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High Drama, Human Tragedy
The climactic fighting of the Battle of Chancellorsville took place in the woods and fields around Fairview. Here on the morning of May 3, 1863, Union troops struggled to maintain their position long enough to allow General Hooker time to establish a new line a mile to the north.
The Confederates fought desperately to reunite the two wings of Lee's command and to finish what Jackson had begun the night before - the destruction of Hooker's army. The Confederates drove the Federals from Chancellorsville, but Hooker escaped, his army intact.
"...our line melted away as if swallowed up by the earth.... Every man went on his own hook, crawling over and under everything before us... The woods were afire, and ... there was a rush for the clearings and road, and then we stood huddled together under the pitiless rain of cannester and shell till the flames swept by...[The Yankees'] charred bodies dotted the ground and we could see by the ashes where they had scratched the leaves away in a vain attempt to save themselves from the more awful fate of burning alive."
-- Nicholas Weeks, 3rd Alabama Infantry |