Erik Nelson

Chancellorsville is often referred to as Robert E. Lee’s greatest battle and Stonewall Jackson’s last. This focus, however, has obscured the scope of the broader campaign. While Confederates won a stunning victory around the Chancellorsville crossroads on May 3, 1863, a Union force in Fredericksburg also achieved a hard-earned victory that same day. To explain away that loss, Confederate soldier letters and accounts claimed Yankee treachery. Misleading military reports compounded the false narrative and remained unchallenged as the war relentlessly ground on to Gettysburg and beyond.

Years later, when the federal government established the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, land acquisition became concentrated on the battleground related to the well-known events around Chancellorsville. Most of the historic terrain in Fredericksburg remained outside the new park and much of it eventually became altered by development.

To provide an accurate narrative of the neglected Second Battle of Fredericksburg, the author carefully analyzed how the battlefield terrain had changed and then systematically matched historic source material to the land. This resulting study of Second Fredericksburg, Salem Church, and Banks’ Ford reconciles the misleading historic documentation and provides a fuller dimension to the overall campaign. In effect, this book becomes the missing second volume of the many histories of Chancellorsville.