Wednesday, June 22 (7:30 PM) thru Saturday, June 25 (5 PM)
Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA
Led by Frank O’Reilly
Registration Fee: $425.00 

Pushed by President Abraham Lincoln to win a decisive victory for the Union, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside attempted to cross the Rappahannock River in December 1862 to please his commander-in-chief. Burnside successfully forced a crossing, but the result was a major Federal debacle at Fredericksburg. Our comprehensive tour of the Fredericksburg campaign will be conducted by the nationally recognized expert on the battle, Frank O’Reilly.

We will stop at all the major sites associated with the battle and some places that perhaps you have not seen. We’ll get to understand this campaign as a far more complex operation than just a frontal assault by Blue-coated infantrymen on the entrenched positions of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia which stretched eight miles along ridges west of Fredericksburg. Our tour will include a stop at Chatham, a magnificent plantation home used by Union Maj. Gen. Edwin “Bull” Sumner as his headquarters and later as a field hospital. We’ll walk thru part of the old town where Confederate Brig. Gen. William Barksdale’s sharpshooters held off Union troops for twelve hours as they attempted to pontoon the river. Of course, we’ll follow the heroic charge of the Irish Brigade on the stone-lined Sunken Road below Marye’s Heights which was held by units under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet. [Read more…]