BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Fredericksburg Natl Battlefield -- Marye's Heights

VA -- Fredericksburg Natl Battlefield -- Marye's Heights:

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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. FREDMH_111009_004.JPG: Fredericksburg Battlefield: Before you looms Marye's Heights, a key point in the two major Civil War battles. At the base of the heights, bordered by a stone wall, lies the Sunken Road. In December 1862 Confederate troops standing in the road repelled repeated Union assaults. Five months later, during the Chancellorsville Campaign, Union troops again attacked Marye's Heights. This time they succeeded in taking it. Begin your visit to this historic ground at the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center. Then take a leisurely one-hour walk down Sunken Road and up onto Marye's Heights. After completing your walk, take time to travel Lee Drive and visit Chatham, two other units of the Fredericksburg Battlefield. Three other battlefields -- Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House -- are also within easy driving distance.
2. FREDMH_111009_005.JPG: Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania -- this is the bloodiest landscape in North America. No place more vividly reflects the Civil War's tragic cost in all its forms. A city bombarded, bloodied, and looted. Farms large and small ruined. Refugees by the thousands forced into the countryside. More than 85,000 men wounded; 15,000 killed -- most now in graves unknown. The fading scars of battle, the home places of bygone families, and the granite tributes to those who fought still mark these lands. These places reveal the trials of a community and nation at war -- a virtuous tragedy that freed four million Americans and reunited a nation. To visit the battlefields, begin your tour at either the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center or the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center.
3. FREDMH_111009_020.JPG: The Sunken Road: For 130 years, this was a road like thousands of others. First called the County Road, then Telegraph Road, it carried farmer's wagons into Fredericksburg or townsfolk to visit relatives in the country. During the 1830s an adjacent landowner built stone walls along the road as it passed below Marye's Heights and "Brompton," the home of John L. Marye. In the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, the road shed its former names and became simply the "Sunken Road," one of the most famous byways in America. After the Civil War, the road became a typical city street. Much of the original stone wall vanished; houses appeared. But in the 1930s, the National Park Service started reclaiming the road. The Civilian Conservation Corps reconstructed the section of wall in front of you, and the NPS removed postwar houses. In 2004 the road closed to traffic, allowing the NPS to take up its asphalt surface and rebuild the remaining portions of the wall. Today, the road looks much as it did at the time of the battle.
4. FREDMH_111009_081.JPG: Fredericksburg National Cemetery: Approximately 20,000 soldiers died in this region during the Civil War, their remains scattered throughout the countryside in shallow, often unmarked, graves. In 1865 Congress established Fredericksburg National Cemetery as a final resting place for Union soldiers who died on area battlefields. Confederate soldiers were buried in cemeteries located at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Court House. Work on Fredericksburg National Cemetery commenced in 1866 and was completed in 1869. Veterans erected two major monuments here in the late 19th century, and the remains of 300 veterans of later wars were interred before 1945, when the cemetery closed to new burials. Of the 15,300 men buried here, the identities of fewer than 3,000 are known.
5. FREDMH_111009_084.JPG: Field of Battle: This photograph, taken from the heights to your right-rear, shows the landscape in front of you as it appeared the year after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The town of Fredericksburg sits atop the ridge in the distance; the spire of St. George's Episcopal Church dominates the skyline (and it still does). Before the war, much of the open ground in this view had been Fredericksburg's fairgrounds. Fences that once enclosed them and sheds that once dotted the fairgrounds were swept away during the December 1862 battle. For eight hours on December 13, 1862 these open fields became a killing ground. After the war, the dead buried here were disinterred, and slowly the town grew westward. The neighborhood that now stands in front of you was built between 1890 and 1930.
6. FREDMH_111009_087.JPG: The Union Attack Begins: In 1862 the ground in front of you was an open plain stretching from here to the outskirts of Fredericksburg, one-half mile away. As Union troops left the town to attack Marye's Heights, they had to break ranks to cross a canal ditch, then knock down fences on an old fairground. For the last 300-400 yards of their advance toward the Sunken Road, they were virtually without cover. Eighteen Union brigades - more than 30,000 men - successively swept across the field. For eight hours the killing continued. "Our men were slaughtered like sheep," recalled one Federal soldier. "The whole plain was covered with blankets, haversacks, wounded men and dead men.... We stood it as long as we could, and were ordered to fall back -- when the whole brigade broke and run...." Every face wore an expression of seriousness and dread.... -- Private Benjamin Borton, 24th New Jersey Infantry Of the many attacks made by the Union army at Fredericksburg, none was more famous than that of the Irish Brigade. Wearing sprigs of boxwood in their caps to remind them of their heritage, some men of the brigade approached to within 50 yards of the wall before withering under the Confederate fire.
