Tuesday we visited Fredericksburg. Thank heavens for the National Park Visitor Center and the orientation movie. After immersing ourselves in the events of those December 1862 days and nights, we walked the trail along the stone wall. In the years between the battle and now, the population of the little town of Fredricksburg has quintupled in size making it difficult to gaze down to the river from The Sunken Road and envision the Union troops in pontoon boats crossing the Rappahannock River under artillery fire and urban fighting on the first day of the battle, or the troops under General Burnside making successive attempts to storm Marye’s Heights, but maps help. We feel so grateful to be able to walk here, to remember the Angel of Marye’s Heights, to wonder at the soldiers’ thoughts when they saw the Northern Lights after the to visit the National Cemetery, and to ponder our collective history.
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