BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Fredericksburg Natl Battlefield -- Visitor's Center

VA -- Fredericksburg Natl Battlefield -- Visitor's Center:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: It was my first chance to see the new visitor center exhibits. They still had some tinkering to do. They had originally hoped to gut the building so the traffic flow would work better but that wasn't to be. As a result, you walk through the display not really sure which panel you should read next. It's all good stuff of course so it ultimately doesn't matter but still... My favorite pieces from the old installation -- the bayonet through the shoe and the model of the embattled street scene -- are still present.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[118] FREDVC_140817_609.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[119] FREDVC_140817_612.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[120] FREDVC_140817_620.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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[124] FREDVC_140817_636.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?) $"In the lecture room of the Episcopal church eight operating tables were in full blast, the floor was densely packed with men whose limbers were crushed, fractured and torn. Lying there in deep pools of blood, they waited very patiently there was no grumbling, no screaming, hardly a moan, many of the badly hurt were smiling, and chatting ... The cases here were nearly all capital, and amputation was almost always resorted to. Hands and feet, arms and legs were thrown under each table, and the sickening piles grew larger as the night progressed ... Towards morning the conversation flagged, many dropped off to sleep before they could be attended to, and many of them never woke again. Finally the only sound heard was the crunching of the surgeons' saws and now and then the melancholy music of a random shell dismally waiting over-head." -- Lt. Col. St. Clair A. Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania$	[125] FREDVC_140817_639.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[126] FREDVC_140817_644.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FREDVC_140817_008.JPG: The Park: Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park is one of the largest preserved areas of battlefield land in the world. The park includes key sites at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House, along with several historic structures, including Chatham (a 1771 plantation) and the Stonewall Jackson Shrine -- where the Confederate general died in 1863.
2. FREDVC_140817_034.JPG: Between Two Capitals: The Rappahannock River posed a major obstacle to advancing armies. The Union army staged three major campaigns across the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg, culminating in four battles: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. In those battles, more than 105,000 men fell killed, wounded, or missing. Constant military occupation and combat ravaged a landscape that was home to families, farmers, tradesmen, merchants, and slaves.
3. FREDVC_140817_044.JPG: Fredericksburg: Before the Civil War, Fredericksburg was a community typical of hundreds in the South. Though famous for its association with George Washington and his mother, Mary, the riverside port town enjoyed only moderate economic success. In 1860 one observer called Fredericksburg the "only finished town in America." Another, with a tone of approval, noted that the town was "devoid of Yankee restlessness and greed." On the eve of the Civil War, about 5,000 people lived here -- one third of them slaves. Of the five bridges along the 184-mile length of the Rappahannock River in 1860, three of them were at Fredericksburg. That network of roads and railroad would attract armies during the coming war.
4. FREDVC_140817_048.JPG: Gas Works: Fredericksburg had gas-powered lights along its streets and in some of its homes as early as 1844. Town Docks: Once a port for ocean-going ships, by 1860 most of the steamboat traffic here was to and from Baltimore or Alexandria. Chatham Bridge: Since 1823, this had been the main crossing into Fredericksburg from Stafford County. Marye's Heights: John L. Marye's name was forever associated with the heights upon which his house, Brompton, sits. The Telegraph Road: This stretch of the major north-south road would be christened the "Sunken Road" during the 1862 battle.
5. FREDVC_140817_056.JPG: The Fairgrounds (Mercer Square): Established in 1855, the community gathering place became a killing field in 1862. The African Baptist Church: This was the only African-American church in Fredericksburg in 1861. The Circuit Courthouse: Just nine years old on war's eve, the courthouse would quarter first Confederate solders and later slaves escaping to freedom. During the battle it served as a Union field hospital and signal station. The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad: The line linked Fredericksburg to Richmond and, by a steamboat connection at Aquia Creek, Washington DC. The Orange Plank Road: Distant farmers appreciated the all-weather road, it earthbound lane covered with planks. Thousands of troops used the road during the Civil War.
6. FREDVC_140817_064.JPG: Under Occupation: A Rebellious Town: Military and political calculations twice brought Union armies to Fredericksburg in 1862 -- once to occupy, once to fight. The first Union occupation lasted four months in the spring and summer of 1862. White residents suffered outrage, while many slaves saw Union soldiers as deliverers. "We Confederates ... treat the Yankees with silent contempt ... Ah! They little know the hatred in our hearts towards them, -- the GREAT scorn we entertain for Yankees ... I never hear or see a Federal... riding down the street that I don't wish his neck may be broken before he crosses the bridge." -- 16-year-old Lizzie Alsop Outrage and Fear: The Union army first arrived in Fredericksburg in the spring of 1862, hanging US flags, preventing civilians from moving in and out of town, and intercepting mail. The presence of the "hated Yankees" threw the community into turmoil and outraged many of the town's white residents. Conversely, the Union army's occupation inspired thousands of area slaves to seek freedom in Union lines, practically ending a system of labor and social control that had been in place for all of the town's 134 years. "Every store in town was CLOSED. Every white man had run away or hid himself. Every white woman had shut themselves in doors. No one could be seen on the streets but the colored people, and every one of them seemed to be in the best of humors." -- Fredericksburg slave John Washington, writing on April 18, 1862 The Union Army: Devils or Deliverers? Both Helen Struan Bernard, a white woman living just west of Fredericksburg, and John Washington, a slave working at a downtown hotel, witnessed the arrival of the Union army opposite Fredericksburg on April 18, 1862. Both later wrote of that moment in time, but each described it in completely different ways.
7. FREDVC_140817_066.JPG: A Rebellious Town: Military and political calculations twice brought Union armies to Fredericksburg in 1862 -- once to occupy, once to fight. The first Union occupation lasted four months in the spring and summer of 1862. White residents suffered outrage, while many slaves saw Union soldiers as deliverers. "We Confederates ... treat the Yankees with silent contempt ... Ah! They little know the hatred in our hearts towards them, -- the GREAT scorn we entertain for Yankees ... I never hear or see a Federal... riding down the street that I don't wish his neck may be broken before he crosses the bridge." -- 16-year-old Lizzie Alsop
8. FREDVC_140817_075.JPG: Outrage and Fear: The Union army first arrived in Fredericksburg in the spring of 1862, hanging US flags, preventing civilians from moving in and out of town, and intercepting mail. The presence of the "hated Yankees" threw the community into turmoil and outraged many of the town's white residents. Conversely, the Union army's occupation inspired thousands of area slaves to seek freedom in Union lines, practically ending a system of labor and social control that had been in place for all of the town's 134 years. Union troops pass the Fredericksburg Circuit Courthouse on Princess Anne Street during the summer of 1862. The flag on the cupola is a signal flag -- the Union army occasionally used the courthouse cupola as a signal station. Fredericksburg sisters (l-r) Emily, Nannie, and Lizzie Alsop, probably about 1860. They endured the Union occupation of 1862 with bitterness. "The Yankees... little known the hatred in our hearts toward them," Lizzie wrote in her diary.
9. FREDVC_140817_081.JPG: "Every store in town was CLOSED. Every white man had run away or hid himself. Every white woman had shut themselves in doors. No one could be seen on the streets but the colored people, and every one of them seemed to be in the best of humors." -- Fredericksburg slave John Washington, writing on April 18, 1862 The Union Army: Devils or Deliverers? Both Helen Struan Bernard, a white woman living just west of Fredericksburg, and John Washington, a slave working at a downtown hotel, witnessed the arrival of the Union army opposite Fredericksburg on April 18, 1862. Both later wrote of that moment in time, but each described it in completely different ways.
