VA -- Chancellorsville Natl Battlefield -- Lacy House (Ellwood):
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- Description of Pictures: Someone at the Chancellorsville visitor center had mentioned that the entire area around the Lacy House was eventually going to be developed. I thought it made sense to give it another shot.
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- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- LACY_070617_067.JPG: This is how the seams between the boards are done -- plaster with things like horse hair to hold the pieces together.
- LACY_070617_071.JPG: Plaster:
Interior plaster walls and ceilings were composed of lime, sand, and reinforcing strands of animal hair. The plaster was applied to narrow, hand-split wooden strips called "laths" that ran at right angles to the studs and joists. When builders applied the first coat of plaster, the mixture oozed into the gaps between the laths, forming "keys" that helped the plaster adhere to the wall. In order to achieve a uniformly flat surface, buildings then applied a second coat of plaster to wooden or plaster strips called "screeds." A final coat was then added to give the wall a smooth and finished appearance.
- Description of Subject Matter: The Lacy House is also known as Ellwood
"The house stands on Wilderness Run, in a lonely place about half a mile south of the Culpeper plank road; it is a good-sized farmhouse, built of wood, square, with two porticos and painted a dove color. From the apex of the roof a hospital flag still flutters in the cold November wind." -- George M Neese, Chew's Virginia Battery, November 11, 1863
Ellwood was a typical Virginia farm. Finished in 1799, the dwelling looked out over rolling farmland planted in corn, wheat, and clover. Outbuildings, including a kitchen, smokehouse, and dairy, surrounded the house. As many as one hundred slaves, their cabins scattered north and west of the main building, provided the farm with most of its labor.
The Civil War shattered Ellwood's dull routine. In May 1863, the battle of Chancellorsville came to the area. The Confederate army established a hospital in the building. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson lost his left arm during the Battle of Chancellorsville, where he was mistakenly shot by his own troops. Surgeons removed the mangled appendage at the Wilderness Tavern field hospital, one-half mile away, early on May 3, 1863.
Jackson's chaplain, the Rev B Tucker Lacy, visited the hospital later that morning. As he was leaving Jackson's tent, Lacy saw the general's amputated arm lying outside the door. He gathered up the bloody limb and carried it across the fields to his brother's estate, Ellwood, and buried it here in the family cemetery.
Jackson remained at Wilderness Tavern for just one day. On May 4, 1863, he made the 26-mile journey to Guinea Station. He died there six days later.
"He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm." -- Robert E Lee on "Stonewall" Jackson
Seven months later, Union soldiers looted the house.
In May 1864, Northern and Southern soldiers engaged in a deadly struggle in the Wilderness a little more than a mile from Ellwood. Overnight the once quiet farm became a bustling military encampment. Ellwood stood in the midst of the Wilderness, a dark, forbidding forest characterized by stunted trees and densely tangled undergrowth. When the Confederates challenged General Ulysses S Grant's advance through the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, the Union commander made his headquarters just a few hundred yards north of here, along the Orange Turnpike (modern Route 20). The next three days, Ellwood, a quiet farm in a desolate region, suddenly found itself the center of national attention.
Union Fifth Corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren occupied the first-floor room to the left of the front door throughout the battle. Here, on the evening of May 5, he received reports of staggering casualties from his chief surgeon. "It will never do to make a showing of such heavy losses," he observed. The bloodshed was just beginning. By the time the Army of the Potomac reached the James River, six weeks later, it had incurred more than 60,000 casualties.
In 1903, the Rev James Power Smith erected the small granite marker that stands over the arm. Smith had been on Jackson's staff during the Civil War and later married Agnes Lacy, the daughter of Ellwood's owner.
In 1907, the first-floor floorboards were painted oaken to camouflage bloodstains. In 1910, the upstairs floorboards were painted black for the same reason.
In 1971, the National Park Service purchased the house and took possession of it six years later. By then, the house was near collapse. Efforts were made to stabilize the cellar wars and replace the termite-ridden interior framing. There had been a number of post-war structural changes made to the building which had to be removed -- the wood shingle siding was removed, a new roof was installed, and the heavy sandstone steps were reset.
They intend to make the building a major stop on the Wilderness Battlefield tour but it will be some time before the building can be opened to the public for that purpose.
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