Existing comment:
The Names:
On these walls are the names of more than 16,000 men who died on the battlefields around Fredricksburg. Each death stimulated sorrow that reverberated through communities. Long before these men were soldiers, they were fathers, sons, husbands, and friends; they were farmers, shopkeepers, churchmen, and teachers.
Lives Lost:
For most of these men, there would be no folded flags, no solemn processions. For those left behind, there would be no formal letters from their government, only a name in a newspaper or a scribbled note from a commanding officer. Sometimes there would be no word at all. Thousands of the men listed here simply vanished, recorded as "missing," buried as "unknowns." |