The Hardtack Regiment at Chancellorsville

Near this ground on the evening of May second, eighteen sixty-three, the One Hundred and Fifty-Fourth New York Volunteer Infantry made a desperate stand that earned them a place in Civil War legend. Known as the Hardtack Regiment, they were part of the Eleventh Corps of the Army of the Potomac. When Stonewall Jackson launched his famous flank attack at Chancellorsville, rolling up the Union right in the fading afternoon light, the One Hundred and Fifty-Fourth anchored the defensive line near Dowdall's Tavern, buying precious time while the Union position collapsed around them.

The regiment suffered enormous casualties. Their monument stands here along what became known as the Buschbeck Line, the last coherent Union defensive position before Jackson's corps broke through. Chancellorsville became one of Robert E.

Lee's greatest tactical victories, though it cost him the irreplaceable Stonewall Jackson, shot by his own men in the confused darkness after the assault.