Historic Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg from Stafford
Showing the Steeple that was Used as a Signal Station by Both Armies

On the Wilderness Battlefield
President Harding, John T. Goolrick and Gen. Smedley D. Butler

Historic
Fredericksburg

The Story of an Old Town

By
John T. Goolrick
AUTHOR OF
“The Life of General Hugh Mercer”
“Irishmen in the Civil War”
Etc.

Printed In U.S.A.
by
WHITTET & SHEPPERSON RICHMOND VA.
Photographs By
DAVIS GALLERY, FREDERICKSBURG VA.

COPYRIGHT, 1922
JOHN T. GOOLRICK

This Book is Dedicated
To one who has not failed her friends, or her duty.
Who has given freely of her best.
Whose faith has not faltered, nor courage dimmed.
Who has held high her ideals; who has lighted
a pathway for those she loves.
To My Wife

Contents

In The Older Days [13]
One by one the little cabins are built along the river bank
After the Revolution [26]
In the days of its glory, the Old Town was famed and prosperous
War’s Worst Horrors [37]
Shelled by 181 guns for hours, the town becomes a crumbled ruin
The First Battle [48]
When, at Marye’s Heights and Hamilton’s Crossing, war claimed her sacrifice
At Chancellorsville [55]
The Struggle in the Pine Woods when death struck at Southern hearts
Two Great Battles [64]
The fearful fire swept Wilderness, and the Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania
Heroes of Early Days [70]
The Old Town gives the first Commander, first Admiral and Great Citizens
Men of Modern Times [98]
Soldiers, Adventurers and Sailors, Heroes and Artists, mingle here
Unforgotten Women [123]
Some of Many Who Left a Record of Brilliancy, Service or Sacrifice
At the Rising Sun [133]
Where Famous Men Met; and Mine Host Brewed Punch and Sedition
Lafayette Comes Back [139]
After Forty Years of Failure, He Hears the Echo of His Youthful Triumph
Old Court Record [142]
Staid Documents, Writ by Hands That Are Still, Are History For Us
Echoes of the Past [151]
“Ghosts of Dead Hours, and Days That Once Were Fair”
Where Beauty Blends [165]
Old Gardens, at Old Mansions, Where Bloom Flowers from Long Ago
Church and School [173]
How They Grew in the New World; Pathways to the Light
The Church of England [181]
First in Virginia, the Church of England Has the Longest History
The 250th Birthday [188]
Fredericksburg Celebrates an Anniversary
Appendix [199]

FREDERICKSBURG
A Preface

Fredericksburg sprawls at the foot of the hills where the scented summer winds sweep over it out of the valley of brawling waters above. The grass grows lush in the meadows and tangles in the hills that almost surround it. In spring the flowers streak the lowlands, climb on the slopes, and along the ridges; and Autumn makes fair colors in the trees, shading them in blood crimson, weathered bronze, and the yellow of sunsets.

Over its shadowed streets hangs the haze of history. It is not rich nor proud, because it has not sought; it is quiet and content, because it has sacrificed. It gave its energy to the Revolution. It gave its heart to the Confederacy; and, once when it was thundered at by guns, and red flames twisted in its crumbling homes, it gave its soul and all it possessed to the South. It never abated its loyalty nor cried out its sorrows.

In Fredericksburg, and on the battlefields near it, almost thirty thousand men lay on the last couch in the shadowy forests and—we think—heard Her voice calling and comforting them. To the wounded, the Old Town gave its best, not visioning the color of their uniforms, nursing them back to life: And, broken and twisted and in poverty, it began to rebuild itself and gather up the shattered ideals of its dead past.

Out of its heart has grown simple kindness; out of its soul simple faith.

As I look out over the streets, (I knew them well when Lee and Jackson and Stuart, Lincoln and Grant and Hancock knew them too), they shimmer in the Autumn sun. Over them, as has ever seemed to me, hangs an old and haunting beauty. There may not be as great men here as long ago, but here are their descendants and the descendants of others like them. And he who comes among them will find loyal hearts and warm hand-clasps.

Ah, I know the old town. My bare feet ran along its unpaved walks and passed the cabins many a time in slavery days. I knew it in the Civil War and reconstruction days, and on and on till now: And it has not failed its duty.

Fredericksburg’s history brims with achievement and adventure. It has not been tried in this volume to tell all of these. I have tried to tell a simple story, with the flame of achievement burning on the shrines and the echoes of old days sweeping through it, like low winds in the pine woods; to make men and women more vivid than dates and numbers. I have tried to be accurate and complete and to vision the past, but above all, I have loved the things of which I have written.

There is no possibility of expressing the gratitude the author feels for the aid given him by others, but he must say, briefly, that without the assistance of Miss Dora Jett, Mrs. Franklin Stearns, Mrs. John T. Goolrick, and Dr. J. N. Barney, Mr. Chester B. Goolrick and Mr. John T. Goolrick, Jr., the book could not have been made as readable as we hope the public will find it. We owe just as deep thanks to Miss Sally Gravatt of the Wallace Library.

Jno. T. Goolrick.

Fredericksburg, Va.,
October 25, 1921.