BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Chancellorsville Natl Battlefield -- Lacy House (Ellwood)

VA -- Chancellorsville Natl Battlefield -- Lacy House (Ellwood):

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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:
1. LACY_140607_029.JPG: Ellwood Prosperity, War, Transformation For most of its two centuries, Ellwood abided the cadence of the fields: sow, tend, and harvest. Slaves, and later hired hands, worked the crops. Owners supervised, socialized, and, especially after the Civil War, pitched in themselves. And so it continued, year after year, decade after decade. Today Ellwood is defined not by those endless rhythms, but by the events that shattered those rhythms. Much of the Battle of the Wilderness took place on J. Horace Lacy's Ellwood lands -- nearly 5,000 acres, most of them wooded. The combination of dense woods and fierce combat made for a human experience whose horrors were seared into the American consciousness.
2. LACY_140607_047.JPG: Into the Wilderness The Wilderness was a formidable obstacle for settlers and armies alike. Over time it became a rough mixture of second-growth forest, farms, mines, and small industrial sites. When 22-year-old William Jones arrived here in the early 1770s, this was still a wilderness. The frontier had passed only decades before. The farms that had been carved out of the vast forests to grow tobacco had exhausted the soil and mostly grown over. By 1772, the area was already known as "the Wilderness." Jones, with the help of his brother and probably some slaves, started clearing what would become Ellwood. Every tree cut by hand. Every stump pulled with ropes, chains, and animals. Though he would come to own more than 5,000 acres, only 400 of those would be cleared and put into production.
3. LACY_140607_050.JPG: A Wilderness Farm Ellwood was both a farm and place of hospitality. William Jones's status as a planter also involved obligations as a host, and Ellwood, like most plantations, received a steady flow of visitors -- some of them famous. William Jones built the current house, Ellwood, by the 1790s, and over the next fifty years became one of the wealthiest men in Spotsylvania County. He sold corn, oats, and timber. He also received rent from nearby Wilderness Tavern. Visitors came: "Light Horse" Harry Lee (Robert E. Lee's father) and probably presidents Madison and Monroe. In 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette -- hero of the Revolution -- dined here during his triumphant tour of America. Despite his wealth and acquaintances, Jones never became prominent in Virginia's politics. Instead, he lived the life of a gentleman farmer, overseeing his plantation and the work of dozens of slaves. After Virginia's frantic tobacco boom of the 1700s exhausted huge swaths of land, farmers like William Jones switched to staple crops -- wheat, corn, and small grains. Before the 1830s, virtually all field work had to be done by hand. A farm the size of Ellwood required dozens of slaves to keep it profitable.
4. LACY_140607_063.JPG: Many Hands, Many Skills Slaves did far more than work the fields. A plantation like Ellwood was dependent on their varied skills. The slave community at Ellwood included men and women with many skills. Some, of course, simply worked the fields. But the workforce here also included carpenters, blacksmiths, cooks, and groomsmen. On the inventory of William Jones' estate, compiled after his death, they are all starkly lumped together -- nickname, value, and occasional notes on their disabilities.
5. LACY_140607_070.JPG: House Features: Nailers: The two rows of wooden blocks above the mantelpiece, called nailers, enabled builders to nail paneling into Ellwood's brick walls.
6. LACY_140607_088.JPG: Sustained By Slaves For its first seven decades, Ellwood's prosperity depended largely on the labor of slaves. The population of slaves at Ellwood fluctuated from 40 to up to as many as 100. Never were the white residents of the "big house" and their hired overseers more than a fraction of Ellwood's total population. Most slaves at Ellwood were hands who toiled relentlessly in fields and woodlands -- both integral parts of an antebellum plantation. The slaves here grew mostly corn and wheat. In 1860, they also managed 18 milk cows, a herd of 50 sheep and about 100 pigs -- all on about 5,000 acres of land. At Ellwood, the owner, his overseer, law and custom combined to control slaves' lives. Slaves had no legal names, did not have recognized marriages, were barred from education, could not travel without permission, and (in the 1800s) were prohibited from gathering off the plantation without a white man present. In response, slaves formed strong communities within their insulated world. On plantations the size of Ellwood, their quarters were probably scattered across the estate. We know not where they buried their dead. Little evidence of their presence remains.
