Changing Roads on Prospect Hill (Part 1)

On Armistice Day, 11 November 1931, Lee Drive, the first road constructed in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battle Fields Memorial Park, officially opened. A crowd of 3,500 led by Federal, State, and local dignitaries and citizens of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County gathered on Lee’s Hill for the occasion. Most had walked the 1 ½ miles up Lafayette Boulevard from the city courthouse to the ceremony site.

Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star newspaper highlighted the Opening Ceremony of Lee Drive held on Armistice Day 11 November 1931. This clipping provides a portion of the article. The event celebrated what was called ‘the first link in a roadway’ that would eventually traverse the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battle Fields Memorial Park. Today we know this as The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP). Originally under the War Department it is now managed by the National Park Service (NPS).

The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP), as it is now known, was a long time in coming. The first preserved Civil War battlefields; Chickamauga and Chattanooga, were established in 1890. This was followed five years later by Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. The War Department oversaw all these parks, reflecting the desire to use the battlefields for military study and Army training grounds, as well as memorials.

In 1924, Congress established a commission to inspect the battlefields around Fredericksburg and report on the feasibility of marking and preserving them. The commission was made up of a Union veteran, a Confederate veteran, and a commissioned officer of the Corps of Engineers. The Report on the Inspection of Battlefields in and around Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, submitted on 1 December 1925, provided the outline of which locations should be included. These were noted on an index map sheet using a “Combined Plan—Antietam System.” Unlike the five earlier military parks, which acquired large tracts of land, this approach limited land acquisition to the breastworks, earthworks, gun emplacements, walls or other defensive shelters used by the armies, and highways to be constructed and authorized to be called a national military park.

On 14 February 1927, Congress established a national military park, at and near Fredericksburg, Virginia, to mark and preserve historical points connected with the battles of Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Court House, Wilderness, and Chancellorsville, including Salem Church, Virginia. In Fredericksburg, this included the Sunken Road and the Stonewall below Marye’s Heights.

The commission recommended building a road along the Confederate positions between Lee’s Hill and Hamilton’s Crossing. The ‘military road’ from the Civil War era had long since disappeared. This necessitated constructing a road in the battlefield because no public roads provided sufficient visitor access to important areas.

Author Joan Zenzen noted “that road building and land acquisition went together, with road construction enabled in part by a specific appropriation, a pre-New Deal unemployment relief effort.”

This National Park Service map shows the extent of park property associated with the Battle of Fredericksburg. The red numbered circles are the points of interest associated with this battlefield. Beginning with Stop #1, adjacent to the Fredericksburg Visitor’s Center, is the Sunken Road. Also at this location is the National Cemetery where Union soldiers, killed, mortally wounded in action, or died of disease from a 30-mile (48 kilometer) radius, have their resting place.

Lee Drive snaked next to the narrow line of Confederate trenches from Lee Hill on Richmond Road (Business Route 1), across Lansdowne Valley Road to Hamilton’s Crossing at Mine Run. Park staff cleared the underbrush along the trench line, making the trenches clearly visible along, what the local newspaper described as, “a beautiful drive”. The signs along Lee Drive were limited to specific battle actions. On Prospect Hill, Lee Drive was routed adjacent to the artillery positions to allow the visiting public to easily view them as they motored along the road. At the extreme southern end of the hill, this necessitated excavating a portion of the hill to allow the road to conveniently join the existing road to Hamilton’s Crossing.

The park was officially dedicated on 19 October 1928 by President Calvin Coolidge.

In 1933, Administrative functions of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battle Fields Memorial Park transferred to Department of the Interior and today, the National Park Service (NPS).

This is a section of the Master Plan developed by the NPS for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. It was a continuation of the 1925 Report. All four sections of the park, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness and Spotsylvania were included. This detail shows the region around Prospect Hill. The location of the ‘Information Station’ is in the vicinity of the current NPS Stop #6. All work on the park ceased during World War II. You will see on the right side the date is 1 January 194_. We think that this plan was finalized in 1942.

By the early 1940’s, the Park Service laid out potential improvements to enhance the visitor experience. These included hiking and horse trails, picnic areas and an information station on the top of Prospect Hill. World War II prevented any of this development. After the war, plans changed.

This is a detail of the NPS map shown above. Here you can find 13 of the 14 artillery emplacements of the Walker’s confederate artillery battalion. Lee Drive runs close by these positions. Union forces, under General Meade, broke through confederate General Archer’s brigade at the northern end of Prospect Hill, threatening the artillery to their south.

For the remainder of this blog, I will focus on the Prospect Hill portion of Lee Drive as it is today.

This is composite of two United States Geological Survey (USGS) maps from early 1940’s. The top one, dated 1944, is from the Fredericksburg quad sheet, while the lower one dated 1942 is from the Guinea quad sheet. Lee Drive is noted as ‘Battlefield PK Rd’. The word ‘Battlefield’ runs the length of Prospect Hill, which is more of a ridge than a hill. The flat farmland on the eastern side of the railroad tracks shows development only along the roads. There is no tree cover on the eastern face of Prospect Hill. Lee Drive is gouged out of the Hill just above the letter ‘D’. This modifies the wartime character of that end of the hill. The contour line makes an inverted ‘U’ here.

This 1942/44 US Geologic Survey (USGS) map of our study area shows the limit of development at that time. The proponents of the “Combined Plan—Antietam System” felt that the rural nature of the region would remain undisturbed into the foreseeable future”. This, in my view, was a shortsighted idea.  It may have been good for the nation’s financial pocketbook, but it robbed the cultural side of our society.