10. FREDVC_140817_087.JPG: Distant Rumblings
11. FREDVC_140817_094.JPG: "Let your beard grow, so as to protect the throat and lungs." -- Advice to volunteers Cartridge: The women of Fredericksburg mobilized right along with the men. This is a cartridge (a bullet and gunpowder wrapped in paper) made by Millie Wellford, 19-yaer-old daughter of one of Fredericksburg's most powerful merchant families. Her house on upper Caroline Street would be caught in the middle of the street fighting on December 11, 1862. Canteen: Hundreds of young men from the Fredericksburg region joined Confederate army units. This canteen belonged to 24-year-old John Seay, of Spotsylvania County. Seay joined the 30th Virginia Infantry just two weeks after Fort Sumter. He died of illness in Fredericksburg in January 1862 -- long before his regiment ever saw battle. A Michigan soldier looted this Confederate flag from Fredericksburg in December 1862. Its seven stars mark it as a very early version of the Confederate flag -- predating Virginia's secession. Its delicate fabric suggests its use by civilians, not the army. It is a tangible symbol of Fredericksburg's early enthusiasm for war. The flag was discovered in the Michigan State Archives in 2003 and was returned to Fredericksburg in a formal ceremony later that year.
12. FREDVC_140817_100.JPG: A Michigan soldier looted this Confederate flag from Fredericksburg in December 1862. Its seven stars mark it as a very early version of the Confederate flag -- predating Virginia's secession. Its delicate fabric suggests its use by civilians, not the army. It is a tangible symbol of Fredericksburg's early enthusiasm for war. The flag was discovered in the Michigan State Archives in 2003 and was returned to Fredericksburg in a formal ceremony later that year.
13. FREDVC_140817_109.JPG: Distant Rumblings: After the firing on Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, white residents of Fredericksburg and the surrounding counties of Stafford and Spotsylvania overwhelmingly supported secession (slaves and free blacks had no vote on the matter). In May 1861, Virginia formally became part of the new Confederate States of America. Young men by the thousands flocked to the new Confederate flag. Local women formed the Mutual Aid and Soldier's Relief Society to make socks, uniforms, cartridges, and anything else useful to new Confederate soldiers. The Secession Question: Months before the firing on Fort Sumter, citizens of Fredericksburg set two conditions for remaining in the Union. First: There must be... a settlement distinct, complete, and permanent between the two sections ... on the subject of African Slavery, which settlement must be on a basis that will secure to the Southern States and their citizens the perfect power to hold, control, and manage their own property in their own way, without molestation or interference.... Second: The use of force directly or indirectly by the other States through the Federal Government, to compel any state to remain in the Union, or to force any Federal Law within her limits after she has withdrawn from the Union, must inevitably lead to hostilities, in which Virginia will be constrained in the present crisis, to take part against the Federal Government.
14. FREDVC_140817_113.JPG: First: There must be... a settlement distinct, complete, and permanent between the two sections ... on the subject of African Slavery, which settlement must be on a basis that will secure to the Southern States and their citizens the perfect power to hold, control, and manage their own property in their own way, without molestation or interference....al Government.
15. FREDVC_140817_117.JPG: Second: The use of force directly or indirectly by the other States through the Federal Government, to compel any state to remain in the Union, or to force any Federal Law within her limits after she has withdrawn from the Union, must inevitably lead to hostilities, in which Virginia will be constrained in the present crisis, to take part against the Federal Government.
16. FREDVC_140817_120.JPG: A Slave's View: Fredericksburg slave John Washington was working in Richmond at the beginning of the war. Like most people in Fredericksburg, he was excited about war -- but for entirely different reasons than white residents: "When the Southern slave holders in open Rebellion fired on Fort Sumter, little did they then think that they were Fireing the Death knell of slavery, and little did I think that my deliverence was so near at hand." The upper part of Fredericksburg, as it appeared in 1863. The steeple of the Fredericksburg Baptist Church (right) and St. George's Episcopal Church, along with the rounded cupola of the Circuit Courthouse, still dominate the town's skyline.
17. FREDVC_140817_124.JPG: "Your town of Fredericksburg is right in the wrong place." -- President Jefferson Davis, March 22, 1862
18. FREDVC_140817_130.JPG: Hardest Days: Bombarded on December 11 and occupied on December 12, the town became the staging area for Union attacks on December 13, 1862. For four days thousands of Union troops slept in the streets. Many entered shops, homes, and abandoned buildings, taking whatever they pleased. Fredericksburg was the first sizeable American town to be plunders by Americans. The destruction shocked the people of Fredericksburg and enraged the South. The looting appalled even some Union soldiers. Those residents who had fled their homes often lost almost everything. "No effort seemed to be made to arrest this wholesale destruction until the destroyers seemed tired of their own wantonness." -- Musician Joseph R.C. Ward, 106th Pennsylvania
19. FREDVC_140817_141.JPG: Exhibit space being worked on
20. FREDVC_140817_142.JPG: Bombardment: Before daylight on December 11, 1862, the Union army started building bridges at three locations on the Rappahannock River. As soon as dawn revealed the bridge-builders. Confederates at the upper and middle crossing sites opened fire, bringing construction to a bloody halt. The Union army responded with a massive bombardment. At its height more than 150 guns fired on Fredericksburg. As many as 100 shells per minute burst over town. The bombardment did not drive the Confederates away, but did great damage to Fredericksburg. About 100 buildings were burned or destroyed. Those civilians left in town huddled in basements. Two civilians died -- a young shopkeeper and a female slave -- along with dozens of Confederate soldiers. Crossing Under Fire: When the bombardment failed to drive away the Confederate sharpshooters at the upper crossing site, men of the 7th Michigan volunteered to attempt a cross-river landing using pontoon boats. It was one of the dramatic moments of the battle. The Michigan soldiers made it across and they, with others, fought their way into the streets of Fredericksburg. More Union troops followed, and soon the bridge-builders resumed their work. By that evening, the Confederates had yielded the town to the Federals. Thousands of Union troops poured across the bridges. The bridge building effort at the upper crossing site turned bloody when Confederates in town opened fire on the Union engineers.
21. FREDVC_140817_146.JPG: "The boats were the kind used in constructing the bridge, large clumsy things. They were so heavily loaded they seemed hardly to move. But if they had been propelled four times as fast it would have seemed slow to us who were so anxiously watching from our side of the river." -- Lieutenant Tully McRae, Battery 1, 1st United States Artillery
22. FREDVC_140817_152.JPG: "I was moving out the women & children all last night & today. It was a piteous sight. But they have brave hearts. What is to become of them God only knows." -- General Robert E. Lee, November 22, 1862 "My heart ached for them..." The presence of armies and the prospect of battle forced residents to make important, sometimes life-changing choices. As many as 2,000 residents fled, flooding the roads westward into Spotsylvania County and beyond. The sight of men, women, and children trudging along the muddy or snow-covered roads filled Confederate soldiers with pity and rage.
23. FREDVC_140817_156.JPG: The plight of Fredericksburg's civilians prompted donations from across the South, including from the Confederate army. Nearly $250,000 was raised for relief of those who became famous as the "Fredericksburg Sufferers."
24. FREDVC_140817_167.JPG: The shell-damaged Baptist Church on Princess Anne Street. Churches suffered particularly in the bombardment of December 11, 1862 -- their steeples made convenient targets for Union cannoneers.
25. FREDVC_140817_171.JPG: While few houses still bear visible exterior damage from shelling, dozens have damage hidden in roofs, walls, and floors. This shell fragment came from the home of artist John Elder on William Street.
26. FREDVC_140817_176.JPG: Bridge-building display
27. FREDVC_140817_184.JPG: "Such a feeling of anxiety and suspense I never experienced. I could scarcely breathe." -- Assistant Surgeon Clark Baum, 50th New York Engineers Engineers erecting bridges below Fredericksburg on December 11 met with less resistance than those opposite the town. Later, when Gen. John Sedgwick's Union corps crossed the river below Fredericksburg during the Chancellorsville campaign, engineers built their bridges at the exact same spot. By December 11, 1862, the Union army was at last ready to bridge the river. Army engineers would build six bridges at three locations. Build a Bridge of Your Own: Step 1: Position the boats. Step 2: Connect them with balks. Step 3: Lay down the cheeses (planks). Step 4: Put on the the side-rails, or curbs (which prevented wagons or soldiers from slipping off the bridge). Now, imagine doing it in the dark, or under musket fire. That's what Union bridge builders faced on December 11, 1862. When you are finished, please put the pieces back into the container for the next visitor.
