A “Picture of Desolation”

In February 1863, Union soldiers lounged around Chatham in a scene that appeared peaceful, but two months earlier during the Battle of Fredericksburg the grounds had been crowded with soldiers and wagons, generals had issued orders from the porch, and surgeons had turned the building into a field hospital. More than one hundred and thirty soldiers who died of their wounds were hastily buried on the grounds. The Union occupation devastated Chatham and surrounding Stafford County, and recovery took decades. Contemporary accounts portrayed the house as blood-soaked and ruined, with its clock stopped, a child's rocking horse rotting on a disused balcony, the garden's costly exotic plants destroyed, and former elegance reduced to misery and barbarous destruction.

Chatham Heights, Virginia · United States