Slaughter Pen Farm at Fredericksburg

The Slaughter Pen Farm at Fredericksburg
Click here for a larger view

"It is well that war is so terrible.

We should grow too fond of it."

The sight of Federal troops deploying in this field, and moving forward to battle, right about where this picture was taken, inspired that famous quote from Robert E. Lee.

Since this is the first ever public tour ever given by the Park Service of this section of the battlefield, many of you may have never seen this before, and I'm including several panoramic pictures in this entry.  Please click on them! The sideways scrolling gives you a feel of turning your head, and all of these look distorted in the small view - you need to feel like you are there turning your head and looking around.  Plus the battlefield becomes much more real with the bigger pics.

The Union soldiers marched along the Bowling Green Road in the morning fog (see below) and deployed on either side as the fog lifted, a vast disciplined blue and steel army moving in sharp discipline, Franklin's Left Grand Division, over 60,000 strong.

This is a view of what they are calling Slaughter Pen Farm at Fredericksburg.  While I dislike the name, (more on that later), you'll want to see the big panoramic picture for the full view.  To the left, just across the road, is the area where Colonel Charles Collis led the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry in a charge that won him a medal of honor.

Straight ahead, down the dirt road, is a building that sits astride a ridge, a key bit of geography that I will show you later, and in the far distance to the right of the telephone pole, maybe half the distance to the edge of the picture, is a single tree rising above the treeline, which notes a significant location in the battle as well.  The extreme far left of the distant treeline is Prospect Hill, the most critical point of the Confederate line at Fredericksburg.

This panorama shows you what Union troops saw as they formed a battle line mid morning, and moved toward the Confederate lines in the distant hills.  Union artillery in roughly this location began a barrage for an hour, and then halted as the infantry moved past them.  The Confederates held their fire, ominously silent, waiting for the Union soldiers to close to a more killing range before opening fire.

This berm, or ridge is the halfway point along the field, a is where the Confederate artillery opened fir on the federal troops, halting their advance.  As the troops shelter on the left of this low ridge (higher back then), Union artillery set up in this area to shell the now revealed Confederate batteries.

The same berm, extending to the right. In the field on the left, skirmisher George Maynard, after his unit had been removed from the battle, returned to search for and find a wounded member of his company, and carried him to safety, winning the Medal of Honor for his actions, one of five Medals of Honor won in this field on that day.

A train runs by in the distance, showing you were the Confederate front line was, dug in along the railway track.  The train is emerging from a point of woods, and is headed into another wooded patch on the right, much the same as the area looked on December 13, 1862.

Note that Confederate troops along the railway track had a good view of the ground in front of them all the way to this ridge.

A view to the right of the train, in the direction of it's travel.  The tree rising above the treeline is the one mentioned earlier as significant, and marks the location of some Confederate artillery, as well as the location of some medal of honor winners, as discussed below.  You can also see some cars to the right of it through a gap in the trees, parked on a hill, which held Confederate artillery as well.

Guide Frank O'Reilly points out terrain features, which were important in how this battle was shaped and fought. You can see the hill cresting to the left, which put the troops advancing along it under heavy fire, causing them to break and retreat, while troops here, in this more sheltered area, were able to advance without as many casualties.

Just to the right is where a number of confederate guns were run forward in the battle, in front of the tall tree.  You can see the broad sweep of the field that they had from this position.  A close up of this area in front of the tree lies below.

On this stretch of ground three medals of honor were won, all for men voluntarily picking up their regimental colors and carrying them forward, to keep the attack's momentum going.

In the Civil War, regimental flags were use to co-ordinate and lead a units movements, and when the flags went down with the death of a flag bearer, loss of unit cohesion was a real risk.  For that reason, color bearers drew an inordinate amount of fire.  In this area, the confederate troops actually had designated a sharpshooter specifically to shoot down color bearers.  Other soldiers would load rifles and pass them to him, as he fired at the approaching color bearer.

The confederate soldiers were dug in behind the railway tracks. The cannon previously run out on this ground have been pulled back behind the lines.  Any soldier picking up a flag here would have been doing so right in the dragon's jaw, where the attack must be pressed forward or it will fail.  It also means drawing fire right in front of the enemy lines, where they are unlikely to miss you if they fire upon you.  The only advantage I can see is that the enemy may choose to fire at someone advancing with a bayonet, rather than a flag, thinking that the attack has already been pressed home.

The view the confederate troops behind the railway embankment had of the field in this location.  As they could only fire one or two volleys into the approaching Union troops, shielded by the ridge, the confederate line was overrun at this point, resulting in vicious hand to hand combat before the federal troops were forced to fall back.

Now, as for the name "Slaughter Pen," I just don't see it.  This is an open field, and casualties were fairly evenly split - if the casualties had been all artillery based from the cannons in the hills, then maybe.  The term "Slaughter Pen," was applied to the battle of Fredericksburg by a survivor, but I suspect that was in reference to the area in front of Marye's Heights and the stone wall, where Union regiments were indeed slaughtered without much chance of survival.  As Longstreet said, you could have marched every man in the Union against his position there, and given enough ammunition, he could have killed them all.

The term "Slaughter Pen" has been applied to several battle field locations, most famously at Gettysburg, where it is probably the most accurately used, but in Fredericksburg it just seems to me like pandering to the marketing of the battlefield as a tourist attraction.

This is an important part of the battlefield - if Franklin's assault had been properly made and utilized his reserves, the Confederate line could have well been broken at this location.  But I'll have more on that when I write up the entire battle.

Ok, next time it's Stonewall Jackson and the couple I met at Chancellorsville.