This is a view of Prospect Hill from the area of the NPS Stop #5, It looks generally south along the spine of the hill. The artillery emplacements begin just beyond the third tree on the left of the roadway in this photo.

As a visitor ascends Prospect Hill at its northern end, the hill or ridge appears to gently rise along the length of Lee Drive. Preserved infantry entrenchments and gun emplacements are located to the left of the road.

This view, looking north along Lee Drive, is from the opposite end of Prospect Hill. Confederate artillery emplacements line the right of the composite photograph. The orange flags and cones come from earlier work. In the right photo, the cones mark the location where limbers stood, while those in the left photo mark the location of caissons. The NPS erected the fence across Lee Drive as a safety feature to cut off an informal commuter shortcut that was endangering park visitors.

Lee Drive, seen from the southern end of Prospect Hill shows NPS ‘Stop 6’ on the left. There is parking for six cars or pickup trucks and two buses. The gun emplacements are found on the right side. You can see a 12-pound Howitzer in the distance. The red/orange cones are from my previous work (click here and here) when I figured out the placement of limbers and caissons associated with each gun.

The NPS ‘Stop 6’ map caption reads, “Prospect Hill. This was the right flank of the Confederate line. Artillery here helped stop Meade’s attacks. A short (2/10-mile trail leads to Hamilton’s Crossing on the railroad.” You can see the fence and the cones mentioned above. A previous road on Prospect Hill ran behind the large trees on the right side of the photograph.

This composite photograph shows NPS ‘Stop 6’ as you approach it from the north. In the distance you can make out a wooden fence, which prevents automobiles going further. This fence was installed in early 1990’s to cut off what amounted to a commuter shortcut through the park. This additional volume of traffic was endangering park visitors.

In this set of photographs, you can plainly see the road excavation that was constructed when aligning Lee Drive off the end of Prospect hill. In some places it is as much as 20 feet (6 meters) below the original hill. Cones seen in the mark the location of caissons (foreground) and limbers (background) that were here at the time of the Battle of Fredericksburg. Clearly, the excavated roadway makes this difficult to visualize. The fence blocking commuter use of Lee Drive is seen on the left rear.

This photo looks east across the road excavation which happened when the road was built in 1927-31. At the time of the civil war, this did not exist. Rather the hill was complete. The cones in the foreground show where the back of a caisson would have stood. Those seen on the far side of the road cut marks where the rear of a limber would have stood. The rear of the caisson was approximately 144 feet, (44 meters) from it’s gun, while the limber was 76 feet (23 meters) from its gun.

This final map is the USGS Topographic map Fredericksburg and Vicinity. Dated 1931, it displays the line of earthworks and gun emplacements constructed by confederate forces for the Battle of Fredericksburg. It does not show Lee Drive. Some of these entrenchments were constructed in the winter of 1862/3 supplementing those used in the battle, in case Union forces decided to have a second go at Fredericksburg. Prospect Hill is circled in yellow. Note the roadway of that time (= = = =). It comes from the east, across the open field, crosses the railroad and then splits with one branch running along Prospect Hill, dropping west around the steep end of Prospect Hill. The other branch moves west on the left side of the map. Confederate entrenchments are solid lines running along the face of Prospect Hill and the railroad line.

This is a small section of a 1931 USGS topographic map which indicated the location of infantry entrenchments and gun emplacements. The military road, constructed by the Confederates before the battle, was temporary in nature and disappeared for the most part by the time of the survey for this map. However, it does show a road system used by the landowner for farming in the flats to the east of the railroad, and logging to the west or left of the railroad. This road connects with Hamilton’s Crossing. When the War Department constructed Lee Drive, the portion of this existing roadway was obliterated.

My next blog (Part 2) I will take a deeper look at the road found on this map and how it was possibly connected to the confederate artillery emplacements.

Sources:

Books and Manuscripts:

Happel, Ralph. A History of The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Battlefield Memorial National Military Park. Fredericksburg, VA, 1955. Pp 35, 28, 45, 48-50, 54.

Zenzen, Joan. At the Crossroads of Preservation and Development: A History of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. FSNMP, 2011. Pp 36, 41, 44.

Report on the Inspection of Battle Fields in and around Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, 1 December 1925. FSNMP collection.

On-line:

Armistice Day-Veterans Day. Armistice Day – Wikipedia

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park establishment.

Creating a Park – Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg Military Park establishment.

Our First National Military Park | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org)

10 Facts: The Birth of National Battlefield Parks | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org)

Legislative Histories:

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battle Fields Memorial; establishment – 16 U.S.C. § 425 (2013) :: Title 16 – Conservation:: 2013 US Code :: US Codes and Statutes :: US Law :: Justia

Foundation Document, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Virginia (November 2015)

Newspapers:

“Park Road Opening Witnessed by Many”, Free Lance-Star, November 12, 1931.

Maps:

Fredericksburg Battlefield Development Plan, FSNPS, Drawing No. NMP-FS 2154, 194(2?).

USGS 1:31680-scale Quadrangle for Guinea, VA 1942 – ScienceBase-Catalog

USGS 1:31680-SCALE QUADRANGLE FOR FREDERICKSBURG, VA 1944 (historicaerials.com)

FRSP Map 1. Maps – Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov) Topographic map of Fredericksburg and vicinity, VA, showing battlefields. Topographic map of Fredericksburg and vicinity, Virginia, showing battlefields | Library of Congress (loc.gov)