Fredericksburg, VA, about 50 mile south of Washington, DC, sits on the west side of Rappahannock River and was the site of a major Civil War battle in late 1862. I photographed this scene several years ago on the Memorial Day weekend. For those three days, the town was full of re-enactors, both Union and Confederate. I remember sitting at an outdoor restaurant on the main street having lunch, and seeing Union and Confederate soldiers walking up and down the street. Very strange.
These rebels were camped right on the river (you can see it in the background). Just across the river that day was an encampment of Union troops, which was how it was back in 1862. The rebels held the town at the beginning of the battle.
The river played an important role back then…it is a tidal river which means it goes up and down on a regular basis. It looks easy to cross, and at times, it is. But the Union commander, General Burnside, refused to cross the river until pontoon bridges were brought down from Washington, DC. Those bridges were delayed, giving General Lee time to fortify the town and the heights above the town.
The Union headquarters, on the other side of the river, was high on a bluff overlooking the city. The house once belonged to George Washington and his family, and, ironically, is where Robert E. Lee proposed to his future wife.
When the bridges finally arrived and were set up (at no small cost of life and limb to those Union engineers who did the assembly, Union troops crossed into the town and eventually occupied it. They then preceded to unceremoniously loot the town. The rebels retreated from the town and moved up to the higher ground, mainly to the high ridges on Marye’s Heights.
The not-so-brilliant General Burnside, then sent waves of infantry up the long sloping heights. They were met with an incessant hail of gunfire and canon shot, killing thousands of troops. But he kept sending them, wave after wave, until it became obvious he would not achieve his objective.
On my trip to Fredericksburg, I spent time both in town and up on Marye’s Heights. It was a sobering experience, to say the least, thinking about what happened here. The re-enactors made it all the better experience.
A few months after the first battle, another battle was fought just a few miles out of town at a place called Chancellorsville. Once again, Robert E. Lee won the day with brilliant field tactics. The Union army again suffered another embarrassing defeat, but the rebels also suffered a major loss…Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by his own soldiers and died a week later.
In the fading light of day I visited the Chancellorsville battlefield and found the spot where Jackson was shot. Another sobering experience and a chance to appreciate what happened back in 1862 and early 1863 and how it shaped our history. Living out west, you don’t get to experience this kind of living history.
With the heady success of the Confederate army in Virginia, the southern leadership decided to send Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia north into Pennsylvania, to attack the Union in their territory for once…and, with luck threaten Washington DC. But, in Pennsylvania, they met a different Union general in the summer of 1863, at a place where the most important battle of the war was fought. The town…Gettysburg.
(Click here for more information on the battle of Fredericksburg)
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