Chancellorsville's Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, May 3, 1863

The first book-length study of two overlooked Civil War engagements: Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, fought on May 3, 1863, during the Chancellorsville campaign. By spring 1863, the stone wall at Marye's Heights above Fredericksburg, Virginia, represented a traumatic memory for the Army of the Potomac, which had suffered a major defeat there in December. When Union troops assaulted the position again, they achieved a different outcome—capturing the wall and high ground, then driving west into Confederate territory. The advance stalled in heavy fighting at Salem Church. Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White examine how these two engagements played central roles in the final Southern victory and how close each side came to dramatically different outcomes. Using newspaper, archival, and firsthand sources, they trace the decision-making, movements, and combat that produced the bloody stalemate at Salem Church, where Union soldiers confronted an imposing stone fortification while an undersized Confederate division resisted a larger Union force. The book addresses engagements that typically receive only footnote treatment in accounts of Stonewall Jackson's march and wounding.