Between 1861 and 1865, Stafford County experienced the hard hand of war as huge Confederate and Union camps, supply depots, and fortifications transformed the county's landscape. Armed clashes occurred along the shores of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, in small hamlets, and along roads and railroads. County residents who joined Confederate military units fought and died in places they knew from childhood as well as on battlefields far from home, while soldiers in blue and gray from elsewhere came to Stafford County and endured the drudgery of camp life and guard duty punctuated by periodic combat. On April 17-18, 1862, Union and Confederate forces skirmished several miles north of here. Southeast of here, from positions along the Stafford Heights, the Union's Army of the Potomac launched its ill-fated attack on Fredericksburg from December 11-15, 1862. For some of the region's African American population, the war brought opportunities to escape enslavement and pursue a better life. On April 18, 1862, Good Friday, John Washington of Fredericksburg, vowing "to be a slave no more," joined Union soldiers in a small boat and crossed the Rappahannock River to Falmouth. Some 10,000 other African Americans followed Washington's example on the Trail to Freedom through Stafford County.