A Sacked and Gutted Town

On the morning of December 11, 1862, two days before the battle of Fredericksburg, one hundred forty Union guns bombarded Fredericksburg, and shells and cannonballs tore through buildings, toppled walls and chimneys, and spread fires as most civilians fled and those who remained sheltered in basements. Federal infantry forced a river crossing, and fierce street fighting continued until nightfall, bringing heavy casualties and shocking intensity. After the Confederates withdrew, angry Federal soldiers looted homes and businesses, and more Union troops crossed into the damaged town the next day and ransacked it further as a prize of war. Fighting resumed on December 13th, and thousands of casualties filled buildings and streets. A Union officer recalled court-house, churches, schools, bank-buildings, and private houses lit and used as hospitals, with wounded men in door-yards and the dead laid out in rows for burial, while hospital lights, camp-fires of burned buildings, rioting by demoralized stragglers, and suffering and death gave Fredericksburg the look of pandemonium. When the Federal army retreated, Fredericksburg was left a shambles, and few buildings escaped damage from shelling and looting.

Fredericksburg, Virginia · United States