FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – On July 1-3, 2005, the Columbia Rifles and the staff of the National Park Service’s (NPS) Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania National Military Park held, for the first time ever, living history programs on portions of the Fredericksburg battlefield. Specifically, at Chatham Manor—also known as “the Lacy House” during the Civil War—on Stafford Heights just across the Rappahannock River from downtown Fredericksburg, and at the sunken road at the base of Marye’s Heights, scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the December 13, 1862 battle of Fredericksburg.

“It was a tremendous honor to reenact on these sites,” said Columbia Rifles event coordinator Jeff Lau, of Washington, New Jersey. “The NPS here at Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania park was, as usual, great to work with and gave us the opportunity to do some unique things during the event that made it a better weekend both for participants as well as, I think, for park visitors.”
Ranger Stacy Humphreys, the NPS’s event coordinator, reported that the living history had over 1,300 visitors (spectators) during the two-day event—believed to be by far the largest number of visitors to Chatham Manor since the Civil War.

During the weekend, most of which was at Chatham Manor, infantry impressionists portrayed Company I of the 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, part of the then-soon-to-be-named Iron Brigade, in July 1862. An artillery contingent portrayed a section of Durrell’s 2nd Pennsylvania Battery, which was attached to the Iron Brigade in the summer of 1862, and shelled Fredericksburg from Stafford Heights during the December 1862 battle.

According to the NPS, it was the first time that men in “tall black hats”—the Iron Brigade—was at Chatham Manor since the Civil War, and it was certainly the first time that Yankee artillery fired from Stafford Heights since 1863. The weekend also featured a re-creation of part of the Iron Brigade’s Independence Day celebration, held at Chatham Manor on July 4, 1862.
At the sunken road, infantrymen portrayed “generic” regiments of Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade—defenders of the position with Cobb’s Georgia brigade—and elements of Hancock’s Federal Second Corps division.

The infantry contingent numbered thirty-seven men, including nineteen members of the Columbia Rifles, together with men from several other reenactor groups, including the Palmetto Living History Association, 122nd New York, 149th New York, and others, hailing from Alabama, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and even Iraq—the latter being a newly returned U.S. Army Reservist heading back home to central New York State. The infantry company was commanded by Captain Kevin O’Beirne and 1st Lt. Dave Grieves, assisted by Orderly Sergeant Rob Willis, Sergeant Chris Piering, and Corporals Jeff Lau, Andrew Metheny, and Nic Ellis—all Columbia Rifles members.

Eleven artillerymen participated, including five members of the 1st Pennsylvania Artillery Battery F manning their Parrott rifle, and six National Park Service rangers from three different parks, attired in period Federal uniforms, who crewed a huge bronze Napoleon smoothbore from the Petersburg National Battlefield.

Participants were “well fed” by the company cook, Charles Heath. “Hell, all I did was toss slop into a kettle three times a day, heat it, lay it out on a board, and the hogs ate it,” said The Chawls. “Oh yeah,” he added, “We had a kettle of lemonade fortified with some lemon-flavored Gatorade, which kept up the boys’ electrolytes during a very hot and humid weekend.” Despite his self-effacing attitude, The Chawls’ culinary efforts and associated “rig” was one of the weekend’s highlights, and such extraordinary efforts were truly appreciated by the men.

This article recounts the highlights of the living history weekend and presents some historical information on the site and units portrayed.

The Yanks Arrive: Spring 1862
In the spring of 1862, Union General Irvin McDowell led 10,000 Federal troops from Washington, D.C. to Fredericksburg, on his way to Richmond to join the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign. However, destruction of supply routes forced him to establish a base near Fredericksburg.

On April 18, 1862, McDowell arrived opposite Fredericksburg; that same say, a local woman, Helen Bernard, recorded in a letter, “The enemy are in possession of Falmouth [just upstream and across the river from Fredericksburg] …& what is to follow, who can say? We are not at all frightened but stunned and bewildered waiting for the end.”

McDowell sent one brigade to occupy the city of Fredericksburg and camped with the balance of his force in Stafford County, just across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg. To mask his numbers from Confederate spies and scouts that operated freely in the area, McDowell placed the majority of his troops at the base of a ridge called Stafford Heights (sometimes called Chatham Heights)—a steeply sloped eminence running along the Stafford County side of the Rappahannock, from just east of Falmouth to opposite Fredericksburg. In 1862, the majority of the Heights was clear of foliage, unlike today.

