On the first day at Chancellorsville, Confederate forces under Gen. Lafayette McLaws poured devastating fire into Union troops from this position while McLaws held the Federals in his front so that his commander, Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, could endeavor to gain the enemy's rear. Jackson did so as troops from Gen. Robert E. Rodes's division, advancing with him on the Plank Road, wheeled to the right, crashed through the thick woods, and bore down on the Union flank, previewing on a smaller scale what Jackson would accomplish much more broadly the next day.