Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial - Thursday July 7, 2011
By Frederick Nnoma-Addison
Not often do many connect America’s civil war of the 1860’s with Africa but considering the fact that abolition of slavery in the United States is one direct result of this war, it is as relevant to Africans as it is to Americans even in this 21st century. Visiting the war sites in Fredericksburg alongside 9 other foreign-born journalists from the Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, China, Germany, Russia, Serbia and Romania I sought to first find out how such an experience would be relevant to me a Ghanaian national and consequently my audience in Ghana and the west-African sub region.
The day-long tour sponsored by the Foreign Press Center of the U.S. Department of State started out at the Sunken Road/Stone Wall sector of the Fredericksburg battlefield and ended at the Slaughter Pen Farms. During the first Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, the Stone Wall protected Southern confederate soldiers from their opponents. Behind the wall only a few hundred Confederate soldiers were shot, in contrast with approximately 8,000 Union soldiers who were hit on the other side. After the war much of the wall was removed and only rebuilt in recent decades. The wide open fields of Slaughter Pen Farm is the site where the battle was eventually determined.
My visit to these sites for me mirrored U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana in July 2009 alongside her husband President Obama. Just as she toured the site where her own ancestors may have possibly departed the continent for the America’s I also viewed this tour as a site where the fate of my own ancestors who were taken as slaves from Africa was determined.
Superintendent Russ Smith of the National Parks Service was first to welcome us to the site. After screening a short documentary film in the visitor’s center he gave us an overview of the Battle of Fredericksburg. From Sunken Road, historian Frank A. O’Reilly guided the tour along Stone Wall to Innis House, an 1861 built property originally owned Martha Stephens.
Reflecting over the causes and effects of the Battle of Fredericksburg (1862) one can safely argue that 150 years has not been enough to change the role of war in society, whether between or within nations. With the ongoing, recent or just ended wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, against the Taliban, Al-Qaida, La Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Egypt, Rwanda – the list goes on, it is clear that the world – developed or developing, first or third-world alike still use war as a means of resolving conflicts when and where necessary. Perhaps in another 150 years we would know whether this is expedient or not. It seems there will always be parties for and against war and situations that press hard for war. Standing on the hallowed battlegrounds of Fredericksburg I could not help but ask how the preservation of such an important historic site does not at the same time fuel America’s appetite for war. The civil war like the revolutionary war brought undeniable gains to the United State. It led to the abolition of slavery, preserved the union and is partly responsible for producing a great nation – The United States of America; therefore one could argue that “war is good.”
I asked Superintendent Russ Smith how his center could possibly promote war history without fueling America’s interest in current and new wars. His response was apt. “We do not glorify war. Over here we certainly talk about the cost of war,” and indeed throughout the tour we learned about the tens of thousands of wounded and dead soldiers and the damages to the communities where the wars were staged.
Out of the numerous wars that have been fought in Africa in the past 150 years more Americans are familiar with the 1994 civil war between Rwandan Hutus and Tutsi’s which claimed the lives of 800,000 Tutsi’s. While the number of casualties may not be the same across the Atlantic, the two have some serious lessons to teach us all – the cost of war, as Russ Smith put it. With a few exceptions, the culture of preserving and teaching war history on hallowed battlefields is not a very common practice in Africa but without even counting the commercial value this is a good practice for educational, historical and development purposes which African countries may emulate. In our fast changing world where the father of the U.S. President today is from Kenya (east Africa) and the First Lady is also a direct descendant of African slaves the connections between our past and present have never been so directly related, hence the need to study and preserve our history. History is good but even better when you can link it to the present as I tried to do throughout the tour.
Our tour finally ended in the fields of Slaughter Pen Farms and after thanking our guide and facilitators we headed back to Washington, DC, each to his or her own media outlet. The visit will mean differently to each of the ten visitors based on the region of the world each one is from and their personal experiences but one thing is certain, all found it to be enlightening and informative and are expected to share their experiences with their audiences in one way or another.
Superintendent Russ Smith Speaking To Journalists
Sunken Road
Foreign Journalists
Stone Wall
Historian Frank O'Reilly With Journalists In Front Of Innis House
Slaughter Pen Farm
About the American Civil War
The American Civil War (1861–1865) involved Eleven Southern slave states who declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as "the Confederacy." Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought for its independence from the United States. The U.S. federal government was supported by twenty mostly-Northern free states in which slavery already had been abolished, and by five slave states that became known as the border states. These twenty-five states, referred to as the Union, had a much larger base of population and industry than the South. After four years of bloody, devastating warfare the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation.
About the Battle of Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. The Union army's futile assaults on December 13 against Confederate defenders on the heights behind the city is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. Burnside's plan was to cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in mid-November and race to the Confederate capital of Richmond before Lee's army could stop him. Unexpected delays however prevented Burnside from receiving the necessary pontoon bridges in time and Lee moved his army to block the crossings. When the Union army was finally able to build its bridges and cross under fire, urban combat resulted in the city on December 11–12. Union troops prepared to assault Confederate defensive positions south of the city and on a strongly fortified ridge just west of the city known as Marye's Heights. The war featured the first major opposed river crossing in American military history. Union and Confederate troops fought in the streets of Fredericksburg, the Civil War’s first urban combat.
About the Park
Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park administered by the Department of Interior is the second largest military park in the United States. It preserves and interprets the history of four major battlefields scattered over the city of Fredericksburg and four counties. – Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center is located at 1013 Lafayette Boulevard in Fredericksburg, Virginia. For more information visit http://www.nps.gov/frsp/vc.htm
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