McDowell established his headquarters at the most prominent and famous house on Stafford Heights, Chatham Manor; in 1862 it was better known for its owner, and therefore is frequently called “the Lacy House” in period accounts.

The majority of the Federal troops in McDowell’s command were new three-year units, including the soon-to-be-famous 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiment. Mustered into Federal service on September 2, 1861 at Camp Randall near Madison, Wisconsin, the 7th arrived in Washington D.C. on September 21. After being assigned to Rufus King’s brigade with its two sister regiments, the 2nd and 6th Wisconsin, together with the 19th Indiana, the 7th departed Washington D.C. in March 1862 with McDowell’s corps. At that time the brigade was assigned as the 3rd Brigade of Rufus King’s Division, Department of the Rappahannock.

After arriving at Stafford Heights, Regular Army officer John Gibbon was placed in command of the 7th’s “Western” brigade. The men were initially unhappy to be under a new general (Gibbon, who was a North Carolinian) determined to instill in them Regular Army discipline and drill proficiency. As unhappy at the men were with him during the late spring and early summer of 1862, it was Gibbon who turned them into the crack fighting unit that would be dubbed “the Iron Brigade” at South Mountain, Maryland that September. Discipline and drill was ingrained into the Westerners on the grounds of the Lacy estate in front Chatham Manor’s walls. It was here that they became the heroes that stood up under fire time and again at places like Brawner’s Farm, South Mountain, Antietam, Gettysburg, and others.

Thankfully, the history of the 7th Wisconsin—Company I in particular—at Chatham Manor in the summer of 1862 is well-documented, and numerous photos and historical essays on the regiment at this time are fairly readily available, which is in part what prompted the selection of the 7th Wisconsin, Company I as the reenactors’ infantry portrayal for the event.

In the summer of 1862 the 7th Wisconsin was almost entirely attired in common fatigue blouses instead of the Iron Brigade’s characteristic dress coats. While documentation exists that the regiment possessed the Brigade’s well-known white canvas leggings, they appear to have been almost universally disliked by the men, and by orders worn only for parade and guard duty; thus, most images of the 7th at Chatham Manor show the men devoid of canvas leggings. However, the Iron Brigade’s signature tall black hats—the U.S. Army dress hat, complete with brass bugle, hat cord, and even ostrich plumes—was worn by the 7th at Chatham Manor and, as such, was the rule of the day for the living history event’s participants.

The House Atop Stafford Heights
Chatham Manor sits atop Stafford Heights directly across the river from the northeastern corner of Fredericksburg and has a commanding view of the entire city. William Fitzhugh built Chatham between 1768 and 1771, and the estate originally contained 1,280 acres. The mansion is a two-story brick structure with long “wings” extending from both sides of the center of the house, and the grounds also include several outbuildings. During the Civil War, the mansion had a large, two-story wooden portico painted white on its back side (facing Fredericksburg); the portico was removed in the Civil War, and today the only signs of its existence are stains on the brick.

The Chatham mansion is one of only three houses—the others being Mount Vernon near Washington D.C. and Berkeley Plantation on the James River near Richmond—where both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln stayed. Washington stayed at Chatham on at least two occasions in the 1780s, and Lincoln stayed at the manor in the spring of 1862 while reviewing McDowell’s command.

At the time of the Civil War the house was owned by John H. Lacy, who left it to serve as a staff officer in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Before the war, Lacy’s house was visited by future General Robert E. Lee, but the mansion spent much of the war occupied by the Unionists. It served as McDowell’s headquarters in the spring and summer of 1862, and as General Edwin V. Sumner’s Right Grand Division headquarters during the December 11-15, 1862 battle of Fredericksburg. During the battle, Army of the Potomac commander Ambrose Burnside observed most of the fighting at Sumner’s side from Chatham Manor’s portico and grounds.

Also during the December 1862 battle, dozens of Federal artillery pieces shelled the city of Fredericksburg from the grounds of Chatham Manor, the engineers who built the famous upper pontoon bridges staged their operations from the estate, and the infantrymen who made the amphibious assault across the Rappahannock stated their crossing from the Chatham estate.
After the battle, the house was a Union hospital, and wounded men were also housed there in the aftermath of the 1863 Chancellorsville campaign and the opening engagements of the 1864 Overland Campaign. As such, Chatham was the last house visited by many Yankee boys.

