| Virginia, Fredericksburg — N 31 — Kenmore |
| | Four blocks west stands Kenmore, built in 1775 by Col. Fielding Lewis for his wife, Betty, sister of George Washington. Near here, between Kenmore and the Rappahannock River, stood Lewis’s warehouses and docks. Kenmore’s intricate plasterwork is the finest in the country. Among 19th-century owners and occupants were Samuel Gordon, who named it Kenmore, and William Key Howard, Jr., who restored and embellished the mansion’s plasterwork. Washington and other Revolutionary leaders often visited, . . . — Map (db m1149) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — A Vast Hospital |
| | Wounded Union Soldiers in a Fredericksburg yard, May 1864. All but one of these men have been wounded in the leg. Most of the wounded soldiers brought to Fredericksburg survived…
…But some did not. Hundreds of men died in the hospitals here during May and June 1864. Private Kronenberger’s headboard may be among the long row of graves visible behind this burial party.
“…I am lying in this place with a wound in my right leg, below the knee. I am in good spirits and the Drs. . . . — Map (db m2575) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — The Courthouse |
| | With the arrival of the Union army in the Spring of 1862, Fredericksburg-area slaves by the hundreds fled to freedom. To house the refugees, the Union army transformed the basement of the city courthouse (in front of you) into a temporary barracks. A Union officer remembered that the former slaves “seemed as happy as though they owned the town.”
After the war, the “Freedman’s Court” held session every Friday afternoon in the city courthouse, adjudicating civil cases . . . — Map (db m2567) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — The “Demon of Destruction” |
| | Had the demon of destruction held an orgie in the town, had all the imps of hell been called together and turned loose upon the city, it could scarcely have been more blasted, ruined and desecrated than when left by the Yankee army.”
—A correspondent of the Charleston Courier, December 16, 1862
It started with shelling from 140 Union guns on the morning of December 11, 1862—two days before the Battle of Fredericksburg. Whizzing shell fragments, tumbling . . . — Map (db m2576) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — War Comes to Fredericksburg |
| | “The General punishes most severely any [soldier] caught in the most trivial act. He says [we must] show the Southern People we will act with true Yankee Hospitality even to the worst treasonable communities.”
—Charles Scriber, 24th New York
May 23, 1862
War first came to Fredericksburg in the spring of 1862 when more than 30,000 Union troops under General Irvin McDowell occupied the area.
Though most of the Union camps lined the . . . — Map (db m2584) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Gun from the CSS Virginia |
| | This nine-inch smooth bore “Dahlgren” gun is one of the few remaining artifacts from the CSS Virginia (formerly known as the USS Merrimack). This gun saw action on March 8, 1862 off of Hampton, Virginia when the Virginia encountered and easily defeated the USS Cumberland and USS Congress. The barrel was damaged by the Cumberland during the battle. The next day the Virginia fought in the now famous battle with the USS Monitor. . . . — Map (db m1127) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Hostages |
| | In the summer of 1862, Confederate authorities imprisoned four Union men from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County. The arrested Unionists were local citizens in good standing, but who refused to renounce their allegiance to the United States. They were imprisoned in Richmond for disloyalty to the Confederacy.
