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The Road to Chancellorsville…

It’s early May 1863, Fighting Joe Hooker steals a march on Robert E. Lee.  Selected by President Lincoln to head up the Union armies after the disaster at Fredericksburg in December, General Hooker formed a bold plan; a secreted grand movement of the Union army around the flank of the enemy.  This would leave the Confederates with two choices, Fighting Joe told the President; to flee or be destroyed.

Re-enactors storm the “stone wall” during a reenactment in Fredericksburg, VA. 2012

Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania County Virginia was just a simple cross roads in 1863 named for a tavern there, the Chancellor’s, along the Orange Turnpike ten miles west of Fredericksburg.  The Chancellor’s Tavern lay just outside an area famously called, the wilderness.  This dense, second growth forest was Hooker’s last obstacle on May 1st 1863 as the Union army moved east and sought to out flank and crush the Confederates at Fredericksburg…

Virginia’s Spotsylvania County was witness to intense fighting throughout the American Civil War.  Within the area of a few square miles you encounter the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, battle of the Wilderness and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Combined these four battles accounted for over 110,000 casualties during the war making this area of Virginia some of the most bloodied ground in America.

The Civil War 150 Pinhole Project returns to this area in May of 2013 for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Click the Follow icon at bottom right so you can receive an email when the story and images of the battlefield and reenactment of this epic battle are posted in mid May.

Link here for the National Parks Battlefields and 150th Chancellorsville Reenactment:

http://www.nps.gov/frsp/index.htm

http://battleofchancellorsville.com

The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, 2012

Pinhole Shutter

Unveiling a new pinhole camera system designed by my brother, Henry Falco.  Henry, always the perfectionist, was never happy with the exterior shutter design we had developed for these homemade pinhole cameras.  He felt the cameras could be more sleek and self contained.  The result is this new internal shutter system.  A simple lever design, the camera now has a shutter button on the face of the camera and internal working parts which simply opens and closes the pinhole.  Instead of sliding the shutter to expose the film I will now be “clicking” a shutter button.

This is a four inch camera is equivalent to a 28mm wide angle on a 35mm SLR camera.

Learn more about the project pinhole cameras: Pinhole Camera

A Place Called Shiloh

150th anniversary Shiloh Reenactment, Michie, Tennessee

One hundred and fifty one years ago today one of the first epic battles of the Civil War was fought along the banks of the Tennessee River at a place called Shiloh.  In early April 1862 Ulysses S. Grant began to land his Union troops at Pittsburg Landing along the Tennessee for an eventual march on Corinth Mississippi, a vital railroad junction for the Confederacy.  On the evening of April 5th, as the Union troops rested in their camps, Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnson, looking to attack Grant while his troops were still consolidating, marched his 44,000 Confederate troops from Corinth to within a mile of Grant and waited.  At dawn on April 6th 1862, these Confederate forces came screaming from the woods in a surprise attack that would almost destroy Grant’s army.  Fortunately for Grant reinforcements would arrive that evening and on the following day Union forces counter attacked and eventually sent the Confederate troops retreating back towards Corinth.  The two days of fighting at Shiloh was the largest battle of the Civil War to date and would produce a staggering, 24,000 casualties.  Learn more about this pivotal battle at the links below:

Shiloh

Civil War Trust