#89 Fredericksburg, VA 4-28-09

We drove all of about 60 miles north to Fredericksburg, VA. There we stayed at a beautiful Elks Lodge. They own 35 acres, but don’t actually have any RV sites. We backed up close to their BBQ Pavilion and hooked up our water hose. We had a beautiful day again.

The big pink flowering dogwood was our landmark to turn into the driveway at the Elks.

Our first stop in our exploration of Fredericksburg was the sunken road where the visitor center was located. The sign above tells the story about the battle that happened here.

This is the house on the high part of Fredericksburg where the Confederate Army used as headquarters and hospital. In the picture you can see the bullet holes in the structure.

Now the home is a private residence and this is as close as we can get!

The story of the Innis House is on the plaque above. Below is a photo I took of the actual inside wall of the home. Amazing!

At the end of the walking tour is the civil war cemetery. It is lined with headstones of those soldiers that can be identified. Other stones mark graves of soldiers that have never been identified and some graves have up to five soldiers burred in them.

This is one of many signs that have little poems on them. They are scattered about in the cemetery.

A cannon with the ball stuck in the muzzle, and pointing up is a symbol of the lost lives.

This is the old brass marker on one of the cannons.

Our next stop was the trolley ride through old town Fredericksburg. We passed the old road down to the river.

George Washington’s Mother lived here and now it is Mary’s house.

Chatham is the home where the Union Soldiers had their headquarters and hospital. We went through the house, but it had been sold in the 1930’s and made into a summer home so all of the original furniture and Civil war paneling had been burned and used by the Union Army. The army even stabled some of their horses inside the house.

This is actually the back side of the home, but with the advent of the automobile, instead of horse and carriages, this was the entry used by the time it was purchased in the 1930’s. The formal gardens that were planted by those owners have been kept.

A replica of the “pontoon” boats that were used to try and make a bridge to get to the Confederate soldiers on the other side of the river.

Fredericksburg lies halfway between Washington, DC the capitol of the Union, and Richmond, VA, the capitol of the Confederacy. There were four different battles fought in this area with a total of over 100,000 men killed. A very sad time for our nation.