Gaining Marye’s Heights, Sedgwick’s VI Corps successfully split the Confederate line in two with Early’s main force to the south and the brigades of Hays and Wilcox to the north. Hays quickly withdrew his Louisiana regiments, despite Wilcox trying to convince him to make a stand on the Plank Road and took his men a roundabout route to rejoin the rest of his command retreating down the Telegraph Road behind Lee’s Hill.

Howe’s men continued to pursue the retreating Confederates behind Lee’s Hill, down the Telegraph Road. The 6th and 9th Louisiana, under Colonel William Monaghan, reformed their lines near the Leach house. His men were joined by Barksdale and the remnants of the 18th and 21st Mississippi, plus artillery pulled off Lee’s and Howison Hills. Eventually, Hays’ men coming from Stansbury Ridge joined this line and Hays was able to reunite his Louisiana brigade. Union artillery from the 3rd New York Independent Light Battery and the 1st Pennsylvania were brought forward to the Howison property to aid in Howe’s pursuit of the Confederate force. The skirmish at the Leach house held off Howe’s Federal troops while Early reacted to the breach at Marye’s Heights. Worried that the Federals would also try a push up Deep Run to widen the breach in the Confederate line, Early sent reinforcements forward towards the heights and had the brigade of Brig. Gen. John Gordon reposition to protect against a flank attack up Deep Run.

The fight at the Leach House held Howe’s Federal troops at bay and Early began to reposition his division into a new defensive position around the Cox house on the Telegraph Road. He pulled the brigades of Smith, Gordon, and Hoke off the heights near Prospect Hill back to the position at the Cox House and then ordered the exhausted men (and guns) at the Leach house to fall back to the new position. 

Furgurson, Ernest B. Chancellorsville, 1863: The Souls of the Brave. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.

Gallagher, Gary W. The Battle of Chancellorsville. National Park Civil War Series. Eastern National, 2007.

Parsons, Philip W. The Union Sixth Army Corps in the Chancellorsville Campaign: A Study of the Engagements of Second Fredericksburg, Salem Church and Banks’s Ford, May 3-4, 1863. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006.

Sutherland, Daniel E. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.