Another day of mystery sightseeing!!
First off we headed to the Fredericksburg Battlefield. The National Park Service does an incredible job with preserving and educating the public about these treasures. We joined a Ranger tour and our guide was a history teacher. Great speaker! We thought it was funny that he made a comment of loving to share his knowledge with people who actually wanted to listen. I think he said he was a middle school teacher.
He described the two guys in charge at this particular battle. Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was 2nd from the top of his class at West Point. And Union General Ambrose Burnside.
Burnside never wanted the job, but did it anyway. Probably shouldn’t have though. A few facts about Burnside; second to the bottom of his class at West Point, loved cards but was a very poor gambler, had a business that failed, and he was left at the altar by a bride who ran out of the church screaming! I'm not making this up. The Ranger told us this. Maybe it was the first time she saw him and his facial hairdo!! Anyway, the guy had bad mojo and took many poor risks at the expense of the Union soldiers. Here at Fredericksburg the Confederates described it as a slaughter. It was the most one-sided battle of the war.
Lee had his army all along the sunken road. It had been a main road and compacted down over the years. This is the actual sunken road and the stonewall next to it.
From this angle you better understand the protection it afforded the South. The South only had 9 cannon, while the North had 150. Problem was, Burnside sent the soldiers over to fight and the cannon were still on the other side of the river.
He sent regiment after regiment marching towards this sunken road and the artillery above. A regiment of men was usually all from the same town or county. Many were related, so it really hit home when it was wiped out. Burnside kept sending regiment after regiment until it got dark.
This man was Sergeant Richard Kirkland with the 2nd South Carolina. When the fighting ended the first day he could hear wounded Union soldiers lying out on the battlefield begging for water and help. He risked his life by climbing out of the protection of the sunken road and giving them water and putting their packs under their heads. At first other Union soldiers shot at him until they realized what he was doing. When the shooting stopped, other Confederate soldiers climbed out of the sunken road and also tended the wounded. Richard Kirkland was known as The Angel of Marye’s Heights. He was eventually killed at the Battle of Chickamauga.
After the 5-day battle, it is estimated Lee lost around 4600 men. Burnside suffered the loss of around 13,000 men.
The Fredericksburg National Cemetery adjoins the battlefield. Of the 15,300 men here, the identities of fewer than 3,000 are known.
Many of the soldiers were buried together. This marker indicates that 5 men are buried at marker 2218.
Next stop, Chancellorsville. It was a beautiful day so we ate a picnic lunch before joining up with a Ranger talk and learning about the battle here. By the time this battle happen, General Joseph Hooker had replaced Burnside. He was a little better than Burnside but was described as mostly interested in his own self-interests. He made some bonehead decisions and more Union soldiers were slaughtered. It’s amazing the North ever won the war.
A major war-altering event that happened here was the death of Stonewall Jackson. He was a quirky, hypochondriac who constantly ate lemons. But he was a military genius. He was out on a night reconnaissance mission and his own men mistakenly shot him. He was taken to a nearby field hospital where his arm was amputated. His troops loved him and took his arm to a nearby estate and buried the arm in a family cemetery.
The arm is still buried there. I asked a Ranger, because I couldn’t believe it was still there. Or that they didn’t take it and bury it along with Jackson in Lexington since he died shortly after the amputation. Evidently Mrs. Jackson was asked about it, but since the arm had received a Christian burial she said to leave it in the little cemetery. The marker was placed there by a soldier who was with Jackson the night he was shot.
We took a driving tour of the remaining Chancellorsville area. Mark would drive to the numbered points on our map, and Ross would read aloud the info on the guide.
We got out at this site and walked it. In one of the cannons we discovered this bluebird nest.
From here we drove to Deltaville and the Oddysea.
