Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park | |
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| IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) | |
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| Location: | Virginia, USA |
| Nearest city: | Fredericksburg, Virginia |
| Coordinates: | |
| Area: | 8,374 acres (33.89 km²) |
| Established: | February 14, 1927 |
| Visitation: | 534,636 (in 2005) |
| Governing body: | National Park Service |
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park is a unit of the National Park Service in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and elsewhere in Spotsylvania County, commemorating four major battles in the American Civil War.
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[edit] Park
The military park encompasses four major Civil War battlefields: Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Chancellorsville, Battle of the Wilderness, and Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. It also preserves four historic buildings associated with them: Chatham Manor, Salem Church, Ellword, and the house where Stonewall Jackson died. The ruins of the Chancellor family mansion are included. There are two visitor centers staffed by Park Service rangers, one in Fredericksburg near the foot of Marye's Heights, and another at the Chancellorsville site. Exhibit shelters are staffed on a seasonal basis at Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House.
The park was established as Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park on February 14, 1927, and transferred from the War Department August 10, 1933. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. The park includes 8374 acres (33.89 km²), of which 7369 acres (30 km²) are owned by the Federal government.
[edit] Cemetery
Fredericksburg National Cemetery, adjoins the park and comprises 12 acres (49,000 m²). Civil War interments occurred in 1867. The cemetery was transferred from the War Department on August 10, 1933. Three sets of verses from Theodore O'Hara's poem Bivouac Of The Dead grace the grounds of the cemetery:
- The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
- The soldier's last Tattoo;
- No more on life's parade shall meet
- That brave and fallen few.
- No vision of the morrow's strife
- The warrior's dream alarms;
- No braying horn, nor screaming fife,
- At dawn shall call to arms.
- Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
- Dear as the blood ye gave,
- No impious footstep here shall tread
- The herbage of your grave.
[edit] Reference
- The National Parks: Index 2001-2003. Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior.