7. LACY_140607_091.JPG: This image shows newly freed slaves at Cumberland Landing, Virginia, in 1862. Slaves coped with (and sometimes combated) oppression by forging strong communities of their own, built around family units the law did not recognize.
8. LACY_140607_100.JPG: The "Lion of the Wilderness" J. Horace Lacy and his wife Betty Jones owned Ellwood for six decades. They witnessed its transformation from a plantation run largely by slaves to a typical agricultural operation that brought little wealth. "Major Lacy is yet a vigorous man, erect in carriage, and retaining his old-time courteous, but dignified hearing. He now lives at the Wilderness... He is brilliant conversationalist." -- Joseph O. Kerbey, Union Veteran, 1889 When J. Horace Lacy married Betty Churchill Jones at Ellwood on October 19, 1848, he married well. Though trained as an attorney, Lacy had also been a tutor. His marriage to Berry gave him control of Ellwood, its lands, and all its slaves. Lacy quickly became known for his speaking skills. A slaveowner, he became an ardent advocate for secession. Some called him the "Lion of the Wilderness." J. Horace Lacy and Betty owned Ellwood until they did in the early 1900s. The Civil War dealt a cruel blow to the [sic] their fortunes: the value of the Lacys' personal property dropped from $180,000 in 1860 to just $2,000 in 1870 -- most of that due to the loss of slaves. After the war, Lacy raised money for Confederate memorials and ran for office in 1872 as "the White Man's Candidate." He won, but served only one term in the state legislature.
9. LACY_140607_111.JPG: This fork, marked "JHL," belonged to Lacy and was surely used at Ellwood
10. LACY_140607_114.JPG: Betty Churchill Jones Betty Churchill Jones married J. Horace Lacy when she was 18. They were married for 58 years and lived at Ellwood until 1896.
11. LACY_140607_123.JPG: Until 1872, the Lacys also owned "Chatham," a more palatial home on the banks of the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg. Lacy moved back and forth between his plantations, often choosing to reside at Ellwood in the summer months.
12. LACY_140607_133.JPG: Years of Trial Three times war directly touched Ellwood. The experience would both define and transform the place. As one of the most prominent secessionist families in the region, the Lacys dared not test the politeness of Union invaders. When the Union army first arrived here in 1862. Betty Jones Lacy took what she could from Ellwood and Chatham and eventually found refuge in southwest Virginia. Confederate Major H. Horace Lacy was captured by Union troops near Ellwood in the spring of 1862. He was soon exchanged and served out the war in various staff positions. After the Lacys' departure in 1862, a family named Jones and a few slaves occupied Ellwood. Still, the house saw hard times. In 1863, Confederates used it as a hospital after Chancellorsville: in November 1863, Union troops looted the library; and in May 1864, the house served as a Union headquarters during the Battle of the Wilderness. By war's end, the place was a wreck. The Lacy's returned to Ellwood in 1872 and remained until the 1890s.
13. LACY_140607_139.JPG: On May 3, 1863, Horace Lacy's brother, Beverley Tucker Lacy (Stonewall Jackson's chaplain), buried Jackson's amputated arm in the family cemetery at Ellwood. Today, the only stone in the cemetery is the one marking Jackson's arm.
14. LACY_140607_149.JPG: As one of the most prominent secessionist families in the region, the Lacys dared not test the politeness of Union invaders. When the Union army first arrived here in 1862. Betty Jones Lacy took what she could from Ellwood and Chatham and eventually found refuge in southwest Virginia. Confederate Major H. Horace Lacy was captured by Union troops near Ellwood in the spring of 1862. He was soon exchanged and served out the war in various staff positions.
15. LACY_140607_153.JPG: House Features: Wainscoting: The wainscoting on the lower half of this wall, cut from a single board, gives some idea of the large trees that once grew in this area.