In July and August, Federal authorities retaliated by rounding up nineteen local men, holding them briefly at the Farmers Bank (now the National Bank of Fredericksburg, two blocks . . . — Map (db m1146) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Fredericksburg — Civil War Sites |
| | For 18 months Fredericksburg was at the heart of the Civil War. Union and Confederate soldiers camped here, fought here and died here. Today there are many sites within the city. Civil War walking tour information is available free at the Fredericksburg Visitor Center. — Map (db m9093) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Fredericksburg — Where 100,000 Fell |
| | Because of the immense amount of fighting that occurred here, the Fredericksburg area has been called the vortex of the Civil War. Four major battles - Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House - resulting in approximately 100,000 casualties, took place within twenty miles of the town. The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park administers these battlefields and three related sites: Chatham, Salem Church and the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. A . . . — Map (db m9096) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — N-31~a — The Sentry Box |
| | The Sentry Box (ca. 1786) is an elegant specimen of late~Georgian~style architecture. Brig. Gen. George Weedon of the Continental Army, later mayor of Fredericksburg, built the house and named it to reflect his military career. Weedon's wife, Catherine, invited the family of Gen. Hugh Mercer, who died at the Battle of Princeton, to live with them. The Mercer children later inherited the property and Confederate General Hugh Weedon Mercer was born here. In December 1862, the Union army built its . . . — Map (db m5095) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Marye’s Heights |
| | A Northern photographer took this picture of Marye’s Heights in May 1864, setting up his camera in front of “Federal Hill,” a large white house approximately 250 yards to your left-rear. Seventeen months earlier, thousands of Union soldiers caught a glimpse of this panoramic view as they hurried past Federal Hill on their way to attack Marye’s Heights. Although streets and houses now cover the plain where thousands of soldiers died, important remnants of the Civil War landscape . . . — Map (db m1066) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — The Canal Ditch |
| | The post-Civil War street in front of you, Kenmore Avenue, covers a wartime millrace or canal ditch. On December 13, 1862, the ditch became a maddening obstacle to Union soldiers advancing against Marye’s Heights. Five feet deep, 15 feet wide, and filled with frigid water, it could only be crossed on three battered bridges. As the Federals funneled across the waterway, they were pummeled by Confederate artillery. Once across the ditch, the Federals formed in the shelter of a slight bluff, then . . . — Map (db m1067) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Ravaged Town |
| | Fredericksburg had enjoyed more than a century of comfortable prosperity by 1860. Although its economic heydey was past, the town’s elegant houses, numerous churches, and shady, tree-lined streets bespoke lingering wealth and refinement.
The Civil War shattered the town’s stately tranquility. On December 11, 1862, some 150 Union cannon fired on Fredericksburg, toppling walls and setting fire to buildings. Confederate artillery added to the destruction, targeting Union soldiers who occupied, . . . — Map (db m2577) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Fredericksburg Campaign |
| | December 13, 1862. The blue columns of the Army of the Potomac deployed here in the Canal Ditch valley, along the route of present Kenmore Avenue. Then with drums beating and flags flying, the long battle lines advanced towards Marye’s Heights and were mowed down by Confederate artillery and musketry fire. — Map (db m2515) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — The Canal Ditch: Battlefield Obstacle |
| | The Rappahannock Canal fed lesser waterways that powered a variety of small industries. One of these secondary drainages branched off from the main canal in this area and became an obstacle to Federal troops during the 1862 battle of Fredericksburg.
On December 12 , the 82nd New York Infantry Regiment cleared Confederate pickets from a paper mill (no longer standing) between the main canal and what was called the canal ditch. They secured the gates to close off the water flow, but the . . . — Map (db m1070) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — To the Confederate Dead |
| | (Text of tablet placed in 1992):In honor of Confederate Soldiers who died in Fredericksburg Oct 1861 through Mar 1862 and buried in Barton St. Cemetery No record of reinterment when site reused in 1920 Alabama 14th Infantry- Archer G.W. Barron W Blair R Brooks J M Chalk B P Clark J D Croxton L A Dunson W W Ginty W C Harper J Lee W C Stiff W C Tapier B P Thompson T J Web W W Arkansas Barnett J D - 3 Inf Davis R H - 3 Inf McCalie A J - 2 Inf Philips J L - 1 Inf . . . — Map (db m14425) HM |
| Virginia, Fredericksburg — Clara Barton |
| | 1862 - 1962 In Memory of Clara BartonFounder of the American Red Cross. A devoted nurse and tireless organizer who knew no enemy but the unfeeling heart. We walk the ways she took in easing the suffering at the Battle of Fredericksburg when the churches became military hospitals. — Map (db m14428) HM |
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