Our fourth stop of the day was the Battle of Chancellorsville, also part of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Military Park.  Fought between April 30-May 6, 1863, it was the earliest (chronologically) of all of the American Civil War sites we had seen so far.

Chancellorsville has been referred to as General Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle” because even though Confederate troops were greatly outnumbered by Union forces (approximately 60,000 to 133,000), the battle was a Confederate victory due to Lee’s decision to split his army.  However, as I mentioned before, it was also were Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was shot by friendly fire.  His left arm was amputated and buried at Chancellorsville, while the rest of him was transported to the Chandler Plantation, where he eventually died.

I do highly recommend visitors to the Battle of Chancellorsville take the time to tour the exhibits in the Visitor Center because they’re actually pretty interesting – from a timeline of all of the battles in the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania Military Park (which really helped everything make sense in context) to pictures and stories of some of the soldiers.