Following the war the mansion was eventually restored and remained in private hands until 1975, when its last private owner, John Lee Pratt, willed it to the NPS. Today, thanks to a recent outpouring of community volunteers, Chatham Manor is open to the public and its grounds also include the headquarters of the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania National Military Park.

The Sunken Road Then and Now
A portion of the living history weekend’s program included reenactor interpretation for park visitors as Union and Confederate infantry at the sunken road at Marye’s Heights during the December 13, 1862 and May 3, 1863 battles of Fredericksburg. It was the first time that living history programs have been held at the infamous “stone wall”.

In the Nineteenth Century, the old Telegraph Road—the main north-south thoroughfare between Washington D.C. and Richmond—ran through a pass in the hills just west of Fredericksburg and wound southward along the base of Marye’s Heights for several hundred yards. Because the road was partially cut into the base of the hill, it featured stone “retaining-type” walls and drainage ditches along each side. Here and there small wooden homes and one tavern bordered the edge of the sunken road.
While turn-of-the-Twentieth Century development expanded Fredericksburg’s residential neighborhoods from its wartime boundary (in 1862, more than a quarter-mile of open ground separated the town from the sunken road), to within fifty yards of the wall, the NPS owns a grassy strip in front of the road and, today, the road itself.

In 2004, the NPS acquired from the City of Fredericksburg the public right-of-way that ran along the old Telegraph Road bed. The street was closed to modern vehicular traffic in August 2004, and during the winter of 2004-2005 the NPS constructed a “reproduction” stonewall along the entire length of the sunken road, except for the one city block of original wall that still remains. The asphalt pavement was removed and a sand-and-gravel roadbed installed, restoring this famous geographical feature of two battles to its 1862-1863 appearance.

The restored sunken road was opened on Memorial Day weekend 2005, and the July 2, 2005 living history was the first time since the Civil War that reenactors have engaged in living history on this famous and hallowed site.

Independence Day 1862
On July 4, 1862, the 7th Wisconsin was camped just south of the Lacy house near present day Pratt Park, which is where the well-known Company I photographs were taken with Fredericksburg in the background. Since arriving at Stafford Heights, the 7th Wisconsin had engaged in seemingly continuous drills and numerous fatigue details and guard/picket duty.

The 7th Wisconsin and “Western Brigade” greatly anticipated Independence Day as a day of relaxation. As the morning of July 4th dawned, Private William Ray of the 7th recorded in his diary, “Fine morning. The sun rose pretty on the 86th birthday of this great and once happy Republic. Oh awful to think of that a portion of its inhabitants have tried to and have disgraced it to their utmost.”

One of the 7th Wisconsin’s unique celebrations was that the regiment’s commissioned and non-commissioned officers were “replaced” for the day by privates voted from the ranks. One of the duties for the “new officers” was guard mount; correspondingly some of them “ornamented” themselves in a new “uniform”, as William Ray noted in his diary,

“[The guards] came out with their old dirty rubbish on the worst way and most comical. Our corporal had an old haversack for hat, got an old knapsack which had been thrown away, put it on with the canteen tied to the knapsack behind dangling about his legs and instead of a gun he had a very large crooked stick, with paper stripes cut in a fantastic form on his arms. And it being against orders to go on guard without leggings, so they tied on old knapsack on one leg and something else on the other and so it went.”

Later in the afternoon, the 7th and other units of the Brigade engaged in numerous games, races, and contests. In the evening, the Brigade hosted a large mule race attended by most of the officers and men of the division. In a letter to his hometown newspaper, a member of the 2nd Wisconsin described the event,

“On the evening of the 4th the soldiers of this brigade had quite a gala time. Many games of sport were indulged in and all seemed willing to make it a day of general festivity and hilarity. The ceremonies of the day closed with a grand mule race and to be appreciated it must have been seen. Every one that could procure a mule did so and less than twenty of the stupid creatures were entered for the race. The men of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana were present. The circle was formed, the judges took their stand, the band played several national airs and the preparations for the sport began. The riders mounted the mules, were brought to the stand from which they were to start. The officers of the different regiments were present and had contributed a purse of money to be given to the lucky winner of the race. The drum taps the signal for starting and then the fun begins. All start – and such a start, some running, others trotting and not a few of the same stupid animals walking and persuasion of their chagrinned riders could induce them to increased speed. Others with shouts, yells, kicks, and thumps were hurrying on. Every mule had a rider when the race started, not so when the home stretch was reached…a few of the boys got wounded in the “skirmish” and lame men were quite numerous.”

