Chancellorsville 145th Plans Include NPS Programs, Battle

Two May weekends of National Park Service special programs and a Loudoun County reenactment over Labor Day weekend will commemorate the Battle of Chancellorsville 145th anniversary.

Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park will sponsor battlefield tours and living history programs on May 2-4.

On May 9 and 10 the park will sponsor programs commemorating the death of Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson who was mortally wounded at Chancellorsville. For park information call (540) 371-0802.

The Shenandoah Valley Alliance will host the 145th reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville on Aug. 29-31. "The Beginning of the 1863 Campaign" will be held in Loudoun Heights.

The non-spectator event will be limited to 2,000 reenactors. For information contact Gen. Ed Kelly, USA, at genedkelley@comcast.net. Early registration is suggested at www.emmitsburg.net/chancellorsville_2008/index.htm

The park has scheduled the following:

May 2: Three hour-long evening tours from Chancellorsville Visitor Center recounting Jackson’s mortal wounding on that date.

May 3: Historian Frank O’Reilly will lead a tour “Opening Shots – Changing Tide of Battle”; historian Stacy Humphreys will lead the tour titled “You Can Go Forward, Then: Jackson’s Flank Attack”; Historian Janice Frye will conduct a tour “Infantry and Iron in the Wilderness:  Catharine Furnace to the Unfinished Railroad”; Greg Mertz will give  “Courage Beyond Measure: The Fight from Hazel Grove to Fairview,” discussing the horrific fighting on the last day of the battle.

Many of the driving tour stops will be staffed with historians offering explanations of the significance of the point of interest and answering questions. Historians will also be presenting 35-minute tours, “The Wounding of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” at 11:25, 1:25, 2:25 and 3:25 which meet at the visitor center.

May 4: Historian tours on the wounding of Jackson will be held from the visitor center, as on the previous day.
Special tours include Historian Mac Wyckoff leading a walking tour “Decoying the Yanks” covering one of the few points of the battlefield that witnessed fighting on all three days of the battle and historians Janice Frye and Don Pfanz with a tour titled “A Soldier’s Story:  The Fighting for Fairview.”

May 9: Historian Frank O’Reilly will give an 8 p.m. candlelight tour of Stonewall Jackson’s final evening at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine where Jackson died of his wounds.

May 10: The 145th anniversary of the moment of Jackson’s death will be memorialized at the Jackson Shrine at a 3:45 p.m. program, “Stonewall” Jackson’s Last Breath, with Historians Kris White and Chris Mackowski.