Fredericksburg Battlefield

Today we were going to the 150th Anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Unfortunately, we got a late start and got to sit in traffic with what seemed to be 3/4 of the DC Metro Area headed south.  So, we never made it.  Instead we stopped in Fredericksburg and visited the battlefield there.

"Fredericksburg Campaign: December 11, 1862.  The peacetime bridges having been destroyed, engineers of Burnside's Federal Army began laying pontoons across the Rappahannock.  Here, overlooking the upper pontoon site, Confederates of Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, sheltered in houses and cellars along this street, stopped the work.  Bombardment by Federal cannon failed to dislodge the sharpshooters.  Finally, the 7th Michigan Regiment, followed by the 19th Massachusetts, crossed the river in boats to establish a bridgehead.  The pontoon bridges were completed, and the 20th Massachusetts secured the streets.  Barksdale's Mississippians fell back during the night.  The next day thousands of Federals poured over two bridges here and others down river, in preparation for the attack against Lee's main line."

The sunken road at Marye's Heights where about 3,000 Confederate infantrymen were lined up in multiple ranks behind the stone wall for about 600 yards, and another 3,000 were atop the slope behind it, along with their artillery. 

"This frame building, known as the Innis (or Ennis) house, stands as a mute witness to the terrible combat that engulfed this spot. Located on 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 remain as visible today as they were in 1862."

Part of the original wall along the road.

Entrance to the cemetery

"Fredericksburg Campaign: December 13, 1862.  On this ridge called Marye's Heights, blazed the cannon of Col. J. B. Walton's Louisiana battalion, the Washington Artillery.  Late in the day, out of ammunition, it yielded the post to Col. E. P. Alexander's Artillery.  Gen. Robert Ransom's North Carolina infantrymen supported the guns and reinforced Cobb's Georgians and Kershaw's South Carolinians in the Sunken Road below. The open field of attack was raked 'as if with a fine-tooth comb,' Alexander assured corps commander James Longstreet.  'A chicken could not live on that field.'"

The Rappahannock River