To date, we haven't traveled very much in this part of the United States. Aside from visiting Manassas National Battlefield Park with the family in 2010 and Monocacy National Battlefield while on solo business trips in 2017 and 2022, our NPS checklist is missing a lot of units interpreting sites from the eastern theater of the Civil War. (Gettysburg really needs a re-visit because I was in grade school, and the cyclorama is the only thing I vaguely recall.) Needless to say, I was looking forward to today's first stop: Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park!
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| Thought this was R's 200th unit, but I miscounted! Doh. |
Prior to the Civil War, Fredericksburg was a port of commerce on the Rappahannock River, with roads, bridges, and railroads serving the population of 5000. During the war, since it was located midway between Washington and the Confederate capital of Richmond, it was also a prime tactical position, with the river posing a major obstacle to advancing Union armies. Fredericksburg was occupied by Union troops for four months in the spring and summer of 1862, with as many as 10,000 enslaved people seizing the opportunity to escape to freedom during this time.
Following the occupation, the Union army staged three major campaigns near Fredericksburg, resulting in four battles and making it the most contested ground and bloodiest landscape on the continent. Altogether these battles resulted in more than 105,000 casualties (killed, wounded, or missing).
- Battle of Fredericksburg: December 11-13, 1862
- Battle of Chancellorsville: April 27-May 6, 1863
- Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864
- Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: May 8-21, 1864
Because of our limited time and the park's reduced seasonal operating hours, we were only able to explore the sites of the first two battles. Guess that means we'll just have to come back again to complete our visit!
(If you're not a history nerd like me, you can skip the parts in italics...)
In November 1862, the Union army arrived at Stafford Heights on the opposite bank from Fredericksburg well before Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. However, they had to wait ten days for the pontoon bridges to arrive that they needed to cross the Rappahannock, which allowed the Confederates time to fortify their positions on the high ground west and south of town. Costly mistake.
Before dawn on December 11, the Federals started building their pontoon bridges but were met with fire from Confederates. In turn, the Union army bombarded the town, destroying about 100 buildings. The Union troops were eventually able to occupy Fredericksburg by December 12, but disgracefully many looted and vandalized homes and shops. On December 13, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and the Army of the Potomac launched a two-pronged attack.
Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's division was able to briefly break through a gap in Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's defenses at Prospect Hill on the south end of Lee's line. Wave after wave of Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's Right Grand Division attempted a frontal assault on Marye's Heights, only to be cut down by artillery fire from the top of the hill and rifle fire from the infantry positioned behind the stone wall of the sunken Telegraph Road. All told, Lee suffered 5,300 casualties but inflicted more than twice that many losses on his opponent. Of the 12,600 Federal casualties, almost two-thirds fell in the open fairgrounds below Marye's Heights, never coming closer than 50 yards of the stone wall. The disastrous outcome was a blow to the Union war effort but buoyed the Confederacy's hope for victory. Burnside resigned his command one month later.
We arrived at the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center about a half hour before it opened, so we explored the grounds following the Sunken Road Walking Trail (0.8 mile loop) up to Marye's Heights and the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.
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| Located next to the Sunken Road, the Innis House was ravaged by bullets and shell fragments. |
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| Following the battle, Sgt. Richard Kirkland brought water to his wounded enemies on the field |
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| On the left is an original section of the stone wall |
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| View of the Sunken Road and Innis House from Marye's Heights |
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| The Confederate artillery position |
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| Damage from Union artillery shells is still visible on the gateposts of the Willis Family Cemetery |
After the war ended, Congress authorized a national cemetery on Marye's Heights to honor the Federal troops who died on the battlefields of the four major battles, as well as the Mine Run and North Anna campaigns, or from illness in the camps near Fredericksburg. It is the final resting place for over 15,000 soldiers, most of whom died during the Civil War, although there are about 100 from the 20th century and a few spouses. Only about 20% of the soldiers are identified. Confederates who died in the Fredericksburg area were interred in Confederate cemeteries in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania.