7. FREDMH_111009_100.JPG: The Stephens House: The foundation outlined before you marks the wartime home of Edward and Martha Stephens. On December 13, 1862, the house was caught in the vortex of Union attacks against the Sunken Road. Confederate sharpshooters fired from the house windows and roof. The Union artillery shell that killed General Thomas Cobb passed through the house before exploding. Legend holds that Martha Stephens, unlike most local residents, remained in her house throughout the battle. She purportedly made repeated, dangerous trips to her well and tore strips from her own garments to bind the wounds of the fallen. Mrs. Stephens lived until 1888; she is buried in the plot to your left. The house survived the battle but was destroyed by fire in 1913.
8. FREDMH_111009_104.JPG: Stephens Family Cemetery: Buried here are eight members of the Innis, Mazeen, and Stephens families, including the most famous of them all: Martha Stephens. Local children knew Martha Stephens as "Granny." They also remembered her ever-present apron, the pipe often clenched in her teeth, and her matronly form. But Martha Stephens was no typical "Granny." At the time when women rarely owned property, she owned no fewer than seven tracts, including a 92-acre farm in Spotsylvania County. For a time, she ran a saloon in her home. A local resident remembered her as "uneducated [and] too free and outspoken in what she said and did and how she did it." When she died in 1888 at the age of 68, the local paper called her a "genial spirit" and recalled wartime efforts to aid the wounded during the Battle of Fredericksburg. "Her ministrations will never be forgotten by those who survive," the paper noted, "and companions of those who died will ever cherish her memory."
9. FREDMH_111009_111.JPG: Innis House: This frame building, known as the Innis (or "Ennis") house, stands as a mute witness to the terrible combat that engulfed this spot. Located along the Confederate line of battle, the small structure was marred by soldier graffiti and perforated by bullets and shell fragments. Confederate General Lafayette McLaws wrote that the house "had no space as large as two hands on it that had not been pierced." Although the family replaced the exterior clapboards, you can still see bullet marks on one of the vertical timbers on the right side of the house. More dramatic is the damage to the house's interior. Martha Stephens, who lived next door and probably owned this building too, chose not to replace the partition wall separating the hallway from the living room. The scars made by dozens of bullets as visible today as they were in 1862.
10. FREDMH_111009_124.JPG: The Killing Fields: This view, taken a mile behind you, shows the vast open space in front of Marye's Heights only months after the December 1862 battle. Union troops crossed the plain between the town (in the foreground) and Marye's Heights. Some attackers advanced to within about 80 yards of the Sunken Road, and a few got as close as 40 yards. More than 7,500 Union troops fell killed or wounded in the span of the photograph, on the ground just behind you. The photograph shows clearly both the stark nature of the battlefield and several prominent landmarks. Most important was the Stratton House, the solitary brick building at the right of the image, which gave cover to hundreds of Union soldiers. The Marye House and the Innis House (both still standing), as well as the Ebert House are also clearly seen. Today most of the open space in the image is covered by an early 20th-century neighborhood.
11. FREDMH_111009_126.JPG: Seeking Cover: For Union soldiers who attacked Marye's Heights, the open plain in front of you offered just two sources of cover: the brick Stratton house, visible just two blocks ahead on the left side of the street, and the swale, a slight drop in the landscape just beyond the Stratton house. Both are visible from this location. For three days, Union soldiers stubbornly clung to their position in front of the stone wall, pinned down by Confederate riflemen in the Sunken Road. Some Union soldiers lying in the swale tried to protect themselves by pushing dirt in front of them. Others sought shelter behind the bodies of fallen comrades. Night along brought protection. The enemy riddled every moving thing in sight .... -- Capt. John W. Ames, 11th United States Infantry.
12. FREDMH_111009_128.JPG: Angel of Marye's Heights: While the Civil War entailed immense destruction and tragedy, it did not always engender hate. For two days following the battle, wounded Union soldiers, caught between the lines, cried out for water. Though exposure to enemy fire even for a moment meant almost certain death, Sergeant Richard R. Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers tried to help. Filling several canteens with water, the young Confederate stepped over the stone wall to care for his wounded enemies. When Union soldiers understood Kirkland's purpose, they ceased firing at him and cheered. For nearly two hours he continued his ministrations. Kirkland has since been known as "The Angel of Marye's Heights." He died in battle at Chickamauga, Georgia, in September 1863.
13. FREDMH_111009_136.JPG: In memoriam Richard Rowland Kirkland Co. G, 2nd South Carolina Volunteers C.S.A. At the risk of his life, this American soldier of sublime compassion, brought water to his wounded foes at Fredericksburg. The fighting men on both sides of the line called him "The Angel of Marye's Heights." Born Kershaw County, S.C., August, 1843 Sergeant at Fredericksburg, December 1862 Lieutenant at Gettysburg, July, 1863 Killed in action at Chickamauga, September 1863. Dedicated to National Unity and the Brotherhood of Man.
