As the Union army fell back on the first day at Chancellorsville, the structures atop this ridge became convenient targets for Confederate gunners. One of these buildings, a little frame house probably inhabited by the Newton family, served as a field hospital. Federal Surgeon John Shaw Billings observed that wounded men who could walk would not stop there because it was too close to danger. Bandsmen from Union regiments, who commonly helped carry the wounded when they were not playing music, brought the more severely injured soldiers to the hospital but did not return for a second load. After a shell tore through the wooden shanty, Billings moved the field hospital about 200 yards back to the house of Absalom McGee.