Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center — Attraction in Fredericksburg

Visited on a Tuesday in late December after Christmas holiday around noonish. They visitor wasn't too crowded. Just the right amount of people to feel comfortable. It also comes in waves with showing of the movie and when the video ends. Every hour and half hour there is a 22 min video that plays in the auditorium in basement. Highly recommend. It was created within the last decade and very informative. Its narrated by James Earl Jones. It may be a little graphic for younger or sensitive children. The rangers and volunteers at the front desk were super friendly ans knowledgeable.

The exhibits look very nice and updated. Its broken into multiple rooms throughout the buildings on multiple floors. There are a couple interactive ones as well with lots of items and not just text on walls.

The bathrooms were very nice and clean and located downstairs. There are also some located outside the park store which is a different building adjacent to the parking lot.

The park store is well equipted and very nice. We had a fun conversation with the employee behind the counter. She was very helpful and friendly. The national park stamps are provides here. Make sure to ask for the extra special stamps and they arent always put out on the table since there isn't much space for the stamping. There are national park tokens here as well but not at the chancellorsville store. There are specific pins and merchandise here that can't be purchased at the chancellorsville store either and vice versa. So if you plan to visit both don't assume everything is avilable at both locations.

Junior ranger program here is very cool. They dont have the badges but have a center patch with 4 rockers. One for each of the sites. Fredericksburg, chancellorsville, wilderness and spotsylvania. Only Fredericksburg and chancellorsville have vistor centers. The Fredericksburg location has the junior ranger book for spotsylvania as well. The Chancellorsville visitor center has books for the wilderness. The 0.5 trail outside was very nice and mostly paved. This needs to be done to answer some of the questions in the junior ranger book. It took us about 2 hrs to watch the video and walk through exhibits (without reading everything) and complete the outdoor trail for the junior ranger program. You could probably do it in 90 mins if you had a determined group of older kids. Add another 30 mins for the store. We could've spent more time here but everyone was getting hungry and we wanted to visit Chancellorsville as well. Probably wouldn't visit again after the first time. We saw about 90% of everything we wanted to but it was worth...

We lived in Fredericksburg 18 years our longest stay anywhere. You´d have to be sleepwalking when visiting this site to give it less than five (5) stars. Good grief!

SUNKEN ROAD and Reconstructed Stone Wall. The modern day photo was taken from the same spot as the historic one. Many Union soldiers were slaughtered from this defensive position before Marye's Heights on Dec. 13,1863.The Union suffered more than 7,000 casualties as they charged this natural embattlement.

More than 600,000, yes 600k, men died in the U.S. Civil War from the onset in 1861 at Ft. Sumter in Charleston Bay, S.C. to the close of hostilities at Appomattox Courthouse (the name of the TOWN, Grant and Lee met in a private home, the Mclean house, a name familiar to anyone who has lived in Northern Virginia.) NO PEACE TREATY was ever signed for fear that it would give recognition to the South as a sovereign confederacy under international law.

Most combatants died of their wounds and disease like Lt. General Stonewall Jackson, beloved of his men, an arm amputee inadvertently shot by one of his own soldiers. His death put a serious crimp in the morale of the South.

Many surgical procedures were conducted during the war all under non-sterile conditions. Wipe off the blood from the surgical instrument and yell,¨Next.¨ Penicillin had yet to be discovered. (¨Germs? What germs¨?) Amputations, unwittingly, were the kiss of death.

Feb 13, 2013, 3:51am. SUNKEN ROAD one hundred and fifty years later. It was snowing that morning but the snow in the pic here is simulated.

As a traffic artery, the road was permanently closed in 2004 at the request of the National Park Service. Like many others we used it as a short cut to Lafayette Blvd. A multi-million dollar improvement program restored the road to its Civil War appearance.

ANGEL OF MERCY statue. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Richard Rowland Kirkland (SC), a man of faith with moderate views, at risk of his own life ministered to fallen soldiers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Janis and I visited this site on a number of occasions, both with out of town guests and on our own.

Kirkland went on to survive the Battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Then in 1863, he was mortally wounded in the Battle of...

This battlefield lies within 10-15 miles of battles which were fought later in the war (Chancellorsville in May 1863, the Wilderness Campaign a year later in 1864). It’s probably the smallest of the three bit not lacking in importance or poignancy. In these fields the Union Army charged up against the Confederate defenses behind the Sunken Road, and several cannons which were situated on Marye’s Heights.

If you walk up to the heights you can get a sense of how suicidal the charge was that day .... Many brave men in the Union gave their lives in following orders to charge against the Confederate defenses .....the included pictures show many of the highlights of the battlefield....

Even though modern structures cover the area the Union charged across, one can still get a sense of how commanding the Confederate position was that day....

As General Lee watched the carnage atop Marye’s Heights he is said to have remarked

“It is good that war is so terrible lest one would grow fond of it”

This battlefield represents another sad day in...