Fredericksburg Battlefield

Over Memorial Day a couple weeks ago, we visited the Fredericksburg National Battlefield, which is about an hour from our home. The town is lined with historic homes and churches, and was the site of some of the first urban combat in American history in the battle of 1862. We first walked along the Sunken Road, lined by a stone wall where US soldiers marched towards the Confederate line, but the troops behind the stone wall and at Marye’s Heights defended the line, leaving Federal soldiers with a huge loss. 

Civil war cannons

Cemetery for the soldiers

Afterwards we walked downtown 

There was a park down by the river.

Next we visited Chatham Manor, built in 1771 by slaves and craftsmen for William Fitzhugh. It sits on top of Stafford Heights and has a view of the town of Fredericksburg. The mansion hosted friends of the Fitzhughs, to include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason, until they sold it 35 years later. During the Civil War, the home was owned by the Lacy family. When J. Horace Lacy volunteered to serve in the Confederate Army, his wife Betty allowed the home ot be used as the US Army headquarters during the Battle of Fredricksburg, and then into a field hospital, where Clara Barton, Mary Walker, and Walt Whitman served in the hospital caring for the sick and wounded soldiers. Following the war, the home was sold a few times and is now owned by the National Park Service. 

We all enjoyed visiting the Fredericksburg Battlefield and Chatham Manor.