union lines as a hail of shot and shell destroyed the dwellings in their wake. Chancellorsville, which had been built in four segments before the war, was partially rebuilt in 1870, but this reconstruction burned in 1927. Archeologists located foundations of the ante-bellum structure in 1976.