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| Brig. Gen. Humphrey's Division achieved the farthest advance against Marye's Heights, with Humphrey personally commanding from the front of the line on horseback. |
We arrived back at the visitor center around 9:15AM and spent about a half hour going through the exhibits inside. After stopping by the bookstore for passport stamps (3 stamps | 3 units), we headed out for the driving tour, listening to the audio narration in the NPS app. Because Chatham Manor (former slave plantation, field hospital, Union headquarters, and current park HQ) was closed, we skipped the grounds and went straight to Lee Drive, the battlefield tour road covering 5 miles of the Confederate line.
At the first stop, we hiked the 0.25-mile trail up to the top of what is now known as Lee's Hill, the Confederate command post.
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| The church steeple is barely visible today, but in December 1862, Lee was able to view both ends of his line from this vantage point. |
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| "It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it." Gen. Robert E. Lee, December 13, 1862 |
The next stop was Howison Hill, named for the Howison family that lived nearby, which was another artillery position during the battle of Fredericksburg. Then we drove to the end of the road at Prospect Hill, which was "Stonewall" Jackson's position on the right flank. On this side of the battlefield, the fighting ended in a stalemate, with approximately 4000 Confederate and 5000 Union casualties.
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| The crescent shaped earthworks that protected the 14 guns positioned here are still visible today |
On our way back to the main road, we stopped at the point where Meade's Union division penetrated the gap in Jackson's lines...
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| The Meade Pyramid was erected by the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad in 1897 |
...and at the trailhead to Bernard's Cabins, the trenches dug by Lee's men are also still visible.
By now it was almost 11:00AM, so we headed over to the Chancellorsvile Battlefield Visitor Center, about 25 minutes away via Plank Road. The visitor center is located at the spot where Lt. Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson was mistakenly wounded by his own men on May 2, 1863. Thinking his small reconnaissance party was Union cavalry, a North Carolina regiment fired on them. He was hit twice in the left arm, necessitating amputation, and once in his right hand. Jackson died eight days later of complications from pneumonia.
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| The Jackson Monument was dedicated in 1888 |
After arriving around 11:30AM, we walked the short interpretive Jackson Wounding Trail around the visitor center and then went inside to go thru the exhibits (and get 6 stamps).
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| There are more than 16,000 names of the men who died on the battlefields around Fredericksburg inscribed on the wall |
Less than five months after the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Army of the Potomac (130,000 troops now under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker) and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (60,000) met again. The Union campaign began on April 27, and within three days, ~40,000 of Hooker's infantry had splashed across the river 40 miles upstream of Fredericksburg to attack Lee's left flank. On April 29, Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's men crossed the river below Fredericksburg via pontoon bridges. The plan was to squeeze Lee's army between them.
Outnumbered, Lee could have followed conventional military wisdom and retreated south, but instead he chose to engage. He left behind 10,000 troops to defend Fredericksburg and sent the rest of the army west towards Hooker's flanking column, correctly guessing it to be the primary threat.
By April 30, that flanking column, now numbering 50,000 men and 108 artillery pieces, rendezvoused at a large brick tavern called Chancellorsville at the junction of the Orange Turnpike with the Orange Plank, Ely's Ford, and River Roads. However, rather than continuing to press eastward, Hooker decided to halt at Chancellorsville to wait for the arrival of additional Union troops. By the time they started to move east on the turnpike on May 1, they ran smack into Jackson's brigades near Zoan Church and had to fall back to the headquarters and assume a defensive position at Chancellorsville.
Meanwhile, on the night of May 1, Lee and Jackson met near the intersection of the Orange Plank and Furnace Roads, where they received intel that Hooker's right flank was vulnerable. On May 2, with Lee's 14,000 infantry serving as a diversion, Jackson's column of 30,000 marched 12 miles around the Union army and destroyed Maj. Gen. Oliver Howard's Eleventh Corps in a surprise attack on the Union right. Later that night, Jackson was accidentally shot by his own troops after returning from reconnaissance.
The morning of May 3 saw the bloodiest fighting of the battle. Even though Hooker still held the advantage over the Confederates, he relinquished it by not going on the offensive and ceding the ground at Hazel Grove. Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart quickly seized the opportunity to mount 30 cannon there and bombarded the Union position at Fairview, eventually advancing against the remaining units at Chancellorsville. By May 6, all of the Union forces had retreated back across the river.