28. FREDVC_140817_189.JPG: Army engineers moved pontoon boats on specially made wagons. Under good conditions, an engineer regiment could span a river like the Rappahannock in just a few hours. Floating Bridges: The success of the Union advance at Fredericksburg depended on bridging the river. To do that, the army used floating bridges built with pontoon boats. Specially trained soldiers called engineers built the bridges -- anchoring the boats 20 feet apart, lashing connecting timbers called "balks," and putting down plank floorboards called "chesses." The 13-foot-wide bridges could carry wagons, heavy guns, and hundreds of troops. At Fredericksburg the river was more than 400 feet wide. Each bridge required at least 20 boats. A pontoon bridge at the "lower crossing" on the Rappahannock, a mile below Fredreicksburg, in spring 1863.
29. FREDVC_140817_198.JPG: A Fatal Mistake: Though the Union army arrived opposite Fredericksburg days before Lee's Confederates in November 1862, the Federals blundered by not having pontoon bridges ready to move the army quickly across the Rappahannock River. By the time the bridges arrived -- ten days later -- the Confederates were strongly positioned on the high ground west and south of the town. The delay, the strong Confederate position, and Union General Burnside's decision to cross at Fredericksburg anyway shaped the battle to come.
30. FREDVC_140817_202.JPG: War Like Never Before: The Union army left in the summer of 1862 when the war shifted northward but returned again opposite Fredericksburg in November, this time to fight. Confederate forces lined the hills west and south of Fredericksburg, placing the town squarely between two glowering armies. What happened here during the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg demonstrated the growing intensity of the Civil War -- a war that now affected civilians and soldiers alike. Few towns in America suffered more than Fredericksburg. "Virginia is truly unfortunate in being the theater upon which this monster war is enacted." -- Adjutant Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry
31. FREDVC_140817_210.JPG: Jane Beale fled town under Union fire on December 11. Just beyond Marye's Heights -- a few hundred yards from this visitor center -- she found a camp of refugees.
  "Crowds of women and children had sought refuge in this sheltered spot and as night drew on they were in great distress, they could not return to the town which was already in possession of the enemy, and they had fled too hastily to bring with them the comforts even the necessaries of life. Some few had stretched blue yard counterpanes or pieces of old carpet over sticks, stuck in the ground -- and the little ones were huddled together under these tents, the women were weeping the children crying loudly, I saw one walking along with a baby in her arms and another little one not three years old clinging to her dress nad crying "I was to go home". My heart ached for them..."
32. FREDVC_140817_214.JPG: Salem Church: One of the largest refugee camps. Massaponax Church: On modern Route 1 south of Fredericksburg. Lansdowne: Both the main house and outbuildings were full.
33. FREDVC_140817_217.JPG: Beauclaire Plantation: Diarist Jane Beale and her family trekked here. Hamilton's Crossing: The most popular destination; from there hundreds took the railroad south to Richmond. Sunnyside: On Courthouse Road six miles west of Fredericksburg.
34. FREDVC_140817_221.JPG: Swept by War
35. FREDVC_140817_234.JPG: Betty Churchill Jones Lacy was the mistress of both Chatham and Ellwood. A slaveholder and ardent secessionist, during the war she and her husband Horace moved their family to southwest Virginia, far from the fighting.
36. FREDVC_140817_237.JPG: "Day after day the slaves came into the camps and everywhere the 'Stars and Stripes' waved they seemed to know freedom had dawned to the slave." -- John Washington, remembering the summer of 1862 Journey to Freedom: On the day the Union army arrived, Fredericksburg slave John Washington crossed to freedom -- among the first of many to follow. This is his memoir of that moment. John Washington spent most of his life in Fredericksburg living upstairs in this building, tending to the needs of his owner, Catherine Taliaferro. Taliaferro's sons operated the bank on the first floor -- the Farmer's Bank. The building remains a bank today. By 1864, two-thirds of the slaves in Spotsylvania County had fled to freedom, many never to return. Between 1860 and 1870, Spotsylvania lost 30% of its African-American population; Stafford County, north of the Rappahannock, lost 60%. It would decades for the population of those counties to recover to their wartime levels.
37. FREDVC_140817_243.JPG: Shackles (reproduction): These shackles are a copy of a pair found in the barn of a Spotsylvania County plantation in the 1990s.
38. FREDVC_140817_252.JPG: To Freedom: April - September 1862 Slaves on the Move 10,00 escaped slaves by rail and steamboat to Washington DC
39. FREDVC_140817_262.JPG: Exodus: The arrival of the Union army in the spring of 1862 prompted one of the largest floods of refugees in American history -- slaves seeking freedom within Union lines. That spring and summer as many as 10,000 slaves fled to freedom from Fredericksburg and surrounding counties, most of them crossing the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg. Some remained with the Union army as cooks and camp servants -- "contrabands" the soldiers called them -- receiving rations and pay of about 25 cents a day (for many, the first pay they had ever received). Other continued northward to Washington and ports beyond, commencing an uncertain journey into freedom.
40. FREDVC_140817_266.JPG: The Geography of Freedom: During the spring and summer of 1862, slaves fled farms and plantations in the counties surrounding Fredericksburg. Some even crossed the Potomac from Maryland to reach Union lines. One many undertook the perilous race for freedom from more than 60 miles away -- south of Richmond. "Almost any hour, from the hill where I sit writing, we can count a half-dozen of them rafting their way across the Rappahannock, 'comin,' as they say, 'to be free.' The camps are flooded with them." -- A soldier of the 24th New York, May 1862
41. FREDVC_140817_282.JPG: Battle. Hope... Fear... Despair: When Burnside decided to cross his army at Fredericksburg, and when Lee decided to resist, the two generals doomed the town to devastation. The battle that followed was in fact two: a fierce contest on the plains and hills south of town, and a one-sided slaughter in front of the Sunken Road and Marye's Heights. "Talk about Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg: That was grand indeed; but I never saw anything that surpassed Sumner's charge at Fredericksburg. He simply charged and charged and charged, until there was left nothing of is Corps to charge with. All were dead, or dying, or wounded." -- James S. Woods, Phillips' Legion Infantry, CSA
42. FREDVC_140817_285.JPG: The climax of the Union attacks against the Sunken Road on December 13, 1862.
43. FREDVC_140817_290.JPG: "Talk about Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg: That was grand indeed; but I never saw anything that surpassed Sumner's charge at Fredericksburg. He simply charged and charged and charged, until there was left nothing of is Corps to charge with. All were dead, or dying, or wounded." -- James S. Woods, Phillips' Legion Infantry, CSA
44. FREDVC_140817_293.JPG: The Stakes: For the North: Was the war more than an effort to simply restore the Union? In the fact of 1862, President Lincoln offered his answer: Yes. He planned to issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 -- declaring the war to be one for Union and freedom. Lincoln hoped a wintertime victory just weeks before he issued the controversial proclamation would both destroy Lee's army and provide a boost to the sagging and divided Union war effort. For the South: By December 1862, Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia had become the Confederacy's greatest hope. Lee knew his victories fueled division in the Union war effort. But he wanted more. At Fredericksburg he sought the outright destruction of the Union army. Lincoln's Last Warning: "Now, if you don't come down, I'll cut the Tree from under you."
45. FREDVC_140817_303.JPG: "I think we can whip a million of them. This is one of the best positions in the world." -- Sanford W. Branch, 8th Georgia Infantry A Field of No One's Choosing: Neither Union General Ambrose Burnside nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee sought battle at Fredericksburg. Abraham Lincoln insisted that Burnside forge ahead with a risky winter campaign, but when his bridges were delayed, Burnside found himself confronted by Lee on the Rappahannock. Still, the president wanted victory. Burnside tried to deliver one. Lee enjoyed many advantages at Fredericksburg. Most importantly, the Confederates held the high ground, with good cover. They took advantage of a stone wall along the Sunken Road at the foot of Marye's Heights. It gave them a ready-made trench for cover, which kept casualties to a minimum. Still, the defense rarely suited Lee. He wanted to take the offensive and destroy Burnside's army, but at Fredericksburg he would never get the chance. Ambrose E. Burnside. The reluctant Union commander became the architect of one of the worst defeats the North experienced during the war. Though he suspected Confederate weakness at Prospect Hill, his poorly worded orders doomed the army's efforts.
