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.

Chancellorsville

Nearly five months later, in early May 1863, the next fierce occurred around Chancellorsville, about ten miles to the northwest of Fredericksburg. Even though the Confederates were greatly outnumbered, they nevertheless achieved another victory. In the final clash of the battle, Confederates opened a withering attack upon a 22,000 man Union force that, earlier in the day, had captured the defenses in and around Fredericksburg. Heavy casualties from those several days of fighting totaled more than 17,000 Union and nearly 13,000 Confederate soldiers.

The Wilderness
A year later, two days at savage, confused, hand-to-hand combat occurred between Union and Confederate armies in an area of dense scrubby pines and oaks known as the Wilderness, about 15 miles northwest of Fredericksburg. The smoke from forest fires reduced visibility further, adding to the chaos of the conflict. Union casualties totaled nearly 18,000 men, while the Confederates sustained more than 8,000 killed, wounded, or captured. Unlike previous Union commanders in the Virginia campaign, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant refused to retreat. Instead, he ordered his forces on southward, in a campaign designed to wear down and ultimately defeat General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army.

Spotsylvania Court House

Several days later, the armies clashed again in fierce combat at the important crossroads junction of Spotsylvania Court House. Some of the most brutal combat of the Civil War occurred at a U-shaped salient known as the “mule shoe.” The Union forces far outnumbered and soon overwhelmed the Confederates. As more and more reinforcements on both sides poured into the battle around the jutting angle, savage hand-to-hand warfare erupted, with soldiers using bayonets, knives, clubs, rocks, and bare fists. For 20 hours, the slaughtering raged on, made worse by a downpour of rain and deepening mud, and after midnight, the Southerners finally retreated to form new defense lines. For all the fighting, which continued for the next two weeks, there were no measurable gains for either side. Following the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, the area around Fredericksburg became an enormous open-air hospital, where surgeons labored around the clock attending to the 20,000 wounded Union and Confederate soldiers.

The park has two visitor centers, providing interpretive exhibits, an audiovisual program, and publications. One is near the base of Marye’s Heights at 1013 Lafayette Boulevard in the Fredericksburg unit, and the other is at Chancellorsville, eight miles west of I-95 on State Route 3. A self-guided auto tour and self-guided walking routes lead to points of interest. Other interpretive facilities include exhibit shelters at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House units.The park headquarters is located in the red-brick, 18th century style plantation mansion, Chatham Manor, to the north of the Rappahannock River. This gran old structure served as a Union army headquarters and field hospital during the Civil War. The park also offers walking tours during the summer, and picnic areas are available at all four battlefield units, Chatham Manor, and the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. Access to the park includes State Route 3, east from I-95 to Fredericksburg and west from I-95 to the Chancellorsville and Wilderness units. One of the accesses to the Spotslyvania Court House unit is on State Route 613, southeast from State Route 3, just to the east of the Wilderness Battlefield.