War Comes to Fredericksburg

War first reached Fredericksburg in the spring of 1862, when General Irvin McDowell occupied the area with more than 30,000 Union troops and their arrival on April 18th caused an immediate uproar. Many citizens fled, while enslaved people seized the chance to escape bondage, and by the time the army departed in August, thousands had crossed the Rappahannock River to the Union camps and secured their freedom. Although most Union camps were north of the river in Stafford, one brigade occupied the town itself. On May 23rd, President Abraham Lincoln visited army headquarters at Chatham, crossed the river on a floating bridge, toured the Northern camps on the western edge of town, and then visited General Marsena Patrick, whose headquarters were in the Farmer's Bank building. Confederates had burned three bridges over the Rappahannock on the day the Federals arrived, and the Union army later established pontoon bridges and rebuilt the railway bridge in preparation for a move south before destroying them again when it withdrew that summer. Patrick, appointed military governor of Fredericksburg in April 1862, kept strict order during the town's first Union occupation.

Fredericksburg, Virginia · United States