46. FREDVC_140817_310.JPG: "I think we can whip a million of them. This is one of the best positions in the world." -- Sanford W. Branch, 8th Georgia Infantry A Field of No One's Choosing: Neither Union General Ambrose Burnside nor Confederate General Robert E. Lee sought battle at Fredericksburg. Abraham Lincoln insisted that Burnside forge ahead with a risky winter campaign, but when his bridges were delayed, Burnside found himself confronted by Lee on the Rappahannock. Still, the president wanted victory. Burnside tried to deliver one. Lee enjoyed many advantages at Fredericksburg. Most importantly, the Confederates held the high ground, with good cover. They took advantage of a stone wall along the Sunken Road at the foot of Marye's Heights. It gave them a ready-made trench for cover, which kept casualties to a minimum. Still, the defense rarely suited Lee. He wanted to take the offensive and destroy Burnside's army, but at Fredericksburg he would never get the chance. Ambrose E. Burnside. The reluctant Union commander became the architect of one of the worst defeats the North experienced during the war. Though he suspected Confederate weakness at Prospect Hill, his poorly worded orders doomed the army's efforts.
47. FREDVC_140817_313.JPG: The Confederates took advantage of a stone wall lining the Sunken Road at the foot of Marye's Heights for protection. This is an original stone from that wall. Someone, probably a Confederate soldier, carved a picture of the Innis house on the stone. The Innis House and a section of the original wall still stand.
48. FREDVC_140817_320.JPG: "If we beat our foe in this engagement, the war may terminate with it." -- Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, CSA Obstacles: Committed to battle but faced with strong Confederate defenses, Burnside crafted a plan that resulted in two battles fought miles apart. He focused is chief assault against the Confederate right -- south of town at Prospect Hill. Secondary attacks against Marye's Heights and the Sunken Road were intended to divert the Confederates' attention away from the main battle. But as the day wore on, these attacks took on a bloody life of their own.
49. FREDVC_140817_329.JPG: Rappahannock Crossings: About 420 feet wide at Fredericksburg, the river had to be bridges by Union engineers. The work needed to build the bridges signaled the Union army's intentions. Canal Ditch: This small power canal ran west of town. Though shallow, it was a major obstacle to the Union army. The Confederates tore up the bridges, forcing Union soldiers to cross on the remaining supports. Confederate artillery especially targeted the crossing at Hanover Street.
50. FREDVC_140817_332.JPG: The Terrain: Flat, open fields bordering the river led to wooded ridges, one mile away, dominated by Confederate cannon. Crossing those fields proved deadly for Union soldiers. Union Headquarters: Burnside had to control two wings of his army operating miles apart from a headquarters two miles from the front. His biggest obstacle was his own lack of clarity. Unclear orders hampered his efforts. System of Union Telegraph Lines: From army headquarters at the Phillips House, Union telegraphers using the Beardslee could communicate with General Franklin on the south end of the field and with Union commanders at Chatham. Push the button to see the locations of the three Beardslee Telegraph machines on December 13, 1862.
51. FREDVC_140817_336.JPG: George Beardslee developed this portable field telegraph system for quick communications in the field. The instrument was operated by hand-turned magnetos (electrical generators that use magnets) and did not require heavy batteries like those in civilian telegraphs. It included an alphabet dial and pointer instead of the usual key for transmission.
52. FREDVC_140817_343.JPG: A Union telegrapher uses a portable machine, the "Beardslee Telegraph," at Fredericksburg.
53. FREDVC_140817_347.JPG: A Battlefield Wired: At Fredericksburg, for the first time in American history, an army commander was in direct communication with his front line by telegraph. The Beardslee Telegraph machine made this possible. Union signalmen strung wire across miles of landscape (including the Rappahannock River), putting Union General Burnside in easy contact with his commander on the southern end of the field. But transmission was unreliable, and while the use of three Beardslee machines at Fredericksburg was a milestone in military communications, their presence had no real impact on the battle.
54. FREDVC_140817_356.JPG: Private George Murray of the 114th Pennsylvania ("Collis' Zouaves") wore this uniform into battle at Fredericksburg. Just 18 years old, Murray survived the Battle of Fredericksburg only to be seriously wounded in the shoulder at Chancellorsville in May 1863. Colonel Charles H.T. Collis patterned his regiment's uniforms after the French-Algerian Zouaves (ZOO-ahves) of the 19th century, considered to be among the world's elite fighting units at the time.
55. FREDVC_140817_365.JPG: Sneak Peak! Please take a look at a previous of our new exhibits. They are not complete, so be sure to come back and see them in a few months.
56. FREDVC_140817_368.JPG: Waiting: Days of waiting and looming, panoramic landscape combined to create a sense of foreboding among the soldiers destined to fight at Fredericksburg. In the days preceding the battle, as the armies watched each other across the Rappahannock, men had plenty of time to contemplate what would happen next. Hope mingled with excitement, fear, and sometimes, dread.
57. FREDVC_140817_378.JPG: This painting by Carl Rochling captures the climactic moment of the Battle of Fredericksburg on the south end of the battlefield. After George Gordon Meade's attack failed, the Confederates counterattacked and made a dash for a Union battery on what became known as the Slaughter Pen Farm. This painting shows the brightly-garbed men of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry rushing to save the guns and drive the Confederates back. Colonel Charles Collis commissioned this painting to depict the moment his men saved the Union cannon from charging Confederates. He included General George Gordon Meade (rallying troops), General John C. Robinson (pinned under the horse), and his second-in-command, Major Joseph C. Chandler.
58. FREDVC_140817_382.JPG: Picture Key: The painting captures a dramatic moment during fighting at the Slaughter Pen. As "Stonewall" Jackson's Confederates surged out of the distant woods, threatening Union artillery, General John C. Robinson's horse was killed, pinning the brigade commander to the ground. When Robinson fell, Collis's colorful Pennsylvania Zouaves momentarily faltered. Galloping to the front, Colonel Collis seized the regimental colors and rallied his men with an order to charge. His action saved the guns and earned him the Medal of Honor.
59. FREDVC_140817_394.JPG: A Sense of Dread: The danger that faced Union troops at Fredericksburg -- the need to cross vast tracts of open land to reach the Confederate lines -- was obvious to even the lowest private. Still, when told to go, they went, hopeful that the frightful risk they were being asked to endure would contribute to victory. At Fredericksburg, daunting fear and unfulfilled hope damaged the faith of Union soldiers in their commanders. Nervous Times: The days immediately before the Battle of Fredericksburg added nervous energy to the normal tedium of being a soldier. Men wrote letters, played cards, or just chatted to pass the time. In the town of Fredericksburg -- held by the Union army on December 11 and 12 -- soldiers broke into and looted buildings that had been vacated by their owners. They tore through cupboards and personal belongings, producing ludicrous scenes of pianos in the streets and men in dresses. Some Union soldiers saw the looting of Fredericksburg as a just fate for a secessionist town. Others were horrified by the undisciplined pillaging, labeled it "shameful."
60. FREDVC_140817_397.JPG: "Twenty thousand men will be killed or wounded on our side and thousands of homes made desolate, and hearts broken right under the enemy's batteries." -- Col. Orlando M. Poe, Union brigade commander
61. FREDVC_140817_401.JPG: Preparing Souls: This uniform coat is a rare artifact connected to a Confederate chaplain -- the Rev. Lyman Wharton of the 59th Virginia Infantry. Whenever battle drew near, many soldiers gravitated toward army chaplains, seeking spiritual comfort and guidance. For some, a conversation with or blessing from the chaplain was the last thing they heard before entering battle. In turn, encounters with these desperate soldiers could be heartrending.
