The Chancellor House

I've been to Chancellorsville twice now. There is something about that place that just keeps calling me. There are four battlefields within just a few miles of each other (Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, Wilderness, and Chancellorsville) and every time I go down there, I only seem to be able to hit Wilderness and Chancellorsville. I know what my draw to the Wilderness area is: my great great grandfather was wounded here. I
would like to be able to find the area where he was wounded, but I have, as yet, been unable to locate the spot. I don't know what it is about Chancellorsville, though. It might have something to do with Stonewall Jackson. Every time I take the walk around the Visitors Center and see the monument to Stonewall Jackson or the stone that the veterans placed there to remember him, I get a chill. Funny thing, though, I'm not especially a huge fan of his. It's not that I don't like him, he just isn't one of my favorites. So I'm still not sure about the draw....but something is there.



One of the things that I really like to stop and take a good look at is the remains of the Chancellor House. All that really remains is the foundation but from walking around the foundation you get a good feel for the size of the house. It was huge. This wasn't just a small village house.

I've recently come across a biography of Isaac Sharp, a private in the 140th PA. His biography gives a little inside look at what part the Chancellor House played in the Battle of Chancellorsville. Here is what I found:

In March he had a severe attack of erysipelas [type of skin infection], which disabled him until May 1, when he shouldered his traps and joined in the march to Chancellorsville. Wearied and worn, they arrived on the field at 9 pm, on the evening of the third day of the month, and the next morning they took an advanced position facing toward Fredericksburg.

At this point a dispute arose between the leading generals. Hooker had given repeated orders to Couch to fall back, but the advantages of the position were so apparent that Hancock and Warren both advised Couch to stand his ground. Warren went to Hooker and explained the matter, which resulted in an order issued at 2pm for Couch to hold the position till 5:00. But Couch had begun his retreat, and said: "Tell General Hooker he is too late, the enemy is now on my right and rear, and I am in full retreat."

The regiment moved to a position to the left of the former place, and there the Unionists were on too high ground, and before an attack could be made had again moved. While making coffee at the Chancellor House, they were ordered out on double quick to repel an attack made where the Wilderness road turns down the hill. After this they were moved to the left brow of the hill, facing the river, and began throwing up trenches.

Meantime a terrible artillery engagement was being waged, of which the following is an accurate description given by Captain C. L. Linton, commanding: What wild eyes and blanched faces there were when the shells and solid shot came in from the right and rear of us! Orders coming to "about face, left in front," we advanced to the plank road in rear of the Chancellor House to support a battery.

The Fifth Maine had opened fire, to which the enemy replied so rapidly and accurately that almost all the horses and men were killed or wounded. Only two of the artillerists remained at their posts. While there the Chancellor House was seen to be on fire, a detail from Company F was made to remove the wounded therefrom. All this time the shot and shell were coming so thick and fast that it seemed one could not take his nose from the dirt lest he would have his head blown off. A call for volunteers was made to save the guns of the Fifth Maine battery. Upon looking back, whom should we see but our division and brigade commanders, General Winfield Scott Hancock and General Nelson A. Miles. A moment later came our corps commander, hat in hand, and hair streaming in the breeze. The call for volunteers was responded to by a rush from Company D, and a few from one or two other companies, through the concentrated fire of thirty guns, into a storm of shot and shell, in the face of Jackson's men infused with victory, and saved every gun.

Myself and Corporal I. Sharp in the rush, both grasped the limber of one of the guns at the same time and on either side. With superior effort we succeeded in raising it a few inches from the ground, when a solid shot or shell passed between us and under the limber. At that instant Sharp gave down, and i thought he was done for, but was rejoiced when Corporal Sayer and others lay hold to see him straighten up again. He had let down on account of the immense weight we were lifting. A corporal of the battery procured a rope, and we soon had the gun moving from the scene of action. The force attached was not sufficient to make fast time. Try as we did, we stuck once or twice when running against dead horse. Not having fully recovered from former sickness, over exertion brought on disease, and after remaining in the regiment a few weeks, Isaac Sharp was sent to the general hospitals at Columbia, D. C., Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
http://www.pacivilwar.com/bios/sharp_isaac.php

And here is an account from one of the family members who actually lived in the Chancellor House, Sue Chancellor:

"The house was full of the wounded. They had taken our sitting room as an operating room, and and our piano served as an amputating table....The surgeons brought my mother a bottle of whiskey and told her that she must take some and so must we all. We did....Upstairs they were bringing in the wounded, and we could hear their screams of pain." Sue Chancellor, a southern girl whose house provided the names for the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia. Early the next morning, the sixteen women and children who were hiding in the basement during the battle were brought upstairs. Sue saw the chairs riddled with bullets, the piles of amputated arms and legs, and the rows of dead bodies covered with canvas. The house suddenly caught fire -- probably a shell burst -- and the terrified women and children stumbled out of the building as the pillars collapsed. Her home was completely engulfed in flames, and Sue, her mother, and her five young sisters became homeless refugees.