Battle of Fredericksburg • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • Armies
The “Confederates on the Ridge” wayside marker is on Marye’s Heights, at Stop One on the Fredericksburg Battlefield Driving Tour.
Text from the marker:
Confederates on the Ridge
“What chance had flesh and blood to carry by storm such a position, garrisoned too as it was with veteran soldiers? Not one chance in a million.”
Alexander Hunter,
17th Virginia Infantry.
At noon, December 13, 1862, the first of nine Union divisions poured out of Fredericksburg to attack a Georgia brigade that occupied the Sunken Road below you. “How beautifully they came on!” wrote an admiring Southerner. “Their bright bayonets glistening in the sunlight made the line look like a huge serpent of blue and steel.”
As the Union attacks continued, three Carolina brigades crossed this shell-swept plateau to go to the Georgians’ support. Some of the advancing Southerners halted here on the exposed brow of the hill to fire at the enemy below. Others dashed down its forward slope and joined the Georgians in the road. By mid-afternoon, 6,000 Confederate soldiers crowded the heights and the Sunken Road. One thousand were casualties before the day ended, half of them here on this ridge.
From the caption to the drawing at bottom right:
Confederate troops on Willis Hill. Union Troops advance across the plain below
Location of the marker
The marker is on the north end of Marye’s Heights, where the walking trail comes up from the Sunken Road and makes a right turn to the south. (38°17’42.2″N 77°28’07.9″W)