Battles of Manassas • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments • Facts • The Armies
The Death of Fletcher Webster wayside marker is at Stop Ten on the Manassas Battlefield Driving Tour. It is on Chinn Ridge along a walking trail about one third of a mile north of the parking area on the Chinn Ridge Loop. (38° 48.617′ N, 77° 31.96′ W)
Colonel Webster raised, organized and commanded the 12th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. A monument to Colonel Webster is a short distance away in a grove of trees.
From the marker:
Death of Fletcher Webster
On the morning of the 30th, Col. Fletcher Webster wrote his wife:
“If a fight comes off, it will be to-day or to-morrow & will be a most dreadful & decisive one. This may be my last letter, dear love, for I shall not spare myself…”
About 5 p.m., leading his regiment to support the cannon here on Chinn Ridge, Webster was shot through the right arm and chest. He lay helpless in the confusion of the Union retreat as Confederates overran the guns.
According to Ludwell Hutchinson of the 8th Virginia, he stopped to give water to a mortally wounded enemy officer. The officer – Fletcher Webster – asked Hutchinson to return his wallet to his family. Hutchinson survived the war and sent the wallet to the grieving but appreciative Websters.
Second
Battle of Manassas
Day Three
August 30, 1862
From the caption to the photo:
Colonel Fletcher Webster of the 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry – son of the famous orator Senator Daniel Webster – is commemorated by the monument in the grove behind the cannon.
