Ordered to hold the Confederates on Marye's Heights in place, reliable Major General John Sedgwick kept his Corps facing the Southerners in Fredericksburg as the rest of the Army of the Potomac circled north to catch the Confederates between the two sections of the Union's enormous Army. As Stonewall Jackson engineered his wildly successful flank attack, General Sedgwick remained vigilant, holding CSA General Jubal Early's line in position stretching from the distant heights to Prospect Hill to the south. Both sides must have had visions of the previous December and the terrible slaughter as wave after wave of men in blue battered themselves against the men and stone at the base of the heights. This time however, the numbers told the story. As Brigadier General Barksdale stated, "After a determined and bloody resistance by Colonel Griffin and the Washington Artillery, the enemy, fully twenty to one, succeeded in gaining possession of Marye's Hill; at all other points he was triumphantly repulsed... It will thus be seen that Marye's Hill was defended by but one small regiment, three companies, and four pieces of artillery. A more heroic struggle was never made by a more handful of men against overwhelming odds. According to the enemy's own accounts, many of this noble little band resisted to the death with clubbed guns even after his vast hordes had swept over and around the walls." [5]

The next morning, Major General Sedgwick would try to continue his move towards Chancellorsville. Despite the tremendous successes the Confederates had achieved, they were still at risk of being squeezed between Sedgwick's Corps and the rest of the Army of the Potomac. He would first need to get past the butternuts holding the ridge near Salem Church.