Chancellorsville, A Documentary Film, is the most comprehensive film study of the Union Army's major attempt to win the war in the eastern theater in 1863. Filmed on the actual battlefield, and at the Claymont estate near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Chancellorsville brings to life Joseph Hooker's grand plan to sweep around the Confederate lines at Fredericksburg, come in behind Robert E. Lee's defenses and crush the rebels between two forces: Hooker's main force moving east, and John Sedgwick's wing holding the rebels in place along the Rappahannock River. It's been described as the best plan to defeat Lee that was conceived during the entire war. Hooker's designs came to grief; a tribute to the strategic and tactical prowess of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and their countermoves are studied and illustrated in gripping detail.
Chancellorsville contains the same high-impact campaign and combat action that Historical Films has come to be known for. Accuracy and authenticity are hallmarks of our work. So is the unusual way the historian-hosts are packaged around events which are explained from right where they happened. D. Scott Hartwig takes the Confederate side of the story, delivering his expert-analysis from in front of Brompton, from the forest trails where Jackson made his famous flank march, and from Salem Church. Former Chancellorsville Park historian Donald Pfanz delivers the complicated story of the Union Army of the Potomac from Chatham Manor, and Marye's Heights, while both of our hosts are found at Hazel Grove, the Sunken Lane in Fredericksburg and the Chancellor House ruins.
Chancellorsville has been recently remastered in high definition, with animated maps, and digitally reconstructed sets such as the Chancellor house (including scenes with the house bombarded and ablaze) and the pontoon bridges over the Rapidan River in the midst of a rainstorm and major flooding. This HD edition also contains audio enhanced stereo sound and trailers for other programs in the Historical Films series. The running time is 90 minutes.