62. FREDVC_140817_408.JPG: "Whilst waiting... many shook my hand heartily, saying 'good bye Chaplain!' -- the last 'goodbye' that some of them uttered. They said it perhaps with pale and trembling lips, and with deep earnestness feeling that they were to pass through a terrible ordeal -- their first battle. It almost completely unmannered me -- so many thoughts rushing on my mind and deep emotions overwhelming my heart. How many I thought might be killed or wounded ... But it was a time when calmness was required -- and I composed myself." -- Chaplain John W. Stuckenberg, 145th Pennsylvania "I went into the action with no hope of success but with the conviction I was leading my brave battalion to inevitable and useless slaughter." -- Col. Samuel K. Zook, Union brigade commander
63. FREDVC_140817_411.JPG: "Whilst waiting... many shook my hand heartily, saying 'good bye Chaplain!' -- the last 'goodbye' that some of them uttered. They said it perhaps with pale and trembling lips, and with deep earnestness feeling that they were to pass through a terrible ordeal -- their first battle. It almost completely unmannered me -- so many thoughts rushing on my mind and deep emotions overwhelming my heart. How many I thought might be killed or wounded ... But it was a time when calmness was required -- and I composed myself." -- Chaplain John W. Stuckenberg, 145th Pennsylvania
64. FREDVC_140817_413.JPG: "I went into the action with no hope of success but with the conviction I was leading my brave battalion to inevitable and useless slaughter." -- Col. Samuel K. Zook, Union brigade commander
65. FREDVC_140817_415.JPG: Picked up in the city of Fredericksburg during the terrible assault on Thursday afternoon Dec. 11 and 12. Found by Major T.S. Crombargar, Philadelphia, Pa.
66. FREDVC_140817_419.JPG: Although in the Ten Commandment it says, 'Thou shalt not steal,' a soldier nonetheless looted this Bible from Fredericksburg.
67. FREDVC_140817_424.JPG: Courage Under Fire: As the Battle of Fredericksburg came to its climax on December 13, 1862, it produced both individual and collective examples of remarkable valor in the face of violence and hopelessness. Courage sustained Union soldiers through adversity and defeat, and it drove Confederates to risk everything for victory. Both of Marye's Heights and Prospect Hill, Union soldiers could clearly see the strength of the Confederate position on the heights before them. The sight terrified many, but still they came. This cylinder holds more than 10,000 bullets, the number fired in just one minute of combat at Fredericksburg. It's hard to imagine what a howling, hissing shrieking nightmare the battlefield must have been for soldiers to endure -- sometimes for hours on end. One may ask how such dangers can be faced. The answer is, there are many things more to be feared than death. Cowardice and failure of duty with me were some of them. I said to myself, "This is duty. I'll trust in God and do it. If I fall, I cannot die better." -- Lt. Frederick L. Hitchcock, 132nd Pennsylvania
68. FREDVC_140817_428.JPG: As the Battle of Fredericksburg came to its climax on December 13, 1862, it produced both individual and collective examples of remarkable valor in the face of violence and hopelessness. Courage sustained Union soldiers through adversity and defeat, and it drove Confederates to risk everything for victory. Both of Marye's Heights and Prospect Hill, Union soldiers could clearly see the strength of the Confederate position on the heights before them. The sight terrified many, but still they came.
69. FREDVC_140817_431.JPG: One may ask how such dangers can be faced. The answer is, there are many things more to be feared than death. Cowardice and failure of duty with me were some of them. I said to myself, "This is duty. I'll trust in God and do it. If I fall, I cannot die better." -- Lt. Frederick L. Hitchcock, 132nd Pennsylvania
70. FREDVC_140817_439.JPG: This cylinder holds more than 10,000 bullets, the number fired in just one minute of combat at Fredericksburg. It's hard to imagine what a howling, hissing shrieking nightmare the battlefield must have been for soldiers to endure -- sometimes for hours on end.
71. FREDVC_140817_442.JPG: "The worst ordeal the soldier had to encounter is to lie still, and do nothing under heavy fire. It will get on his nerves, if he had to keep it up over long." -- Capt. David Gregg McIntosh, Pee Dee Artillery, CSA Lying Flat: Artillery caused only about 8% of casualties on a Civil War battlefield, but its presence had a powerful psychological effect on men. The boom of dozens of cannon, the explosion of shells, the whizzing of shell fragments, and the sound as they ripped into the ground were a torment few men forgot. On the south end of the battlefield at Fredericksburg, Union soldiers spent painful hours waiting under Confederate artillery fire, prone in the mud on an open plain, fearing death every second.
72. FREDVC_140817_452.JPG: The Confederates had two long-range cannon, called Whitworths, which fired a distinctive shell more than two miles. This one was found on the Fredericksburg battlefield.
73. FREDVC_140817_458.JPG: Projectiles for artillery came in many forms -- solid or explosive, round or elongated. Booming artillery and exploding shells created chaos and terror, though cannons killed or wounded far fewer men than did musket fire. These projectiles were all found on the battlefields around Fredericksburg.
74. FREDVC_140817_472.JPG: The Irish Brigade: Although five Union brigades suffered higher casualties, to the Northern public the experience of the Irish Brigade came to symbolize the Union ordeal at Fredericksburg. The public saw the experience of these soldiers not in terms of victory or defeat, but in terms of men doing their duty even under hopeless conditions. Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher's Irish Brigade soldiers were easily recognized in battle with their distinctive emerald flag and sprigs of green boxwood in their caps. The Irish attacked Marye's Heights with 1,250 men and lost 545 (44%) of them within an hour. The 69th New York lost every officer who went into the attack. "It was simply madness to advance as far as we did, and an utter impossibility to go farther." -- Pvt. William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania "Oh! It was a terrible day. The destruction of life had been fearful, and nothing gained ... Irish blood and Irish bones covered that terrible field to-day ... We are slaughtered like sheep and no result but defeat." -- Capt. William B. Nagle, 88th New York "They were not there to fight, only to die." -- Lt. Col. St. Clair A. Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania
75. FREDVC_140817_476.JPG: A month after the Battle of Fredericksburg, a Requiem Mass for the dead of the Irish Brigade was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. The event received nationwide coverage.
76. FREDVC_140817_480.JPG: The Irishmen and other Union soldiers quickly learned there was no chance of capturing Marye's Heights. Repeated attacks seemed senseless murder to them. But they obeyed orders out of a sense of duty and faith that their leaders had a plan -- that their efforts, even in failure, would contribute to a larger purpose. In the end, Union soldiers measured their success by how close they could get to the Confederate lines before they failed.
77. FREDVC_140817_487.JPG: This drum was used by the 28th Massachusetts of the Irish Brigade and may have been carried in the Battle of Fredericksburg. When the war ended, the drum was taken home to Boston and used in a number of veterans' parades. The Charitable Irish Society discovered the drum in a Boston bank vault in 1991. After restoring the instrument, the society donated it to the National Park Service on December 10, 1995.
78. FREDVC_140817_496.JPG: Forward Fredericksburg was uniquely a battle of panoramas -- grand vistas of moving masses of men that both awed and intimidated. For individual soldiers, those panoramas quickly narrowed to the faces of men struggling between life and death amidst unimaginable horrors. "On to Richmond" had prevailed over reason and we must go! Well, go we will, but not without apprehension. Those terrible heights before us are enough to terrify, but we will do our best, and if we fail, let the millstone grind to powder the real instigation of our disaster. -- Sgt. John Holahan, 45th Pennsylvania
79. FREDVC_140817_500.JPG: Fredericksburg was uniquely a battle of panoramas -- grand vistas of moving masses of men that both awed and intimidated. For individual soldiers, those panoramas quickly narrowed to the faces of men struggling between life and death amidst unimaginable horrors.