16. LACY_140607_158.JPG: The Rhythms Return The Civil War forever altered Ellwood and the lives of its owners and slaves. After the Civil War, J. Horace Lacy -- drastically reduced in wealth and stripped of his slaves -- gave up his home at Chatham and settled year-round at Ellwood. The familiar rhythms returned, now sustained by paid labor. The earthworks that scarred the woods around the farm served as constant reminders of the war's fury (they still do). The Lacys remained at Ellwood until old age prompted them to move to a small house in Fredericksburg. In 1907, Ellwood passed to new owners, and for the next 71 years it would be the property of the Willis-Jones family. In 1977, they conveyed Ellwood to the National Park Service. Because the slaves who worked at Ellwood had no legal names, it is difficult to track their transition into a life of freedom. Some surely stayed in the area -- a few perhaps at Ellwood -- to work as sharecroppers or tenant farmers. We know with certainty the fate of only one. Charles Sprow (or Sprout), a slave of J. Horace Lacy, escaped during the war and joined the Union army, serving in the cavalry. He lived in Fredericksburg until his death in 1926 and is today buried in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery -- one of only twenty African-Americans so honored.
17. LACY_140607_171.JPG: From Farm to National Park: Only two families owned Ellwood during its history -- the Jones/Lacy family, until 1907, and the Willis/Jones family until 1971. The final private owners of Ellwood acquired the house and land directly from the Lacys in 1907. Hugh Evander Willis, his sister Blanche Jones, and her son Gordon Jones used Ellwood as both retreat and working farm for the next 64 years. In 1971, the Joneses sold Ellwood and 97 acres to the National Park Service and donated an additional 87 acres. Ellwood underwent major stabilization by the National Park Service in the 1980s -- indeed a steel infrastructure in the basement now undergirds the house. In 1998, the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, with the support of the National Park Service, opened the unrestored building to the public. In 2009, the main floor of the building was largely restored.
18. LACY_140607_177.JPG: In Special Recognition of the Ellwood Restoration Project donors who have contributed $5,000 and above.
19. LACY_140607_186.JPG: A Decisive Moment An impending presidential election, a divided Union war effort, a new Union commander, and Confederate setbacks beyond Virginia combined to render the first major battle of 1864 a pivotal moment. What happened in the Wilderness would set the tone for 11 months of campaigning that would decide the outcome of the Civil War in the Eastern Theater. An Election in the Balance: In a nation weary of war, Republican President Abraham Lincoln faces an uncertain battle for re-election in 1864. He knew, and Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant knew, that victory of defeat on battlefields across the South would determine the outcome of the election. If Lincoln lost, the Democrats promised peace. For the Confederacy, that meant victory -- and perhaps independence. Lee: The Great Hope: With Confederate armies reeling all across the South, the Confederacy's soldiers and civilians looked to Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia to forge victory from gloom. "Of 'Uncle Bob's' plans, of course, we know nothing, but such as our faith in the integrity and ability of this old hero, that we feel perfectly confident... notwithstanding the mighty Grant confronts him, with all his Western Laurels green upon his radiant home." -- Private JR Montgomery, 11th Mississippi Infantry, April 22, 1864 Grant Comes to Virginia: Ulysses S. Grant had won a succession of victories in the west -- victories that threatened the survival of the Confederacy. But Grant knew that when the nation and the world judged how the war was progressing, they looked to Virginia. In March 1864, the new General-in-Chief decided to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac -- the Union's largest and most prominent army, but one that had won few victories against Robert E. Lee.
20. LACY_140607_191.JPG: An Election in the Balance: In a nation weary of war, Republican President Abraham Lincoln faces an uncertain battle for re-election in 1864. He knew, and Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant knew, that victory of defeat on battlefields across the South would determine the outcome of the election. If Lincoln lost, the Democrats promised peace. For the Confederacy, that meant victory -- and perhaps independence.
