Confederate 2nd Corps Hospital at Wilderness Tavern - U.S. Civil War - Orange County VA
N 38° 19.476 W 077° 43.370
18S E 261979 N 4245339
Wilderness Tavern was the site of a Confederate hospital during the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia where thousands of casualties were treated, including Gen. Stonewall Jackson who had his arm amputated.
Waymark Code: WMBPY4
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 06/11/2011
Views: 7
In the early 19th century, Wilderness Tavern was a complex that included a store, house and several outbuildings. It was located along the Orange Turnpike several miles west of the
Chancellorsville battlefield
so it proved to be an ideal location to set up a field hospital during the Civil War with battle lines being drawn nearby. After Gen. Stonewall Jackson's
flank attack against the Union on May 2, 1863, the Confederate 2nd Corps hospital at Wilderness Tavern received and treated thousands of casualties.
The hospital's most famous patient was Stonewall Jackson himself. That night, Gen. Jackson was shot in the arm by friendly fire and was transported to the 2nd Corps hospital where his arm was amputated. Beverly Tucker Lacy, Jackson's chaplain, had a brother who lived nearby and he took Jackson's arm and buried it in the family cemetery.
Most of the Tavern's buildings were destroyed the next year during the battle of the Wilderness. The last-standing building burned down in 1978. (See an old photo in Photos Then and Now.)
The old field hospital site is located just east of Constitution Hwy. (Rt. 20) on Germanna Hwy. (Rt. 3) in Locust Grove. There is a pull-off at a chimney stack which is all that remains of Wilderness Tavern today. There are two historic markers and a dirt road which was the original Orange Turnpike before it was realigned into the present day Rt. 3.
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