Battle of Fredericksburg • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • Armies
The “Union Attacks Begin” wayside marker is along the Sunken Road at Stop One on the Fredericksburg battlefield Auto Tour. (see map below)
Text from the marker:
The Union Attacks Begin
In 1862 the ground in front of you was an open plain stretching from here to the outskirts of Fredericksburg, one-half mile away. As Union troops left the town to attack Marye’s Heights, they had to break ranks to cross a canal ditch, then knock down fences on an old fairground. For the last 300-400 yards of their advance toward the Sunken Road, they were virtually without cover.
Eighteen Union brigades – more than 30,000 men – successively swept across the field. For eight hours the killing continued. “Our men were slaughtered like sheep,” recalled one Federal soldier. “The whole plain was covered with blankets, haversacks, wounded men and dead men…. We stood it as long as we could, and were ordered to fall back – when the whole brigade broke and run….”
Every face wore an expression of seriousness and dread….
Private Benjamin Borton, 24th New Jersey Infantry
From the caption to the painting:
Of the many attacks made by the Union army at Fredericksburg, none was more famous than that of the Irish Brigade. Wearing sprigs of boxwood in their caps to remind them of their heritage, some men of the brigade approached to within 50 yards of the wall before withering under the Confederate fire.
Location of the marker
The marker is along the east side of the Sunken Road Trail about 150 yards north of the Visitor Center.