Battle of Fredericksburg • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • Armies
The Confederate Line wayside marker is at Stop One on the Fredericksburg battlefield Auto Tour along the Sunken Road.
Looking north along the Sunken Road. The Union Attacks Begin and Field of Battle wayside markers are in the distance, with the Visitor Center in the left distance. Marye’s Heights are on the right.
Text from the marker:
The Confederate Line
You are now standing beside the Sunken Road, part of a heavily used 19th-century road system that linked Washington, D.C. and Richmond. In 1862, Confederate riflemen fired from the road upon line after line of Union troops advancing across open fields to your left. (Houses constructed early last century now cover most of these fields.) A waist-high stone wall protected the Confederate riflemen; Union troops had no such protection.
To your right is Marye’s Heights. Nine guns of the Washington Artillery occupied the heights during the battle. By depressing the muzzles of their pieces, Confederate artillerists could scour the plain in front – firing over the heads of infantry here in the Sunken Road. It was perhaps the strongest natural position ever defended by Lee’s army.
Our boys fired into the dense masses without the fear of missing & with a fair prospect of cutting down 2 at a time….
S.H. Walkup, 48th North Carolina Infantry
From the caption to the background photo:
A photographer took a picture from this location in May 1863, after fighting here during the Chancellorsville Campaign. The scene undoubtedly looked much the same following the Battle of Fredericksburg. The house in the background stood near the site of the modern visitor center.
Location of the marker
The marker is along the west side of the Sunken Road Trail about 200 yards north of the Visitor Center.