While Chancellorsville has been called "Lee's greatest victory", in actuality the impact upon the Union army was less than that of the Confederates - 17,000 casualties (13%) vs. 13,000 (22%). Jackson's death left a gaping hole in leadership that could not be filled. And the victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville gave Lee the false sense that his army was invincible, instilling him and the Confederate government with confidence to go on the offensive into Pennsylvania two months later at Gettysburg.
After finishing up at the visitor center, we started on the Chancellorsville Battlefield Driving Tour around 12:30PM, again listening to the audio narration in the NPS app. The second stop was the Bullock House Site. When the Confederates captured Chancellorsville on May 3, Hooker's army pulled back to this location and started digging six miles of earthworks in a U-shaped line. They quietly held this position for two days. Lee planned to attack on May 6, but never got the chance as Hooker retreated across the Rappahannock River on the night of May 5. Considering that he held a virtually impregnable position, historians hypothesize that this was perhaps Hooker's greatest mistake of the campaign.
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| View of the site of the Bullock House (the earthworks are behind and to the right of where this photo was taken) |
Continuing on Elys Ford Road towards Plank Road, the next stop was the Chancellor House Site. The home of the Chancellor family since the 1820s, it served as Hooker's headquarters during the battle. The house was burned by Confederate artillery shells during the fighting.
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| Union artillery pointed in the direction of Hazel Grove |
At this point, we took a wrong turn, but we eventually found our way back to the tour route and Stops #4-7.
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| From here, Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws' division kept Union forces occupied while Jackson's troops marched around Hooker's army to attack his flank |
The area surrounding Chancellorsville was known as the Wilderness because the soil was no longer suitable for farming after repeated tobacco planting. However, it was rich in minerals such as iron. An ironworks called Catherine Furnace operated here from 1837-1847, using local trees as fuel and deforesting the area as a result. But by the 1860s, dense second growth forests had reclaimed the surroundings. With the onset of the war, investors restarted Catherine Furnace to supply pig iron for the Confederate navy. Jackson's troops passed by here during their march around the Union Army on May 2, 1863.
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| The base of the furnace stack is all that remains of the Catherine Furnace ironworks |
By now it was almost 1:30PM, so we decided to skip the last three Chancellorsville stops (Jackson's Flank Attack, Hazel Grove, and Fairview) and grabbed a quick lunch from Bojangles, a regional fast food chain known for its fried chicken and biscuits. We arrived at Prince William Forest Park around 2:45PM.
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| ☑ Unit #205 (#199 for R) |
Prince William Forest Park was originally established as the Chopawamsic Recreation Demonstration Area (RDA) during the Great Depression in 1935. The purpose of Chopawamsic (and other RDAs modeled after it) was to repurpose marginal, overworked farmland into camps for low-income, inner city children and families to get away and experience the great outdoors. Here the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built roads, trails, dams, and cabin camps as part of a program to reduce unemployment and teach job skills.
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| The canopy |
Next we moved the car to the parking area by the Telegraph Picnic Pavilion to get to the trailhead for the Crossing Trail, so named because it intersects with a portion of a historic north-south route used by American Indians and early settlers. During the Revolutionary War, American and French troops commanded by George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau used this road on their way south to Yorktown.
Then we took the Scenic Drive (12-mile loop) through the park in search of fall foliage, but we were too early to see much color. I'm guessing that we would have had a better chance in early November.
For those keeping track (ahem, me 🙋🏻♀️), here's the stamp total after today:
Units: 75
Stamps: 212
Regions: 6
By the time we finished up here, it was after 4:00PM, so we hopped onto I-95 N to I-495 N to US-50 W to get back to the same hotel we stayed at in Fairfax when we first arrived almost a week ago. We had just enough time to rest for a bit and clean up before meeting two of R's high school classmates for dinner at Mama Chang.
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| So fun to hang out with H and A (and one of her sons, S)! |
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| Top: pork soup dumplings Middle: salt and pepper shrimp, garlic cucumber salad, tofu skin salad, lo mein Bottom: braised pork ribs with Chinese yam, scallion bubble pancake |
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| 95 miles, 2.5h |
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