Photos - Fredericksburg National Cemetery Illumination

Last night, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park held it's 20th annual National Cemetery Illumination to commemorate Memorial Day. This wonderful event is a partnership involving Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and other helping hands (nearly 1,000 volunteers all told). The beautiful cemetery was lit up with more than 15,300 candles--one light for each soldier resting at peace on the heights made famous during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. In addition to the illuminaries, NPS staff and volunteers stationed themselves at various points throughout the cemetery to share individual stories of fallen soldiers.

The United States Congress created the National Cemetery in July of 1865, just three months after the end of the Civil War. It became the resting place for more than 15,000 United States soldiers. Most of these are Union soldiers who died in camps near Fredericksburg due to disease, or in one of the four major battles and countless minor actions that took place around Fredericksburg during the war.  Roughly 100 of the graves are 20th century soldiers, and a few spouses, but the cemetery closed to new burials during the 1940s. About 12,000 of the 15,000 soldiers buried here have not been identified.

According to Fredericksubrg & Spotslyvania's twitter feed - last night's commemoration seemed on its way to an attendance record, with more than 6,600 people with an hour left to go.

The illuminaria is a fitting way to commemorate fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. The tradition harkens back to the very origins of Memorial Day, a holiday that grew out of emerging traditions of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

Following the Assault on Marye's Heights

Fredericksburg from Chatham Manor.

Sunday turned into a sunny, 65 degree here in Virginia - the kind of February weather I could get used to after living in Central New York for seven years. Emily and I decided to take advantage of the weather to make a visit to a battlefield. My wife is a fan of strolling through historic urban landscapes, and so I thought Fredericksburg offered the perfect setting to combine both of our interests. This visit marked my fifth to the Fredericksburg battlefield, and my first in about ten years. On all of my previous visits I crammed multiple battlefields into one day. Now that we live a short drive away, though, we decided to take our time. We ended up spending our whole day focused on the battle for the city and the assault on Marye's Heights, leaving Jackson's front for another day.

While the National Park Service preserves the Confederate positions along the sunken road, development took over the open fields through which the Army of the Potomac advanced against the heights long ago. I remember feeling disappointed on my first few visits by how little you could visualize standing along the stonewall. As a result, I spent most of my time elsewhere, studying the ground along Jackson's lines, or moving on to Chancellorsville.

Getting a good sense of the assault on Marye's Heights takes some work, but it can be done. You can find interpretive signage throughout the town, and the NPS has developed two excellent walking tour scripts, "Fire in the Streets" and "Assault on Marye's Heights," which you can download for free online. We however decided to make use of the Civil War Preservation Trust's Fredericksburg Battle App. The App has four tours total; we focused our attention on tour (1), "The Fight for the Town," and tour (3), "Marye's Heights." Each tour features excellent, GPS enabled maps that help you move from stop to stop, while each stop has a detailed description of what happened there, often including audio clips of first-hand accounts and videos of Park Rangers interpreting the combat. The Trust's Battle Apps are free to download, and an excellent resource to have with you if you own a smart phone.

We began our visit on the opposite side of the Rappahannock River at Chatham. The Georgian mansion built between 1768 and 1771 overlooks the city of Fredericksburg atop Stafford Heights. We were the first visitors of the day, and an enthusiastic volunteer greeted us as we entered, and happily answered any questions that we had as we toured the exhibits inside the house. The overlook on the river side of the house is the perfect place to explain Burnside's plan, the attempt to build the pontoon bridges, and the bombardment of the city on December 11th.

After spending a good 45 minutes at Chatham, we jumped into our car, took a short drive over the Chatham Bridge into the historic downtown and parked our car in a public parking lot along Sophia Street. We spent the rest of the day on foot. We strolled down Sophia Street to the site of the upper crossing site, and learned about the river assault of the 7th Michigan. Our path then turned left, up Hawke Street, following the soldiers of the 7th Michigan, along with the 19th and 20th Massachusetts. In the intersection of Hawke and Caroline Streets, we paused to hear NPS Ranger Frank O'Reilly recount the 20th Massachusetts' bloody encounter with William Barksdale's Missippians.

Photo taken at the upper crossing site, utilizing the Fredericksburg App's augmented reality "Field Glasses" feature.

The tour route then took us down Princess Anne Street, past many prominent buildings that stood in 1862, as we continued to learn about the urban combat of December 11th, the flight of terrified civilians, and the looting of the wrecked town that began that evening. At George Street, we turned right and began to make our way towards what would have been the edge of town in December of 1862. At Hurkamp Park we reached stop one of our second tour, the assault on Marye's Heights. This tour traced the route of the Army of the Potomac's multiple assaults against the heights on December 13th, leading us along George and Hanover Streets. While the development of the city has destroyed much of the distinctive landscape of the battlefield, such as the mill race federal soldiers had to cross under artillery fire, other features remain despite the development. The App and interpretive signage along the route did a nice job of pointing out the location of rises of ground and swales that still exist today and served as limited cover for the federal assault columns.

The Sunken Road.

