Bivouac at Chancellorsville

Wednesday, May 4, 1864

The Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment marched through the night, reaching the Rapidan River at Ely's Ford at 8:00 A.M. By 11:00 A.M. the footsore Twentieth arrived at the Chancellorsville crossroads.

General Ulysses S. Grant's objective was to force General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia out of their entrenched position south of the Rapidan River and face an engagement on open ground by attacking and turning Lee's right flank.

In the evening the Twentieth Massachusetts bivouacked on the Chancellorsville Battlefield, the site of the previous year's battle one year and a day earlier. ¹

References:
¹Richard F. Miller, Harvard's Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 2005), 328-30.