During the Civil War, approximately 20,000 solders died in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia. In the Battle of Fredericksburg alone, the Union army suffered 12,653 casualties and Confederate army 5,377. Even in such brutal times, humanitarian spirits shined through ordinary soldiers.
Lee’s Hill where General Robert Lee and other members of the Confederate high command watched the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862. Witnessing the slaughter, Lee remarked, “It is well this is so terrible! We would grow too fond of it.”
Fredericksburg National Cemetery – the final resting place for Union soldiers who died during the Civil War on area battlefields. Of the 15,300 men buried here, the identities of fewer than 3000 are known whose graves are marked by a rounded granite headstone. Unknown soldiers were buried in mass graves marked with small stones bearing two numbers: the first number identifies the plot; the second is the number of soldiers buried in that plot.
Monument at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park dedicated to Richard Rowland Kirkland, a young Confederate soldier who, during the the Battle of Fredericksburg, risked his own life onto the battlefield back and forth several times to give the wounded Union soldiers water, warm clothing, and blankets, as soldiers from both sides watched on, and no one fired a shot.
