Lee's Position

E-43

From this hill (now called Lee's Hill) a little to the east, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee watched the First Battle of Fredericksburg. As the armies prepared for combat, Lee commented that "It is well that war is so terrible--we should grow too fond of it." On 13 Dec. 1862, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside ordered an assault against the Confederate position. The Confederates withstood the attack, which lasted until dark, and slaughtered the Federals with artillery and small-arms fire. Two days later the defeated Union army retreated across the Rappahannock River.

Department of Historic Resources, 2000

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Joseph P. Cullen, the Battles of Fredericksburg Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1966), 19; Patricia L. Faust, ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986), 287-290; E. B. Long, The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861-1865 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971), 295-296 and 347-348; John S. Salmon, The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, forthcoming).