Posts Tagged ‘Fredericksburg’
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park
Posted by Chris | Filed under Central Virginia, State Parks, Trail Information
This 7,787 acre national military park, comprising numerous scattered units in and near Fredericksburg, protects and interprets four major Civil War battles: Fredericksburg, December 11-13, 1862; Chancellorsville, May 1-4, 1863; the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864; and Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864. The park also features Chatham Manor, Old Sale Church, and the building in which Confederate General Stonewall Jackson died.
Fredericksburg
Following a number of intense clashes between Union and Confederate tropps at Fredericksburg in December 1862, one of the worst military disasters of the Civil War resulted in a devastating defeat for the Union army, with casualties totaling at least 12,500 men. The site of this killing field was below Marye’s Heights, a strategic hill that, as was known to the Union forces, was bristling with Confederate batteries of cannon and infantry. What the Union commanders did not know, however, was what lay hidden at the base of the hill, along a sunken road and out of sight behind the breastwork of a stone wall.
As the first Union brigade of soldiers charged across a 400-yard expanse of open ground in an attempt to storm the hill, they were suddenly mowed down by the massive volley of Confederate musket fire that erupted from behind the wall. From noon until dark, wave after wave charged across the field, but each suffered the same fate. The slaughter continued, with not a single Northerner ever reaching the wall. Feeling from this defeat, the demoralized Union army withdrew northward across the Rappahannock River.
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