Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. . , Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, this is the bloodiest landscape in North America. No place more vividly reflects the Civil War's cost in all its forms. A city bombarded, bloodied, and looted. Farms large and small ruined. Refugees by the thousands forced into the countryside. More than 85,000 men wounded; 15,000 killed, most now in graves unknown., The fading scars of battle, the home places of bygone families, and the granite tributes to those who fought still mark these lands. These places reveal the trials of a community and nation at war, a virtuous tragedy that freed four million Americans and reunited a nation. To visit the battlefields, begin your tour at either the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center or the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center., [Captions:] , Drive five miles west on Rt. 606 to Interstate 95. From there, go north 12 miles to Exit 130. Brown road signs there will direct you to the Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville battlefield visitor centers., Wilderness Battlefield , For two days Union and Confederate soldiers grappled with one another in the woods 15 miles west of Fredericksburg. James Horace Lacy's house, "Ellwood," was headquarters during the battle., Chancellorsville Battlefield , Robert E. Lee forged victory against great odds hear but suffered the irreparable loss of his brilliant subordinate "Stonewall" Jackson., Spotsylvania Battlefield , Two weeks of gruesome combat culmination in hand-to-hand fighting at this turn in the Confederate line, known as the Bloody Angle., Chatham , This colonial plantation is the only private home in America to have played host to both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, it served as a Union headquarters and hospital., Fredericksburg Battlefield , Protected by a stone wall, Confederate defenders turned back wave after wave of brave but futile Union assaults at the Sunken Road.