Wednesday, April 15, 2020

American Civil War Battlefields
Ellwood Manor House
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, VA

Ellwood on Wilderness Battlefield, part of Fredericksburg & 
Spotsylvania National Military Park

If Ellwood Manor, the home of the Jones/Lacy family, were simply a late 18th Century structure in Orange (formerly Spotsylvania) County, VA, it would deserve attention. Add to that  its use as a field hospital after the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, as a staging site for Union troops during the Battle of the Wilderness, and the headquarters of Army Corps Commanders Generals Gouverneur Warren and Ambrose Burnside, and it becomes even more deserving. 

But I suspect it's lasting fame is that its cemetery contains the burial location of Stonewall Jacksons amputated left arm.  From NPS.gov:
"On May 2, 1863, Jackson was wounded by the mistaken fire of his own troops at Chancellorsville. Surgeons removed the injured limb at nearby Wilderness tavern. The following day, Jackson's chaplain Beverley Tucker Lacy, carried the amputated arm across the fields and buried it in his brother's graveyard. It remains here to this day, the only marked grave in the cemetery."

During and after these battles, Ellwood did not fare well and stood empty until 1872, when the Lacys returned from their primary  home, Chatham Manor. The cemetery and grounds were used for soldiers' burials, both CSA and USA. Those remains were transferred after the war. 
Ellwood was sold in 1907,  donated  to the National Park Service in 1971 and then officially acquired by the NPS in 1977. 





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