Salem Church, Part II: With Maj. Gen. Jubal Early pushed off Marye’s Heights, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent reinforcements under Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws east towards Fredericksburg. Independently, Confederate Brig. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox moved his brigade to block the Orange Plank Road, intending to stall Sedgwick’s progress towards Chancellorsville. 

As Jubal Early created a new defensive line at the Cox House, he sent word to General Robert E. Lee about the loss of Marye’s Heights. Lee, with his army already dangerously divided against Hooker’s main force on May 3, divided his army again and sent the division of Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws to reinforce Early. With McLaws’ troops Lee also sent the brigade of Brig. Gen. William Mahone (of Anderson’s Division), eight artillery pieces from Manly’s North Carolina Battery and the Richmond Howitzers, and an artillery battalion from his Artillery Reserve. Lee was sending 9,000 reinforcements towards Fredericksburg.

Independently of Lee and Early, Brig. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox moved his Alabama brigade into a position on the Plank Road to oppose Sedgwick moving west. Wilcox had tried to convince Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays to keep his Louisiana troops there as well, but Hays had instead moved his regiments to join Early on the Telegraph Road. Wilcox positioned his brigade on the first ridgeline behind Marye’s Heights, about 500 yards in front of George Guest’s house on the Plank Road. The Confederates began to fire on Newton’s Federal troops atop Marye’s Heights, causing a period of confusion for the men celebrating their victory. The officers in Newton’s Division pulled their men into battle lines once more and sent out skirmishers to engage with Wilcox’s Alabamians.

By this point, Brig. Gen. John Gibbon’s division of II Corps soldiers had worked their way through the streets of Fredericksburg, up William Street, and onto Stansbury Ridge. With the pressure of Newton’s and Gibbon's skirmishers, Wilcox was forced to pull his brigade back further down the Plank Road. Sedgwick ordered Newton’s Division into a column and began advancing west on the Plank Road, but stopped when he reached the Guest house. Despite having the momentum to push forward towards Chancellorsville, he needed to wait for the other two divisions of his corps to come up. Brooks’ First Division reached Sedgwick at the Guest House around 2:00pm. Because Brooks’ men were the freshest after the fight at Fredericksburg, Sedgwick decided to put that division in the lead for the march towards Chancellorsville, followed by Newton’s men who were already waiting at the Guest house.

While Sedgwick gathered his corps on the Plank Road and tried to gain information about the roadways west, Howe’s Second Division was still to the south finishing the fight with Early’s defensive line. While Howe’s troops were happy with their victory, Sedgwick grew impatient with Howe’s absence. Once Howe pulled back from the engagement at the Leach House he allowed his men to return down the heights to the Bowling Green Road where they reclaimed their knapsacks and took a break to eat and drink before falling into marching order. The exhausted men now had to make their way up the Bowling Green Road to Fredericksburg and then out the Plank Road to rejoin Sedgwick.

Because Gibbon’s division was part of the II Corps, not Sedgwick’s VI Corps, he did not advance along the Plank Road. Instead Gibbon’s troops stayed at Marye’s Heights overseeing the collection of prisoners and captured supplies. Gibbon also stayed behind to secure the city and keep the pontoon bridge crossings protected. Orders from Hooker on the evening of May 3 confirmed that Gibbon remain in the city of Fredericksburg and as a result Gibbon abandoned Marye’s Heights and kept his force in the city proper.

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.