80. FREDVC_140817_510.JPG: "War So Terrible" Bounded on the west by ridges and hills held by the Confederate army and on the east by the heights of southern Stafford County, the Battle of Fredericksburg played out on a vast agricultural plain visible for miles. Confederate General Robert E. Lee watched from Telegraph Hill (today called Lee's Hill). Lee seemed mesmerized by the beauty and pageantry of the long Uion lines of attackers and shocked by the incredible brutality of the battle that destroyed so many lives. At one point, the Confederate general commented to James Longstreet, "It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it!" After the battle, evidence of violence lay everywhere.
81. FREDVC_140817_518.JPG: When found after the war, this shoe with a bayonet through it still had the bones of its owner inside.
82. FREDVC_140817_527.JPG: A few homes along the Sunken Road suffered extensive damage. By one account, the Martha Stephens house had more than 1,000 bullet holes in it. Above is a bullet-scarred timber from the Stephens House.
83. FREDVC_140817_534.JPG: This rifle, with its exploded muzzle, was found at Fredericksburg
84. FREDVC_140817_547.JPG: During the battle, an excited soldier forgot to withdraw his ramrod from his gun before firing it. When he pulled the trigger, the ramrod flew across the battlefield, embedding itself in this piece of wood.
85. FREDVC_140817_553.JPG: A bullet-riddled shingle from one of the outbuildings at Brompton, the Marye home on Marye's Heights.
86. FREDVC_140817_559.JPG: "I found the brick house packed with men; and behind it the dead and the living were as thick as they could be crowded together. The dead were rolled out for shelter, and the dead horses were used for breastworks. I know I tried to shelter myself behind the brick house, but found I could not, on account of the men already there." -- Gen. Darius N. Couch, Union Second Corps To the Fence: The Stratton House and Orchard: In the vastness of the plain in front of Marye's Heights, only a handful of buildings, a few fences, and a shallow dip in the ground offered Union soldiers any protection. The home of Allen Stratton and his wife became a magnet for Union wounded, who huddled behind its brick walls. Some Union troops pushed beyond the Stratton house, taking imagined cover behind a board fence that enclosed the Stratton's peach orchard. "The dead and dying lay in a window along this fence," wrote one man. Another noted, "The planks around the peach orchard were shot so full of holes that you could stick every finger through at once." The flimsy fence that shielded Union soldiers stood in sharp contrast to the powerful stone wall that protected the Confederates in the Sunken Road.
87. FREDVC_140817_572.JPG: An early postwar photograph shows the Stratton house standing in contrast to its barren surroundings. The orchard and its fence were long gone. But it's easy to understand why Federals crowded around the house for protection.
88. FREDVC_140817_576.JPG: "Behind the stone fence, I felt pretty much at home... Most of those who were killed or wounded after we got behind the fence did it by their own carelessness." -- Joseph C. Webb, 27th North Carolina
89. FREDVC_140817_587.JPG: While Confederate enlisted men could stay low, protected by the stone wall, Confederate officers had to stand above the wall to direct the fighting. Sixteen of twenty-two brigade and regimental officers -- including three generals -- were killed or wounded in or near the Sunken Road.
90. FREDVC_140817_595.JPG: Surviving Under Fire: Families huddled in basements to avoid the fire of cannon. When they returned after the battle, families often found the inside of their homes wrecked -- looking worse than the most messy teenager's bedroom. Enter the basement corner and hear what the bombardment of Fredericksburg sounded like. Two civilians died in the bombardment, including a teenage boy. One baby was born too, always known afterwards as "Shell Baby."
91. FREDVC_140817_599.JPG: Families huddled in basements to avoid the fire of cannon. When they returned after the battle, families often found the inside of their homes wrecked -- looking worse than the most messy teenager's bedroom.
92. FREDVC_140817_602.JPG: One soldier noticed that pets -- dogs, cats, and even cows -- were killed in the bombardment.
93. FREDVC_140817_605.JPG: The houses pictured to your right were here during the Battle of Fredericksburg. How do you think they looked after getting hit by cannonballs like the ones behind you? Look behind the modern picture to find out. As many as 100 shells a minute exploded over the town.
94. FREDVC_140817_620.JPG: Aftermath: The Battle of Fredericksburg reverberated through homes, communities, and even the halls of Congress. In the Confederacy, jubilation at victory mingled with outrage at the plight of Fredericksburg civilians. In the North, the one-sided nature of the defeat at Fredericksburg intensified both grief and public reaction to the death of nearly 1,500 Union soldiers. "If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it." -- President Abraham Lincoln
95. FREDVC_140817_630.JPG: The Wounded: After the battle more than 14,000 wounded men filled Union and Confederate field hospitals. Many of the Union hospitals were located in the town of Fredericksburg -- the same town that had been devastated by Union soldiers only hours before. A small number of Northern civilians (including Clara Barton) joined with army surgeons, stewards, and nurses to comfort the wounded, using churches, commercial buildings, the courthouse, and even private homes as hospitals. The Union army rushed to evacuate the wounded before the army retreated across the river on December 15. "In the lecture room of the Episcopal church eight operating tables were in full blast, the floor was densely packed with men whose limbers were crushed, fractured and torn. Lying there in deep pools of blood, they waited very patiently there was no grumbling, no screaming, hardly a moan, many of the badly hurt were smiling, and chatting ... The cases here were nearly all capital, and amputation was almost always resorted to. Hands and feet, arms and legs were thrown under each table, and the sickening piles grew larger as the night progressed ... Towards morning the conversation flagged, many dropped off to sleep before they could be attended to, and many of them never woke again. Finally the only sound heard was the crunching of the surgeons' saws and now and then the melancholy music of a random shell dismally waiting over-head." -- Lt. Col. St. Clair A. Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania
96. FREDVC_140817_636.JPG: "In the lecture room of the Episcopal church eight operating tables were in full blast, the floor was densely packed with men whose limbers were crushed, fractured and torn. Lying there in deep pools of blood, they waited very patiently there was no grumbling, no screaming, hardly a moan, many of the badly hurt were smiling, and chatting ... The cases here were nearly all capital, and amputation was almost always resorted to. Hands and feet, arms and legs were thrown under each table, and the sickening piles grew larger as the night progressed ... Towards morning the conversation flagged, many dropped off to sleep before they could be attended to, and many of them never woke again. Finally the only sound heard was the crunching of the surgeons' saws and now and then the melancholy music of a random shell dismally waiting over-head." -- Lt. Col. St. Clair A. Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania
97. FREDVC_140817_639.JPG: "For eight long hours the streets were crowded with the mutilated victims of Saturday's fighting." -- Oscar D. Robinson, 9th New Hampshire Infantry Evacuation: Within two weeks, Union and Confederate doctors evacuated all of the wounded healthy enough to travel -- the Federals by steamboat, the Confederates by train. The wounded from Fredericksburg filled hospitals in Washington, Alexandria, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. Confederate wounded went to Richmond or Lynchburg. Though chaotic, quick medical attention and efficient evacuation resulted in a noticeable drop in mortality rates. One in four wounded Union soldiers died at the Battle of Antietam, and one in three died during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 -- but at Fredericksburg Burnside's army suffered a fatality rate of one in seven.
98. FREDVC_140817_644.JPG: This sketch, drawn on the day of the battle, shows Union soldiers carrying wounded comrades through the streets of Fredericksburg.
99. FREDVC_140817_651.JPG: The Union army had about 1,000 ambulances like these. After the righting ended, the ambulance crews quickly evacuated the wounded back across the river. Only those wounded men in or near Confederate lines were left behind.
