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

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

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Description of Pictures: Pictures taken on May 30, 2015 were the first pictures I took after retiring from the Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland.

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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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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FREDVC_150530_019.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.
2. FREDVC_150530_021.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_150530_029.JPG: War Like Never Before
4. FREDVC_150530_032.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.
5. FREDVC_150530_042.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."
6. FREDVC_150530_045.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.
7. FREDVC_150530_050.JPG: Union soldiers peer into Confederate-held Fredericksburg in early 1863
8. FREDVC_150530_054.JPG: "Virginia is truly unfortunate in being the theater upon which this monster war is enacted." -- Adjutant Alexander McNeill, 2nd South Carolina Infantry
9. FREDVC_150530_058.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..."
10. FREDVC_150530_063.JPG: A Flood of Refugees: Refugees from Fredericksburg fled into Spotsylvania County. Some took the trains to Richmond, but many found shelter at roadside farms and plantations -- often with people they hardly knew. By the time of the battle on December 13, 1862, it is likely only a few hundred of the town's 5,000 residents remained in their homes. This map shows some of the routes and sites used by this flood of refugees, bound for relative (if often uncomfortable) safety in Spotsylvania County, and beyond.
11. FREDVC_150530_072.JPG: The painting, which had not been hung the last time I was there, was on the floor. They said they hung it but the roof developed a leak so they had to move it.
12. FREDVC_150530_092.JPG: Chatham Manor: Headquarters, Hospital & Home Open Daily Built in 1771, Chatham is the only home in American ever visited by Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. In 1862, the Civil War engulfed Chatham. It saw its slaves freed. It witnessed a presidential reception. It served as Union headquarters during the Battle of Fredericksburg. It became a hospital following the battle, and it suffered all the abuses and indignities of war.
13. FREDVC_150530_105.JPG: The climax of the Union attacks against the Sunken Road on December 13, 1862.
14. FREDVC_150530_115.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
15. FREDVC_150530_130.JPG: Obstacles: Committed to battle but faced with strong Confederate defenses, Burnside crafted a plan that resulted in two battles fought miles apart. He focused his 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. At Fredericksburg, the Union army communicated through a system of signal flags, telegraph lines, and traditional couriers. Four miles of wire connected three mobile telegraph machines. At the height of the battle on December 13, five signal stations -- each using signal flags -- also transmitted dozens of messages to and from Burnside's headquarters at the Phillips House.
16. FREDVC_150530_144.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.
17. FREDVC_150530_159.JPG: Union soldiers took this clock from a Fredericksburg home and left it in the street, unable to carry something this large back to their camps when they retreated on December 15.
18. FREDVC_150530_166.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.
19. FREDVC_150530_169.JPG: 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."
20. FREDVC_150530_172.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
21. FREDVC_150530_192.JPG: A soldier's deck of playing cards. Soldiers commonly discarded them before entering battle, fearing for their souls should they be found killed or wounded with cards on their body.
22. FREDVC_150530_219.JPG: Chatham -- just across the river -- served as one of the Union army's largest field hospitals. This image shows the front of Chatham, as it appeared after the battle, in 1863. "Mannsfield," like so many homes around Fredericksburg, was used as both a hospital and headquarters by the Union army during the battle. "The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody ... I went through the rooms, down stairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home. ..." -- Walt Whitman, writing from Chatham, December 1862
23. FREDVC_150530_221.JPG: Chatham -- just across the river -- served as one of the Union army's largest field hospitals. This image shows the front of Chatham, as it appeared after the battle, in 1863.
24. FREDVC_150530_224.JPG: "Mannsfield," like so many homes around Fredericksburg, was used as both a hospital and headquarters by the Union army during the battle.
25. FREDVC_150530_228.JPG: "The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody ... I went through the rooms, down stairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home. ..." -- Walt Whitman, writing from Chatham, December 1862
26. FREDVC_150530_229.JPG: This blanket belonged to one of the patients at Mannsfield. Another patient, Union General George D. Bayard, postponed his marriage to be with the army at Fredericksburg. Wounded in the hip by a Confederate shell, the general died in the house on December 14 -- his wedding date. He was one of four generals killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg.
27. FREDVC_150530_235.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.
28. FREDVC_150530_239.JPG: "Some carried pictures; one man had a fine stuffed alligator, and most of them had something. It was curious to observe these men upon the eve of a tremendous battle rid themselves of all anxiety by plunging into this boisterous sport." -- Lt. Josiah M. Favill, 57th New York
29. FREDVC_150530_268.JPG: This is where the Fredericksburg battle painting was supposed to appear
30. FREDVC_150530_278.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.
31. FREDVC_150530_282.JPG: George Murray's Bible
32. FREDVC_150731_12.JPG: The picture is finally in place!
33. FREDVC_150731_24.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.
34. FREDVC_150731_29.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.
35. FREDVC_150731_37.JPG: R.F. & P. Railroad in the background General George Meade is on the horse in the center.
36. FREDVC_150731_46.JPG: Colonel Charles Collis
37. FREDVC_150731_53.JPG: General John Robinson
38. FREDVC_150731_61.JPG: 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers
39. FREDVC_150731_71.JPG: Attacking Confederates Randolph's Third Corp Artillery
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