Another member of the 2nd Wisconsin described the day as follows,

“Evening – we have had a grand time, and I doubt not but that the people of Fredericksburg think the Yankees have revived the Olympic games in there midst. They never before saw such a rare sport. We had foot races, horse races and mule races – the last named being the race of races. The contests were between the different regiments of the brigade and Generals King and Gibbon was present. Everything passed off harmoniously. The 7th and 6th were both ahead of us in swiftness of foot, but our mules could not be beaten while the horses of the 19th won the day. The 7th have probably had the greatest variety of amusement today. The officers, being reduced for the time being, and the privates, promoted, they have had everything their own way. They also had a dress parade conducted entirely by the privates. Gibbon’s brigade composed entirely of western men is more lively by far that the other troops that are with us. We have more music, more dancing, more athletic sports and more real fun and good times than the eastern boys, and it is generally admitted that we are not bad on a march.”
Thus ended the 7th Wisconsin’s and Iron Brigade’s 1862 Independence Day. Their July 4 the following year, 1863, would be a much more somber one because many boys present that day at Chatham Manor were in soldier’s graves at places like Brawner’s Farm, Turner’s Gap, Miller’s Cornfield, and McPherson’s Ridge.

July 2005
After several months of anticipation and planning, on Friday, July 1, living history event participants braved heavy traffic on Interstate I-95 and gathered at Chatham Manor. The event committee arrived about noon and set up the cook’s fly and the commissioned officers’ wall tent—line officers in the 7th Wisconsin actually had wall tents in the summer of 1862—in blistering 100-degree heat.

Jeff “Sparky” Henion brought and laid at the head of the company street a reproduction ammunition box full of iron parts to its regulation “full” weight of 98 lbs. and throughout the weekend scores of participants and park visitors learned how heavy a box of Civil War ammo could be. Other crates of “stuff” lying around to give the appearance of a busy 1862 camp included a bacon box and a couple of hardtack boxes—one of which was really loaded up with hundreds of crackers.

As the sun set, the men changed into their uniforms and the temperature mercifully cooled off, although the pterodactyl-sized mosquitoes with nasty dispositions rendered sleep difficult on Friday night.

Chris Piering arrived onsite about 12:30 a.m. accompanied by Dave McKenna. Upon hearing that Dave had just arrived back at Fort Bragg, North Carolina from nearly a year of active duty in Iraq—with a three-day pass—Chris drove from Fredericksburg to Fort Bragg to pick him up and outfitted Dave in loaner gear for the weekend. On Sunday, Dave rented a car to return to the fort, where he was mustered out of active duty two days later, to return home to his wife and family.

The event began in earnest on Saturday morning, with reveille, roll call, breakfast, drill, and weapons inspection. Rob Willis awoke with his annual eye-swollen-shut-from-an-insect-bite, this time from a mosquito instead of a spider. No, I’m not kidding.
After inspection we carpooled to the NPS Fredericksburg visitors’ center for the sunken road living history. For this portion of the weekend, the 7th Wisconsin portrayal was temporarily set aside as participants portrayed both Federals and Confederates. While the event committee initially discussed with the NPS the potential of an elaborate program of guided tours running through a series of vignettes at different locations in the sunken road and in front of it, in which participants would read aloud to spectators first-person accounts from soldiers in the battle, due to staffing restrictions the plan was scaled back to a less-intensive morning of general interpretation for the public, as park visitors moved through the interpretive area singly and in small groups. Four “stations” were set up—two Confederate and two Federal—with one pair about 100 yards from the visitors’ center parking lot, and the other pair a couple hundred yards further on, near the Innis House and Sergeant Kirkland monument.
The weather certainly did not feel much like the December 1862 battle, with morning air temperatures soaring into the high 80s.