14. FREDMH_111009_152.JPG: The Ebert House and Store: You could smell the gingerbread and candy when you went into the store. It was utterly quiet, the only noise was the ticking of a clock...and an elderly lady knitting and rocking. -- A local resident On this corner stood the home of the Ebert family, Henry and Sophia Ebert emigrated from Prussia in the 1840s, joining a growing and prospering community of German entrepreneurs in Fredericksburg. The Eberts opened a small grocery store in their home on this corner, catering to travelers entering or leaving Fredericksburg along the Telegraph (Sunken) Road. The Eberts, their children, and their grandchildren lived in and operated the store for nearly 100 years. The Ebert house stood amidst a cluster of middle-class homes on the western edge of Fredericksburg. All of these families - Sisson, Ebert, Innis, Stephens, and Hall - lived lives largely disrupted by war. Before the battle on December 13, 1862, Confederate officers ordered the Eberts to leave their home. The family took refuge at Mrs. Ebert's brother's house several miles west of town. They returned days later to find dead bodies "all over the property" and their home badly scarred by eight hours of combat.
15. FREDMH_111009_160.JPG: The Original Wall: Standing here you can clearly see how the Sunken Road got its name. Cut into the base of Marye's Heights, the roadbed sits several feet below the grade of the surrounding hill slope. Stone retaining walls on either side of the road hold the banks in place. When the Confederate army arrived here in November 1862, it found a ready-made breastwork behind which to fight. At the time of the battle, the stone wall stretched for more than 500 yards along the eastern (left) side of the road. After the Civil War, however, large sections were removed. Today just this one-block remnant of original wall remains. Please help the National Park Service preserve this original section of the stone wall by not touching or approaching it.
16. FREDMH_111009_166.JPG: Brompton: The house and grounds are not open to the public. "The pillars of the porch...were speckled with the marks of bullets. Shells and shot had made sad havoc with the walls and the woodwork inside. The windows were shivered, the partitions torn to pieces, and the doors perforated." -- Traveler John T. Trowbridge, September 1865 A home, a headquarters, and a hospital: each of these terms accurately describes "Brompton," the large brick house one the hill above you. Built around 1824, the building was home to John L. Marye, a prominent lawyer and businessman. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, the 3rd South Carolina Infantry took position in front of Brompton, while Colonel James B. Walton of the Washington Artillery made the building his headquarters. Seventeen months later, in May 1864, the house became a hospital for Union soldiers wounded in the Overland Campaign. "No available space was left unoccupied," remembered a Union surgeon. "the poor fellows just arrived had not had their clothes off since they were wounded and were sleeping in blood and filth, and were swarming with vermin. They lay as close as they could be packed." Today Brompton is owned by the University of Mary Washington.
17. FREDMH_111009_181.JPG: Thomas R. R. Cobb: The monument across the road marks the spot where General Thomas R. R. Cobb suffered a mortal wound. A brilliant Constitutional lawyer prior to the war, he left his practice to take up arms for the South. At Fredericksburg Cobb fought his first battle as a brigadier general in command of a Georgia brigade. He was determined to do well. When told before the battle that he must fall back if the troops on his left gave way, Cobb growled, "Well! If they wait for me to fall back, they will wait a long time." Cobb fell when a Union artillery shell crashed through the Stephens house, behind you, and exploded, sending shrapnel into his thigh. He would die a few hours later. Although Cobb was a Georgian, his mother had grown up in Fredericksburg. Her childhood home, "Federal Hill," stood on the outskirts of town within sight of Cobb's position (trees and postwar houses obscure the view today). Later accounts claimed that the shot that killed Cobb was fired from the vicinity of his mother's house.
18. FREDMH_111009_187.JPG: The Confederate Line: You are now standing beside the Sunken Road, part of a heavily used 19th-century road system that linked Washington, D.C. and Richmond. In 1862, Confederate riflemen fired from the road upon line after line of Union troops advancing across open fields to your left. (Houses constructed early last century now cover most of these fields.) A waist-high stone wall protected the Confederate riflemen; Union troops had no such protection. To your right is Marye's Heights. Nine guns of the Washington Artillery occupied the heights during the battle. By depressing the muzzles of their pieces, Confederate artillerists could scour the plain in front -- firing over the heads of infantry here in the Sunken Road. It was perhaps the strongest natural position ever defended by Lee's army. Our boys fired into the dense masses without the fear of missing & with a fair prospect of cutting down 2 at a time.... -- S.H. Walkup, 48th North Carolina Infantry
19. FREDMH_111009_199.JPG: Sunken Road Walking Trail: On December 13, 1862, Union troops poured out of Fredericksburg to attack Confederate forces behind the town. The heaviest blows fell here at Marye's Heights. For eight hours Union troops repeatedly charged the heights only to be slaughtered by the volleys of Confederate riflemen occupying a sunken road at the base of the hill. This half-mile trail takes you down the Sunken Road, then climbs the hill and comes back along Marye's Heights, concluding at the National Cemetery. Those not wishing to climb the hill may return to the parking lot by way of the Sunken Road.
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