Chancellorsville Campaign

By May 5, 1863, Union General Joseph Hooker knew that he had lost the Battle of Chancellorsville and had to retreat across the Rappahannock. Troops of the Federal Fifth Corps dug trenches stretching a mile on either side of this road as a last line of defense during the river crossing. Early on May 6, the last Northern soldiers passed this point and headed toward U.S. Ford, one mile to the northeast. General R.E. Lee had planned to attack the retreating Federals, but when he was told that the Union Army had escaped successfully, he uncharacteristically chided the brigadier who brought the news, saying, “That is the way you young men always do. You allow those people to get away. I tell you what to do, but you don’t do it.”

Virginia · United States