Later in the day on May 3rd, after the Union men surged over the stone wall along the sunken road behind Fredericksburg and then took Marye's Heights, General Sedgwick began to move his troops toward the North's main army. Sedgwick marched west, away from Fredericksburg, towards the Chancellor House and the main Union lines. Along this route however, he was intercepted by a comparatively small group of Southerners, determined to keep the Union reinforcements from altering the course of the battle. Confederates in and around the Salem Church fought their Federal foes to a standstill. On the morning of Monday May 4th 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee again showed his audacity. Leaving part of his already divided army to hold Union commanding General Hooker at bay, he moved a force of soldiers down towards his men by the church. With the Federals abandoning Marye's Heights to move on the Southerners confronting General Hooker, CSA General Jubal Early re-took the Heights above Fredericksburg. It was now General Sedgwick who found himself pinched between Southern forces. After a hard fought battle, the Northerners were forced to cross the Rappahannock and retreat from the area. Incredibly, outnumbered more than two to one and originally out maneuvered, the Army of Northern Virginia responded with initiative and energy to emerge victorious from this initially lopsided battle.

In May of the following year, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant would begin his campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army in this same Wilderness, eventually forcing Lee's heavily outnumbered forces into a siege around Petersburg, Virginia. Years later, in the spirit of reconciliation that permeated those remembering the war, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected this marker to honor the men of both Armies. This marker rests only yards away from where the Salem Church still stands.