The sunken road program drew hundreds of visitors—from history buffs to locals out for a morning stroll; all seemed surprised to see Confederates again manning the stone wall, with Yanks in front of it. While one interested spectator informed us that the Federals did not take the wall, we respectfully reminded them that they did a few months later, on May 3, 1863 in the 2nd Battle of Fredericksburg.

It was a great honor to be part of the first living history program at the famous sunken road, and being able to reenact there with its new restoration was doubly exciting. Around 11:30 a.m., the program concluded and the reenactors carpooled back to Chatham Manor to resume portraying the 7th Wisconsin for the balance of the weekend.

Upon our return, the cook had dinner (the midday meal) ready, after which the company fell in, was issued ammunition, and engaged in our first drill/firing demonstration of the weekend. The company assembled in front of the park visitors and Captain O’Beirne spoke briefly about the 7th Wisconsin and, using several men as “models”, discussed the soldiers’ uniforms and kit. Rob Willis, Ron Roth, Chris Piering, and Bill O’Dea then gave a brief presentation on the manual of arms, noting the differences between Hardee’s manual and Chandler’s manual used in the Iron Brigade. After a demonstration of loading in nine times, the company went through several maneuvers culminating in deployment of skirmishers, firing volleys by company and rank, and a charge in which the men went prone, and then fired by file, with the rear rank loading the muskets and passing them to the front rank to fire. After the demonstration, the infantry company led the visitors to the next field over for artillery demonstrations, in which Union gunners fired from Stafford Heights toward the City of Fredericksburg for the first time in 143 years.

Dan McLean of the 1st Pennsylvania, Battery F said, “We had a great time and our interaction with the NPS twelve-pounder detachment was terrific. It was a good thing we didn't move the pieces as it was warm enough as it was. Too bad we didn’t have the combined arms display as Kevin and Jeff had planned, but that’s life. However to be the first cannons fired from/on Stafford Heights since 1863 was a great honor. We did give the City of Fredericksburg some rock and roll 4th of July fireworks. They were heard from a mile or so away and brought even more people to Chatham Manor to see what was going on.” After the artillery demonstration, the visitors mingled with both the artillerists and infantry for quite a while.

Upon the infantry’s return to camp around 2:00 p.m., keeping in touch with historical events, like the officers of the 7th Wisconsin on July 4, 1862, the captain and lieutenant gave up their positions for the balance of the afternoon—until the next demonstration. The men quickly and unanimously elected George “Soup Bone” Weymer as captain and Dave McKenna as lieutenant.

For the next couple of hours, the men, with a few enthusiastic park visitors, played rounders on the lawn before the Chatham mansion, while others visited wet plate collodian photographer Bob Szabo, who was onsite throughout the weekend, for a tintype. Another drill/firing demonstration was presented at 4:00 p.m. followed by another artillery demonstration. Afterward, the infantry company posed in the hot sun for group tintypes, with the Chatham Manor as one backdrop, and—in an effort to re-create original photos of Company I of the 7th Wisconsin—with Fredericksburg and its famous church steeples in the background. Throughout the afternoon, the NPS presented a series of historical talks in a huge tent erected in a grove of trees a hundred yards north of the mansion.

After supper, the reenactors were treated to a special and rare battlefield tour. Author/NPS Ranger Frank O’Reilly led a reenactors-only walking tour of the December 11, 1862 street fighting, starting from the upper pontoon bridge crossings, progressing up Hawke Street from Sophia to the deadly intersection of Caroline Street, and along Princess Anne Street to William. All who took the tour unanimously agreed it was one of the best Civil War battlefield tours they had ever taken, and Frank O’Reilly’s narration was excellent—he knew what happened in each street, alleyway, and, seemingly, each house, and wove an excellent and exciting tale of brutal and merciless urban combat, full of odd coincidences and strange happenings, while keeping us informed of both the “big picture” and the minutia of several individual soldiers’ deeds.

Tom Scoufalos said, “The tour Saturday night was beyond fantastic, and despite by flagging energy I was completely enthralled.” For a great description of the battle, check out Mr. O’Reilly’s wonderful book, The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock (672 pp., Baton Rouge LA: LSU Press, 2002).