21. LACY_140607_194.JPG: Clash of Titans Both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant had sterling records of success gained hundreds of miles apart. The Battle of the Wilderness marked the first confrontation between the two. A nation, the world, awaited the result. Lee: brutally successful against great odds. A gambler, but a calculated one. Wildly popular with the people of the Confederacy, much beloved by his soldiers, and respected -- sometimes feared -- by his Union enemies. For much of the war, he had held the initiative in Virginia. Grant: more famous than popular, still largely unknown to the Army of the Potomac. A man of relentless determination, always mindful of the huge advantages the Union held in men and material. Though Grant commanded all Union armies, in the coming campaign he would give his personal attention to the Army of the Potomac. Different Roles: Lee directed only his Army of Northern Virginia, which had yielded little ground to the Union in three years of war. From his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, Grant managed a spring offensive involving five armies spanning more than 1,200 miles. An Uneasy Relationship: When Grant arrived in Virginia, the men of the Army of the Potomac knew of him only what they had read in the newspapers. They received him cautiously. "The feeling about Grant is peculiar -- a little jealousy, a little dislike, a little envy,... All, however, are willing to give him a full chance and his own time for it. If he succeeds, the war is over." -- Capt. Charles Francis Adams, 1st Massachusetts Cavalry
22. LACY_140607_204.JPG: A New Kind of Horror: With the first crashes of musketry in the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, the war changed. Grant Takes Control: When word came that Lee was challenging the Union army's movement through the Wilderness. Grant immediately urged Meade to attack. Meade responded, but his army, not accustomed to quick offenses, moved into position slowly. The result: a bloody repulse in Saunders Field. From that moment forward, Grant would wield ever greater influence over the Army of the Potomac. Shock, Surprise: The Union army's tortuous advance westward on the Orange Turnpike revealed the especial horrors of fighting in a place like the Wilderness. In some places, soldiers could see only a few dozen feet through the undergrowth. Enemy lines popped up unexpectedly, then disappeared as quickly. Smoke choked the forest. The fighting gravitated toward the few open spaces, like Saunders Field and Widow Tapp's farm. The battle took on a cycle of surprise, incredible violence, and then relentless killing. Digging In: Three years of combat carried hard lessons: be vigilant (especially against Robert E. Lee), watch your flanks, and dig. By 1864, whenever soldiers stopped marching or fighting, they started digging. At the Wilderness, miles of earthworks went up in matter of hours. Some were carefully built, strong and geometric -- combinations of logs and dirt. Others were hastily thrown up to protect sleeping men for just a few hours. They remain a vivid part of the battlefield landscape here. "The uproar was deafening... Now our line would move forward a few yards, now fall back. I stood behind a large oak tree, and peeped around its trunk. I heart bullets 'spat' into this tree, and I suddenly realized that I was in danger." -- Private Frank Wilkeson, 11th New York Light Artillery
23. LACY_140607_207.JPG: Fire became the signature horror of the Wilderness. Veterans never forgot the agony of watching wounded comrades die in the burning undergrowth. A Union surgeon estimated that more than 200 wounded men died in the fires.
24. LACY_140607_213.JPG: Grant and army commander George Gordon Meade visited Ellwood on the afternoon of May 5, 1864, shortly after the Union repulse in Saunders Field. illustration by Mark Churms
25. LACY_140607_217.JPG: The Forgotten Commander: Grant never commanded the Army of the Potomac. That job fell to Pennsylvanian George Gordon Meade, a long-time veteran of the army who had taken command in June 1863, just before the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade thought highly of Grant. "You may rest assured he is not an ordinary man," Meade told his wife. But he resented Grant's presence -- recognizing that Grant would get credit for success, while he would suffer blame for failure. Still, Meade served steadily and faithfully under Grant for 11 months with the General-in-Chief nearby all the while.
