Fredericksburg

Today, Tuesday, 26 April, we spent the day in and around Fredericksburg, VA, home to some important Civil-War sites as well as some significant George-Washington-related sites. We had to be home by 4:00 P.M. to meet the school bus, which we did in just the nick of time: Rob opened the garage door from half a block away as Lucy arrived at in the front yard.

We visited the site of the Battle of Fredericksburg south-west above the city along Sunken Road, an important route from Richmond to Washington. Above the road is a higher rise called Marye's Heights. From these two positions Lee's army was able to repel Burnside's Union troop's attack: the Confederates were so well protected that it was like shooting fish in a barrel as the Union soldiers stormed the open ground below.

The girlies on the Sunken Road with the Innis House behind

The bullet-riddled interior wall of the Innis House

Reading the marker on Marye's Heights

The view over Fredericksburg from Marye's Heights

In Fredericksburg, we visited Kenmore House (1775), built by Fielding Lewis and his wife, Betty Washington Lewis, George Washington's sister. It is wonderfully restored and lovingly cared for, though without furniture. The house is Late-Georgian, though the exterior is much more in the Early-Georgian style. The plaster work on the ceilings and overmantles is some of the finest in America. George Washington purchased a house for his mother just a two blocks to the east so she could be near her daughter. Washington was raised just across the Rappahannock River at Ferry Farm, so Fredericksburg was his home town.

Kenmore House in Fredericksburg

Staircase in the entry at Kenmore

Plasterwork on an overmantle at Kenmore

We crossed the river to visit Chatham, what would have been a beautiful Late-Georgian house built in 1772 by William Fitzhugh, a wealthy slave holder who developed a successful plantation on the tall rise across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg. The house has a convoluted history. It was abandoned during the Civil War when it was used as Union Headquarters and as a hospital after the Battle of Fredericksburg; it was essentially trashed. Ironically, the Union cannons positioned at Chatham had a range of 3/4 of a mile and the Sunken Road and Marye's Heights were visible in the distance one mile away. With the right cannons, the Union could have destroyed the Confederate stronghold and the Battle of Fredericksburg would have been quite different.

The house eventully belonged to a couple of wealthy 20th-century families who made terrible changes and awful restorations. It was willed to the National Park Service in 1975. It needs a group of caring women (like Kenmore House) who will love it, restore it, and care for it. Now, though it is important historically (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Clara Barton were all there) and in solid condition, it is a design disaster and looks as if it were decorated by Pat Nixon or Betty Ford.

Chatham

The door trim is a 20th-century addition

How Chatham might have looked before the Battle of Fredericksburg

The view over the Rappahannock and Fredericksburg from Chatham --
the highest point in the distance is Marye's Heights,
1/4 mile beyond the range of the Union cannons at Chatham

Our final visit was to the Chancellorsville battle site where the North and South clashed in a thick tangle of woods. The battle was Lee's greatest victory, but is best known because here in the forest, Stonewall Jackson was wounded by friendly fire, dying a week later from pneumonia related to his wounds.

Kris, Clara, Anna, and Rob where Stonewall Jackson
was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville

Another beautiful, though warmish, day with superb management by Rob and Anna.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.