After such a full day with little rest, there was little campfire activity in the camp, but lots of snores. Sunday morning dawned bright and again fairly warm as the event’s second day started.

For the day, the commissioned officers traded places, with Dave Grieves assuming the captain’s position and Kevin O’Beirne wearing lieutenant’s straps. Captain Grieves ran an early morning drill (before 7:00 a.m.), but in general our Sunday was more restful than Saturday.

One of “Sparky” Henion’s highlights on Sunday was discovering that his box of hardtack had finally become “infested” with weevils and bugs, after years of fruitlessly leaving it in his barn to attract bugs. “I’m not gonna eat this to be sure, but it’s one helluva great conversation starter for living history events like this one!” he enthused.

Men visited Bob Szabo’s field photography rig for more tintypes, and a small but accurately done dress parade was held in a shady grove at 9:00 a.m. The company attended parade in full marching order (packs) and afterward a by-the-book inspection was held. The men hung out in the shady grove rather than the now-blistering-hot camp for a while, and presented additional drill/firing and artillery demonstrations at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. before the final dismissal and journeys home.

Reflections
Overall the weekend was a success for the NPS, the visitors, and the participants. Reenactor and NPS Ranger Eric Mink noted, “It was a hot weekend for you guys. You looked great and the demos were topnotch.”

Kevin O’Beirne said, “The infantry company was made up of some very good reenactors and great comrades, and the weekend was full but had enough 'rest periods' that the men kept functioning despite all the activities and the heat and humidity. It was also a rare and great chance to do some living history on grounds that haven't seen reenactors for a very long time, if ever.”

CR member Rob Courtney noted, “It was a very hot weekend, but I also had a great time! It was my first event with the CR,and couldn't have been better. I look forward to more great events with the CR in the future. And a great big thank you to all at the NPS for having us, and to Frank O'Reilly for the amazing walking tour—now I need to buy his book!”

Artillerist McLean noted, “Co. I, 7th Wisconsin was outstanding. They looked sharp and their volley fire sounded like one single shot. Also, Charles’s food was tasty, plentiful, and kept us looking forward to the next meal. Thanks for the hard work! Speaking for all our battery members, it was a pleasure working with the Columbia Rifles and, in my military opinion, you have a very professional organization.”

Steve Hardwick of the Palmetto Living History Association wrote, “I sincerely appreciate all the efforts that y’all put forth in making the Chatham/Fredericksburg Living History an experience that I will always treasure, and I don’t say that lightly. After this rewarding experience, I will redouble my efforts to improve my impression, my attitude, and my passion for our hobby. We, the simple fellow reenactors that ‘show up’, owe a great deal of thanks to the people that make it happen, and the three above mentioned (O’Beirne, Lau, and Heath) have our collective THANKS!”

“This was a very well done event and I calculate it as time well spent,” said Tom Scoufalos. “We were kept very busy and this was certainly not a ‘sit on your backside’ experience. The quality of the production was evident on all levels: leadership, coordination, venue, fellow participants, and so on. The NPS seemed to be highly impressed. The infantry demos were fun, the spectators fairly interactive and interested, and Dan and his redlegs did a top-shelf job in the arty demos. I probably learned nearly as much as the public did. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to continue solidifying some relatively early friendships and beginning altogether new ones. Lastly, all kidding aside, Charles obviously put a hell of a lot of work into feeding us accurately, and well (not to detract from Jeff Lau putting a hell of a lot of work into coordinating the event) and for me it was kind of a treat to see what was going to be on the bill of fare from one meal to the next. This was my third outing with the CR and their many well-deserved friends and each is better than the last. I am looking forward to Payne’s Farm and beyond.”

The Columbia Rifles thank all who participated in the weekend, particularly the artillery (with their invaluable augmentation of the weekend’s programs). The participants gratefully thank Ranger Stacy Humphreys, the rest of the staff of the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania National Military Park (and rangers from Richmond and Petersburg who also participated), and CR member Jeff Lau who coordinated the event. We also thank Ranger Frank O’Reilly for taking the time presenting his excellent tour of the Fredericksburg street fighting. Finally and most important, all the participants thank all the soldiers who served and are serving their country, whether it be on July 4, 1862 or in 2005.

Jeff Johannes if a member of the Columbia Rifles and Southern Guard who recently relocated to Fredericksburg, Virginia