Existing comment:
First Day at Chancellorsville
Not Just Armies
"On the first day of the Chancellorsville fight...[our] farm was between our and the enemy's lines of battle."
-- James H. Leitch, farmer.
The Battle of Chancellorsville started here - amid the homes of families living along the Orange Turnpike. On the morning of May 1, Ann Lewis, whose house stood on the rise in front of you, found Union cavalrymen lounging in her yard. After she saw masses of Confederate troops approaching from the east, Lewis called a Union trooper into her house to "look at the rebels"; she wisely retreated to her cellar just as the shooting started. Union soldiers took cover behind the house, and a spirited firefight ensued.
With so many battles fought nearby, the civilians of Spotsylvania County bore a disproportionate burden of devastation and destruction. James H. Leitch, whose home lay in the middle of the battlefield, recalled: "The enemy tore down some of the fencing... They took our corn from the crib... [and] ten bushels of ground wheat. ... I saw our troops using the fencing from the side opposite the Yankees as fuel." |