26. LACY_140607_231.JPG: "Our men were falling all round. The man on my left (Bruce McKinney) was shot through the left breast. He called for help; I got him behind a large tree from the Yankees. He talked as calm as if there was nothing going on; he says, 'Tell Captain Cleghorn to tell Mother I died at my post, died doing my duty.' I says, 'you are not dead.' 'Yes,' he says, 'I am a dead man' ... and he was dead." -- Private John W. Hamil, 9th Georgia Infantry
27. LACY_140607_234.JPG: Horror in the Forest: In the woods on the south end of the battlefield -- along the Orange Plank Road -- the horror of the Wilderness would find its full expression. For much of May 5 and 6, the fighting on the north end of the field -- along the Orange Turnpike -- raged in and around Saunders Field, a rare open place in the Wilderness. On the south end of the field, along the Plank Road, the Wilderness offered no such relief. For two days fighting raged in an unyielding forest. Fires threatened battling men, consumed the wounded, and sometimes forced battle lines to give way. If one place embodied all the horrors of the Wilderness, it was the woods astride the Orange Plank Road. Lee to the Rear: On the morning of May 6, 1864, as his army stood on the verge of defeat, Robert E. Lee rode amongst a brigade of Texas troops, urging them forward. The Texans refused to move so long as Lee was with them. "Lee to the rear!" they shouted. Lee did go to the rear, and the Texans plunged into the forest and helped drive the Union lines back. Lee's personal involvement in the battle reflected the growing desperation he and the Confederacy likely felt -- his own army diminished, faced with a formidable foe. More and more, the success of the Confederacy hinged on the success of Robert E. Lee and his army, and Lee knew it. "The wounded soldiers lay scattered among the trees. They moaned piteously ... [They] were haunted with the dread of fire... I saw one man, both of whose legs were broken, lying on the ground with his cocked rifle by his side and his ramrod in his hand, and his eyes set on the front. I knew he meant to kill himself in case of fire -- knew it as surely as though I could read his thoughts." -- Private Frank Wilkeson, 11th New York Light Artillery
28. LACY_140607_244.JPG: "... I have never seen such destruction. The timber (and the fighting was mostly done in thick woods) was torn all to pieces. Numbers of saplings as large as my thigh were shot down by minnie balls. It looks like it would be impossible for anyone to live in such a place." -- Private John Shannon, 15th Georgia Infantry
29. LACY_140607_254.JPG: The capture of Shelton's guns, Saunders Field, May 5, 1864. The capture of these two Union guns marked the final collapse of the Union attack across Saunders Field. illustrated by Mark Churms
30. LACY_140607_256.JPG: The site of the action depicted in this painting is directly across the Orange Turnpike (Route 20) from the Wilderness Exhibit Shelter.
31. LACY_140607_263.JPG: Accept Not The Verdict of Battle: In the Wilderness, Ulysses S. Grant ignored the verdict of battle -- stalemate -- and continued southward. The decision transformed the experience of soldiers and charted an inexorable path for the next eleven months of war in Virginia. Faced with stalemate, Grant responded as no Union general in Virginia had before; he kept going. On the night of May 7, as the woods still burned, Grant turned the Army of the Potomac south -- toward Spotsylvania Court House, toward victory. If he could not defeat Lee outright, he would pressure him relentlessly. For the men, Grant's decision would mean continuous fighting for the next six weeks. Though the soldiers would suffer most from the decision, they cheered it -- literally. Yankee huzzahs resounded through the burning forests. The course was set. There would be no turning back. Changed War: "Nothing in history equals this contest. Desperate, long, and deadly, it still goes on. From morn till night, nor ends the carnage there -- all night it goes on too. I cannot tell you any of the particulars. You could not understand it. I do not understand it myself... All nature seems changed. Humanity seems changed.... The usual course of feeling seems turned back or suspended. Where is the place of safety?" -- William Taylor, 110th Pennsylvania Infantry
32. LACY_140607_274.JPG: Permelia Higgerson: This pot belonged to Permelia Higgerson, who lived with her family on a small farm south of the Orange Turnpike. When Union troops advanced through her yard, she angrily emerged from her house to curse them, calling them "cowardly Yankees" and correctly predicting their repulse. A Union soldier remembered that during the subsequent Union retreat across the farm, Mrs. Higgerson "greeted us as we passed with taunts and derision." Soon after the war, Mrs. Higgerson moved with her family to Missouri, taking this pot and other meager possessions.
