Richmond

After several days at Gettysburg, we traveled to Richmond, Virginia which was the Capital of the Confederate States of America. On our way to Richmond, we stopped at Fredericksburg, Virginia which was the site of a major battle in December 1862.

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in December 1862 around Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was one of the most embarrassing Union defeats of the war that was complicated by the Union’s delay at the Rappahannock River due to the lack of portable pontoon bridges used to cross the river. The delay allowed General Lee time to re-unite his army and secure a very strong defensive position at the base of the Marye’s Heights in an impromptu trench formed by a stone wall bordering a sunken road. In this photo, you can see the beginning of the high ground on the left, the road, and the stone wall. As wave after wave of Union forces advanced across open fields in front of the wall, they were met by artillery fire from the entrenched Confederates. The losses from this battle were staggering - 12,653 Union soldiers killed, wounded, or missing; 5,377 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or missing. 

After the battle was over and hundreds of wounded Union soldiers lay on the field in front of the wall, Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina climbed over the stone fence the next day to provide water and comfort to many wounded Union soldiers earning himself the nickname “Angel of Marye’s Heights.”

Near the battlefield is the Fredericksburg National Cemetery where a lot of the Union soldiers are buried. Because the magnitude of the losses, most of the soldiers weren’t ever identified before they were buried.

Most of the stones have two numbers - the top number is the plot number and the bottom number is the number of bodies laid to rest in that plot. Of the15,300 men buried in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, the identities of fewer than 3,000 are known.

After the Battle of Fredericksburg, President Lincoln was heart-broken. Lincoln himself wrote, “If there is a worse place than hell, I’m in it.” This battle was a low point for President Lincoln and the North.