rapidfire
Civil War scenes include (clockwise from top) Chancellor House; Generals
Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson planning; the Union Army’s
Fairview cannon; and Fairfield Plantation, where Jackson died.
Visiting a Novel in ... Chancellorsville, Va.
S
tephen Crane was only 23 years old when pict not only the history but also the emotional reality
his book “The Red Badge of Courage” (Prest- of war. The main character, Henry, tells of fear, horror,
wick House Inc., 2004) fi rst was published in and “the red animal, war, the blood-swollen god.”
1895. He’d grown up talking with Civil War veterans in The book’s unnamed clash has been identifi ed as
his hometown, and his book was one of the fi rst to de- the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia — perhaps
the biggest mismatch of the Civil War, where 60,000
Confederates defeated a Union force more than
twice that size.
Today that battlefi eld is part of Virginia’s Freder-
icksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Ray
Castner, a volunteer docent at the visitor center, says
“Stonewall” Jackson’s men accidentally wounded him
here. Jackson’s amputated arm was buried separately,
and he died 10 days later, a blow to the Confederacy.
Exhibits include maps, militaria, and an engaging
display of photo portraits of soldiers and women from
both the North and South. There are walking and
driving routes through the battlefi eld and a sense of
history sharpened by memories of the “pitiless mo-
notony” and “the furnace roar of battle” depicted in
Crane’s novel.
For more information, visit
www.nps.gov/frsp.
— Col. Glenn Pribus, USAF-Ret.,
and Marilyn Pribus
2 4 M I L I T A R Y O F F I C E R M AY 2 0 0 9 IMAGES: BACKGROUND, SHUTTERSTOCK; ALL OTHERS, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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