100. FREDVC_140817_655.JPG: Burying the Dead: Appalled that Burnside had left his dead behind when he retreated, Lee had James Longstreet propose a truce so a Union burial detail could inter the dead. It took two days to bury all the bodies. A bitter Confederate thought the view of so many Federal corpses was a "grand sight." Another declared, "If killing our enemy can avenge us for the sacking and destruction of Fredericksburg then indeed we are avenged." "Death, nothing but death everywhere; great masses of bodies tossed out of the churches as the sufferers expired; layers of corpses stretched in the balconies of houses as though taking a siesta. In one yard a surgeon's block for operating was still standing, and, more appalling to look at even than the bodies of the dead, piles of arms and legs, amputated as soon as their owners had been carried off the field, were heaped in a corner. There were said to be houses literally crammed with the dead; but into them, horrified and aghast at what I saw, I could not look." -- A correspondent of The Times of London
101. FREDVC_140817_659.JPG: "Death, nothing but death everywhere; great masses of bodies tossed out of the churches as the sufferers expired; layers of corpses stretched in the balconies of houses as though taking a siesta. In one yard a surgeon's block for operating was still standing, and, more appalling to look at even than the bodies of the dead, piles of arms and legs, amputated as soon as their owners had been carried off the field, were heaped in a corner. There were said to be houses literally crammed with the dead; but into them, horrified and aghast at what I saw, I could not look." -- A correspondent of The Times of London
102. FREDVC_140817_669.JPG: Confederate General James Longstreet sent this letter to Union General Ambrose Burnside requesting a truce so the dead could be buried. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, Commanding CS forces, near Fredericksburg, Dec 16, 1862 Headquarters, Near Fredericksburg, December 16, 1862. To the Genl Com'g US Forces opposite Fredericksburg Sir: I am authorized by General R. E. Lee, commanding Confederate forces, to express his desire that you send over to the late battlegrounds and collect the bodies of such officers and soldiers as may be left there. He also desires me to express his willingness to parole and return to you the prisoners taken since your passage of the Rappahannock. I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, JAMES LONGSTREET, Lt. Gen. Com'g
103. FREDVC_140817_675.JPG: Confederates took anything of value from the Union dead lying in front of their lines -- boots, clothes, food, and even personal effects. This money purse was found by Confederate soldiers among the Union dead at the foot of Marye's Heights.
104. FREDVC_140817_682.JPG: "Death is a solemn thing anywhere, but in such a manner it is dreadful." -- Unidentified soldier, 27th Connecticut Postwar Reburials: Final resting places for most of the Fredericksburg dead would not come until after the war. In 1866 and 1867, the Federal government reburied 15,126 Union dead from area battlefields in the National Cemetery on Marye's Heights. The Ladies' Memorial Association of Fredericksburg saw to the proper burial of Confederate dead. Nearly 4,300 from all four area battlefields now lie in the Confederate cemeteries in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania. Undoubtedly, many men from both sides still lie where they fell.
105. FREDVC_140817_686.JPG: When a photographer took this picture from Federal Hill on the west edge of Fredericksburg in 1864, he likely did not know that dozens of Union dead lay inside the ice house, thrown there by burial parties unwilling or unable to dig them proper graves. The bodies were removed to the National Cemetery after the war.
106. FREDVC_140817_695.JPG: "... Death Everywhere" When the fighting ended, almost 13,000 of Burnside's troops were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. The Confederates had lost close to 5,300 men. One of Lee's couriers remembered, "I have been in and over all the great battlefields up to this time... but I stood before that 'somber, fatal, terrible stone wall' utterly amazed at the extent of the slaughter." Whether Union or Confederate, each one of those numbers represented a story, a family, a home town -- all of them filled with pain.
107. FREDVC_140817_697.JPG: "... Death Everywhere" When the fighting ended, almost 13,000 of Burnside's troops were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. The Confederates had lost close to 5,300 men. One of Lee's couriers remembered, "I have been in and over all the great battlefields up to this time... but I stood before that 'somber, fatal, terrible stone wall' utterly amazed at the extent of the slaughter." Whether Union or Confederate, each one of those numbers represented a story, a family, a home town -- all of them filled with pain.
108. FREDVC_140817_700.JPG: "When night descended upon the bloody field nearly 1,500 dead soldiers lay upon an area of two acres in front of our lines. Three or four times as many wounded howled in the darkness, a dismal concert for assistance which could not be rendered, or perished in the cold from neglect." -- James R. Hagood, 1st South Carolina "Husband till death, love to all..." Fifty-three-year-old Major Jacob Babbitt of the 7th Rhode Island carried these cigars with him onto the battlefield, where he fell wounded in the chest and arm in one of the later attacks against Mayre's Heights. His wife, Abby, rushed to him from Bristol, Rhode Island, and was with him when he died on December 23 at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria. The couple had five children. Major Babbitt wrote to his wife just before the battle, "Should it be my lot to fall, know that it was in defense of our beloved Constitution." He closed his last letter home, "I will try not to disgrace my native town but do all to ennoble it. Kiss all the children for me and take in imagination one long embrace from me for yourself."
109. FREDVC_140817_722.JPG: Soldiers were not issued "dog tags" during the Civil War, but sometimes they purchased their own. This identification disk belonged to Corporal Thomas D. Crummer, a member of the 2nd Delaware. Crummer died in the attacks on Marye's Heights on December 13.
110. FREDVC_140817_734.JPG: These spurs and three cigars were taken from Babbitt after he was wounded in front of Marye's Heights.
111. FREDVC_140817_740.JPG: Transformed by Battle: Battle ended lives and transformed them, too. A Union officer wrote of seeing his men after they emerged from battle on the southern end of the field: "I went down the line of my regiment, fewer than half its men surviving, weary and dirty, their clothes torn and muddy, knapsacks rent, canteens battered, hands and faces daubed with muck and splotched with powder. There were pale faces and faces flushed, anxious and expectant faces, many that I had scanned three days before; the same, yet changed. There was something in the expression, the attitude of those men, that awed me. An uprush of emotion blinded and choked me as I turned away." -- Lieut. Abner R. Small War in panoramic form could be majestic, but individuals who had to endure it found little but pain and anguish. Each of these men -- soldiers of both sides -- were killed or wounded at Fredericksburg. Death left gaping voids in families across the nation, and sometimes a soldier's wounds never fully healed. "Up to this time I had not fully realized what war was. This was the first time I witnessed the great sorrow of friends at home over the loss of their sons and brothers killed in war, and it left an impression on my mind that I shall never forget." -- Sgt. Thomas J. Owen, 50th New York Engineers after escorting his commanding officer's body home to Pennsylvania
112. FREDVC_140817_745.JPG: Community Shattered: After the battle, residents returned to a devastated town -- their homes riddled by bullet and shell, looted, and filled with dead men. The plight of Fredericksburg provoked outrage across the South. From the army and from towns and cities across the South came donations to help relieve the people of Fredericksburg -- one of the first large-scale relief efforts in American history. More than $200,000 was raised for the town. The mayor and a small committee distributed the funds to needy residents.
113. FREDVC_140817_749.JPG: Confederate soldiers and civilians vied with each other to offer assistance to the citizens of the ravaged town. Here is a sampling of the letters and contributions that poured in, such as $2,796.50 donated by a brigade of Virginians in Lee's army and a deposit of $124.30 from the citizens of Charleston, DC. At the time, these were huge sums.
114. FREDVC_140817_752.JPG: Local residents suffered bombardment, street fighting, and looting. A few saw their homes burned. In the months following the battle, many filed claims for compensation with Mayor Montgomery Slaughter, who oversaw the relief fund. Despite the damage, the claims from citizens did not consume the entire relief fund, and the town council invested the remainder in Confederate bonds. I am a sufferer of the Yankee depredations, several hundred dollars in the destruction of furniture and a valueable library of choice books... I now apply to you for compensation in part from the relief fund... -- Very respectfully, E.M. Hunter, a sufferer
115. FREDVC_140817_756.JPG: Surgeons and Surgery: Though often labeled as butchers, surgeons on Civil War battlefields saved thousands of lives by their actions. While amputation was the most common operation performed, amputations were not automatic. Only about half of those with fracture wounds to extremities received amputations. The survival rate among amputees varied with the location of the injury -- the closer to the torso, the more dangerous the operation. Fact or Fiction? No topic is more cloaked in myth and misunderstanding than Civil War medicine. Can you tell fact from fiction? Turn the wheel below to discover more.
