Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center

Fredericksburg sits midway between two capitals, which in December 1862 made it the most dangerous piece of ground in America. Union soldiers crossed open ground toward a sunken road where Confederate infantry waited behind a stone wall. They came in waves. None reached the wall.

That ground is where the park service set up its visitor center, on a site Congress designated in 1927 as part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The park covers not just the December 1862 battle but also Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. Inside: three exhibit rooms covering the periods before, during, and after the battle, and a 22-minute film. Afterward, a half-mile walking trail follows the Sunken Road up to Marye's Heights and ends at the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, where more than 15,000 Union soldiers are buried — many of them unidentified, in mass graves.

During the battle, more than 10,000 enslaved people in the region crossed the Rappahannock to reach Union lines. The ground holds more than one story. Start here to find them.