We paused our tour for a quick, inexpensive, but excellent lunch at the Sunken Well Tavern at the corner of Hanover and Littlepage, the site of Sisson's Store during the battle, and continued our hike past the Stratton House and up Mercer Street. Here soldiers from the 12th New Hampshire made it as far as any federal soldiers, about fifty yards from the stonewall. Finally, after a mile or so of hiking, we arrived at the Sunken Road and NPS land. We toured the Confederate infantry posts at the base of Marye's Heights, climbed the hill to view their artillery positions, and took a brief stroll through the National Cemetery before looping back around to begin our march back into the historic downtown. We concluded our day with a stop at Hyperion Expresso on the corner of Princess Anne and William Streets, a excellent spot that fueled us for the drive back to Charlottesville.

While you have to use your imagination along the way, you can still get a sense of the terrain and obstacles that made the assault against Marye's Heights such a disastrous undertaking. If you have the time to spend, and feel up for a walk of two to three miles, it will give you a better appreciation for the assault on Marye's Heights from Union perspective.

A Winter of Discontent

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, one of the great Union disasters of the Civil War.  Already this morning I've found some great content and reflection, from John Hennessy, Kristopher D. White, and Kevin Levin.

In Gettysburg Pennsylvania, the news of the terrible slaughter at Fredericksburg filtered in over the days and weeks following the 13th. In December of 1862, Gettysburg was a town with deep partisan divides coming off a closely fought election season. As such, the citizens of Gettysburg received their news through partisan filters - the Democratic views receiving expression in the Gettysburg Compiler, and the Republican views represented by the Star & Banner and the Adams Sentinel.

On December 16, the Sentinel published the first incomplete accounts of the engagement. By the following week, the full story was known. The news came at a low point in the Union war effort. At the start of the summer of 1862, victory seemed imminent for federal arms, with armies making progress in the west and the Army of the Potomac inching to within miles of Richmond. In the intervening six months, the war had been turned on its head. That fall had seen Rebel armies take the offensive. Though these movements were repulsed, northerners realized that they would end 1862 no closer to victory than they had began it. Republicans suffered badly in the mid-term elections that fall.

News of the one-sided defeat at Fredericksburg just as the year was coming to a close seemed to underline the failings of the year. The Compiler responded to the disaster on December 22nd:

THE NATION MOURNS
Under this caption, the Patriot & Union says:--The contending emotions of sorrow and anger fill the breasts of the Nation to-day. Our armies before Fredericksburg have been compelled to fall back; and while we are still in the dark as to the actual loss they sustained in the worse than useless encounter into which they have been precipitated; while anxiety is wide spread in every heart and anguish wrings the bosoms of the friends of the gallant slain; while every patriot mourns the loss, and every honest man blushes with shame at the new repulse; while the clouds gather and the future looks black with forebodings; while there is horror enough, God knows, for all of us--anger, deep, resolute and overwhelming, is knitting the sinews and stirring up the blood of an earnest, outraged people.

Failure upon failure, millions upon millions, hundreds of thousands of precious lives, disaster, labor, carnage, sacrifice--and will not these suffice?

What more of blood and ruin will the insatiate passion have? How long shall we stand dumb and silent, and submit? How long shall we suffer? Have we not drank the bitter cup of madness to the dregs?

There is not mere momentary passion in the thought. The gathering rage which swells the honest indignation of the land from east to west, like the deep heaving of the troubled sea, is a precursor of the approaching storm, which, if it shall ever come up on us in its fell fury, will sweep before it the curse of the nation's danger and agony, as the rushing tornado sweeps the forest and the fields in its mad, resistless career.

We have no heart to write more on the subject of that ill-judged and murderous conflict, forced upon a reluctant General by the peremptory commands of his superiors--a conflict in which, it is said, our loss will fall little short of 20,000, in killed, wounded and missing, ending in disastrous defeat, and the retreat of the army across the river to its original position near Falmouth--a position which should never have been taken, or, if taken, never left to attack the impregnable position of the enemy in front.

To close out the year, the Sentinel tried to put a more positive spin on the dismal news on December 30:

Gen. Burnside, in his preliminary report of the battle of Fredericksburg, assumes the entire responsibility for that unsuccessful movement, and states the reasons that induced him to cross the river at that point and attack the Rebels in front. The delay in the construction of pontoon bridges caused by the enemy's sharpshooters, and the subsequent fog, disarranged his plans and enabled the Rebels to concentrate their forces. As it was, the army came very near carrying the crest in the rear of the town. Failing, however, in this, the army remained for two days in line of battle, when finding that the enemy would not come out to attack, the river was re-crossed, and our troops withdrew without loss of men or property, and "marched to their positions as if going on parade--not the least demoralization or disorganization existing." The condition and spirits of the army is excellent. Gen. Burnside's despatch is frank and soldierly in the extreme, neither seeking to avoid responsibility for his course or to cast blame upon others. Of the extreme gallantry, courage and endurance of the troops, and of the good conduct of the officers, he speaks in most exalted terms.

 As the citizens of Gettysburg prepared for a long winter, and a long war, no Democrat or Republican in the town could have predicted how the new year would change their lives forever.

Fredericksburg Prepares for its 150th

I should have a new post up this weekend continuing my exploration of Alexander H. Coffroth and the 1864 election controversy in Pennsylvania's 16th district - which included Gettysburg.

In the meantime - the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg approaches, perhaps the low point of the Union war effort. In anticipation of the upcoming commemorative events, John Hennessy has a great post on a fixture of Fredericksburg's downtown landscape. It's a great exploration of how history surrounds us every day.