116. FREDVC_140817_761.JPG: This kit was typical of those used by surgeons on both sides at Fredericksburg. It belonged to Dr. Hugh McDonald Martin of the 5th Louisiana Infantry. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, he tended to the wounded at "Belvoir," a Yerby family home behind Jackson's lines at Prospect Hill. Martin later met and married a Fredericksburg girl and lived in town for the rest of his life.
117. FREDVC_140817_764.JPG: Fact or Fiction? More than 95% of all major operations done during the war on both sides were done with the benefit of anesthetic. Fact: While surgeons occasionally ran short of anesthetic, they rarely performed an amputation without its benefits -- even in Confederate hospitals.
118. FREDVC_140817_769.JPG: Fact or Fiction? An amputation of the log at the thigh meant a soldier's chance of survival was about one in ten. Fact: The loss of so much body mass was often a greater shock than a patient could take.
119. FREDVC_140817_773.JPG: Fact or Fiction? Surgeons often had soldiers "bite the bullet" to help them withstand the pain of amputation or surgery. Fiction: This is one of the great myths of the Civil War. Doctors knew far better than to place a hard object just large enough to choke in the mouth of a suffering patient.
120. FREDVC_140817_784.JPG: Fredericksburg in Ruins: This diorama, made in 1935, is based on one of the most famous images taken in Fredericksburg after the battle. It shows damaged homes at the intersection of George and Hanover Streets, on the western edge of town. While Union cannon caused most of the destruction in Fredericksburg, Confederate artillery firing on Union troops did damage as well. Thousands of Union soldiers passed this intersection on their way into battle, and Confederate artillery on Marye's Heights ravaged both men and buildings indiscriminately.
121. FREDVC_140817_786.JPG: "Not a house nor room nor chimney escaped destruction. Walls were perforated, plastering and ceiling fell, chimneys tottering or spreading over yards and out into the streets. Not a place of safety, save the cellars and wells, and in the former some were forced to take refuge." -- D. Augustus Dickert, 3rd South Carolina
122. FREDVC_140817_802.JPG: This piano was in the home of Charles and Mary Wellford on Caroline Street during the street fighting that swirled around the house on December 11, 1862. Family tradition holds that a Union soldier was killed while sitting at the piano. Damage to the instrument was largely repaired, though one small scar remains.
123. FREDVC_140817_808.JPG: This beam and floorboard came from what it today 132 Caroline Street, the left-hand house in the duplex shown in the historic image. The beam shows damage from a shell. The dark areas on the floorboard are believed to be bloodstains.
124. FREDVC_140817_810.JPG: Reverberations: News traveled by telegraph, the mail, and through newspapers, bringing sad word of the dead and wounded to hometowns across America. The Union: For the Union, the one-sided nature of the loss at Fredericksburg intensified public reaction to the deaths of nearly 1,500 Union soldiers. Lincoln intended the campaign to strengthen the sagging war effort. Instead, the Battle of Fredericksburg damaged Northern morale at a critical time -- just weeks before the then-controversial Emancipation Proclamation took effect. The Confederates: Although he had won a great victory, Lee was dissatisfied with the Battle of Fredericksburg. Long before most people, he recognized the triumph at Fredericksburg, militarily, was an empty one. Yet the victory gave Southerners hope for the future. The Richmond Examiner called it, "a splendid victory to the defender of the sacred soil." "They suffered heavily so far as the battle went, but it did not go far enough to satisfy me... The contest will have now to be renewed, but on what field I cannot say." -- General Robert E. Lee, December 16, 1862
125. FREDVC_140817_818.JPG: After the battle, some commentators and cartoonists mocked Lincoln and his administration for the disaster at Fredericksburg.
126. FREDVC_140817_824.JPG: Union troops returned to their camps in Stafford County wrapped in gloom. One soldier mused, "Oh my country, how my heart bleeds for your welfare."
127. FREDVC_140817_826.JPG: Some of the most beautiful places on the battlefields were once the final resting place of thousands of soldiers -- like the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania.
128. FREDVC_140817_828.JPG: Men from all across America, from Texas to Maine, came to Fredericksburg -- and never left.
129. FREDVC_140817_832.JPG: Many more who came had their lives changed forever
130. FREDVC_140817_835.JPG: Shortly after the war, a photographer documented these trenches in the Wilderness.
131. FREDVC_140817_839.JPG: Fredericksburg's stone wall taught soldiers the value of cover and protection. By 1864, soldiers reflexively started digging in the presence of their enemy. The battlefields at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House feature miles of earthworks dug by soldiers seeking protection from bullets and shells. Shortly after the war, a photographer documented these trenches in the Wilderness. Today, miles of trench remains still mark where thousands of soldiers shoveled, fought, and died.
132. FREDVC_140817_847.JPG: War Relentless: The Battle of Fredericksburg marked the beginning of an 18-month ordeal that saw the armies clash three more times on the landscape around Fredericksburg: at Chancellorsville in May 1863 and at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House in May 1864. Those 18 months witnessed a profound, progressive change in the war. For soldiers, it became a daily fight for survival, waged mostly in trenches and deep woods rather than open fields. For the people who lived here, life became a struggle to fill even basic needs.
133. FREDVC_140817_856.JPG: The Mud March: Both Lincoln and Burnside hoped to offset the defeat of Fredericksburg with a wintertime victory. In January 1863, the Union army took to the roads again. This time weather, not Confederates, defeated them. A massive rainstorm soaked the columns and turned roads into quagmires, leaving the army literally stuck in the mud. Burnside's "Mud March" -- mocked by Confederates and Northerners alike -- marked the nadir of Union fortunes in Virginia.
134. FREDVC_140817_864.JPG: Burnside intended to lunge across the Rappahannock above Fredericksburg, but torrential rains stopped him. Most of the army bogged down in mud -- and hundreds of animals died -- before they could even reach the river, much less cross it.
135. FREDVC_140817_875.JPG: Located at Stafford Heights overlooking Fredericksburg, Chatham's prominence brought about its devastation. Visited by Lincoln, used by generals as a headquarters, and turned into one of the largest Union field hospitals on the battlefield. Chatham survived but with serious damage. The scars are still visible.
136. FREDVC_140817_879.JPG: Soldiers North and South called this ground a "perfect slaughter pen." In this open field the combat of the south end of the battlefield came to its bloody climax as Confederate troops launched their only attack of the day. Carl Rochling's iconic painting captures the magnitude of combat in the Slaughter Pen.
137. FREDVC_140817_885.JPG: On December 13, 1862, the Sunken Road became the focal point of eight hours of savage fighting. No Union soldier got closer than 40 yards from the road. Some Confederate infantrymen lined up in the road four or more deep, while their artillery boomed from the heights above. More than 8,000 Union soldiers fell in the vain attempt to capture the road and Marye's Heights.
138. FREDVC_140817_891.JPG: At Prospect Hill, the Union army nearly won the Battle of Fredericksburg. Todya, Confederate gunpits and earthworks line the crest, overlooking the vast open plain that was once occupied by more than 55,000 Union soldiers. This was Stonewall Jackson's line, and here the battle hung in the balance.
139. FREDVC_140817_901.JPG: Few towns in the South suffered as severely as Fredericksburg. Bombarded on December 11, looted over the next several days, and caught between two armies during the battle, residents fled to the countryside or huddled in basements. Nearly 100 builders were burned or damaged beyond repair. Today, more than 230 antebellum structures survive in one of America's best preserved downtown areas.
140. FREDVC_140817_904.JPG: Americans saw Fredericksburg as historic even before Civil War armies hallowed the ground here. Today, sites associated with that history abound in and around the city. They, along with ships, restaurants, and the Rappahannock River, made Fredericksburg's historic downtown one of the most impressive in Virginia.
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2014 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Winchester, VA, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA), Michigan to visit mom in the hospice before she died and then a return trip after she died, and my 9th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles). Ego strokes: Paul Dickson used one of my photos as the author photo in his book "Aphorisms: Words Wrought by Writers". Number of photos taken this year: just over 470,000.
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