33. LACY_140607_289.JPG: Aftermath: Two days of fighting left behind a breathtaking panorama of destruction. Acres of trees riddled. Unburied dead amidst the woods. The forest floor charred by fires. The scars would remain for years. The quickening pace of war in 1864 meant the armies spent little time attending to the human wreckage they left behind. In the Wilderness, hundreds of bodies remained unburied. Bullets left the forest ripped and shattered. In 1865, Union burial parties interred the dead they could find, including Confederates. In the years that followed, most of the Union dead were fathered up and reinterred in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery. The reburial of Confederate dead was less systematic, but many were reinterred in Fredericksburg. Undoubtedly, many from both sides still remain on the field. "Just a little to the rear of where our line was formed, where the bullets swept close to the ground, every bush and twig was cut and splintered by the leaden balls. The woods was a dense thicket of small trees about the size of hop poles, and ... along the whole length of the line I doubt if a single tree could have been found that had not been pierced several times with bullets, and all were hit about breast high. Had the rebels fired a little lower, they would have annihilated the whole line; they nearly did it as it was." -- Private Wilbur Fisk, 2nd Vermont Infantry
34. LACY_140607_300.JPG: The battle left huge swaths of forest scarred by bullets, artillery shells, and fire. The evidence of battle was still visible decades after the war. "Just a little to the rear of where our line was formed, where the bullets swept close to the ground, every bush and twig was cut and splintered by the leaden balls. The woods was a dense thicket of small trees about the size of hop poles, and ... along the whole length of the line I doubt if a single tree could have been found that had not been pierced several times with bullets, and all were hit about breast high. Had the rebels fired a little lower, they would have annihilated the whole line; they nearly did it as it was." -- Private Wilbur Fisk, 2nd Vermont Infantry
35. LACY_140607_303.JPG: This cemetery was created in 1865, but by 1867 all the graves had been relocated to the national cemetery in Fredericksburg. Today, only the rows of depressions remain.
36. LACY_140607_312.JPG: The Wilderness Voracious cultivation of tobacco and incessant logging combined to create a forbidding landscape in the Wilderness -- a 70-square-mile area of tangled forest and narrow roads. Though thick woods rendered artillery less effective at the Wilderness than on other battlefields, this log vividly demonstrates that artillery was still used here. So-called "battle logs" were considered prime artifacts in the decades after the Civil War. This is the most dramatic example from the Wilderness.
37. LACY_140607_315.JPG: "From many of the larger trees rank vines hang down, cable-like, nearly touching the ground, suggestive of a halter." -- Private GN Galloway, 95th Pennsylvania Infantry For more than a century before the Civil War, local residents referred to the "poison fields" in this region -- lands exhausted by the intensive cultivation of tobacco here in the 1720s. Later, as trees reclaimed the land, vast tracts of timber were cut to fuel iron furnaces, build plank roads, or open fields for agriculture. The result: a 70-square-mile region of second-growth forest, some of it tangled and emerging, some of it mature. Narrow roads cut through the cheerless thickets, connecting clearing worked by a few hardscrabble farmers. It was, said one man, "a dense, gloomy, and monotonous woods." The Wilderness was many things -- depending on when a particular tract had been timbered. The area along the Orange Plank and Germanna Plank roads had been cut less than 20 years before the Civil War, and so was likely the most tangled. Other areas hadn't been timbered for decades and probably looked much like the Wilderness of today.
38. LACY_140607_323.JPG: The Wilderness was many things -- depending on when a particular tract had been timbered. The area along the Orange Plank and Germanna Plank roads had been cut less than 20 years before the Civil War, and so was likely the most tangled. Other areas hadn't been timbered for decades and probably looked much like the Wilderness of today. Small farms, like Widow Tapp's on the south end of the battlefield, characterized the Wilderness. Mrs. Tapp leased her land from J. Horace Lacy, owner of Ellwood.
39. LACY_140607_326.JPG: Satirists across the nation portrayed the election of 1864 as a decisive turning point in the war.
40. LACY_140607_330.JPG: Grant, left, during the Virginia campaign
41. LACY_140607_333.JPG: Lee on his famous horse, Traveler, late in the war
42. LACY_140607_341.JPG: House Features: Wallpaper: Though analysis of Ellwood's original walls did not reveal evidence of any wallpaper, wallpaper was common in mid-19th century homes of similar size and stature. The patterns displayed today are reproductions of those common to the period.
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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