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| Willis's Hill, near Marye's heights Here, on the heights behind Fredericksburg, Lee's veterans who had fought at Antietam opposed the Army of the Potomac under its new commander. Had Lee been given his choice he could not have selected a more advantageous position. Burnside's futile attempts to wrest these heights from the Confederates cost him 12,653 men in killed, wounded, and missing. On the heights behind Fredericksburg, Lee's soldiers, working night and day, had thrown up a double line of strong entrenchments and constructed a road to facilitate the transfer of troops behind the defenses. Everything that the engineering talent of the Confederacy could suggest had been done. By the time Burnside moved his 113,000 troops against the 78,000 of Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet on December 13, 1862, Marye's Heights had been made impregnable. Four months later, in the Chancellorsville campaign (May 3, 1863), Sedgwick's men fought over this same ground and carried the position. But then the main body of Lee's army was hotly engaged with Hooker and the Heights were not strongly defended. This photograph of Willis's Hill (just south of Marye's) was taken after Sedgwick occupied the position in 1863. Willis's Hill was, with great appropriateness, made a National Cemetery at Fredericksburg after the war. |
