Antique Civil War Map Battle: Fredericksburg -Crossing Rappahannock Urban Combat

Description: Antique Battlefield Map(12 3/4" x 17 1/4")of Fredericksburg VAThis map show the Union and Confederate positions a Fredericksburg December 11–15, 1862The battle with nearly 200,000 combatants—the greatest number of any Civil War engagement—Fredericksburg was one of the largest and deadliest battles of the Civil War. It featured the first opposed river crossing in American military history as well as the Civil War’s first instance of urban combat. . The map shows the locations of the crossing of the Rappahannock River and where the pontoons were built.In the foggy pre-dawn hours of December 11, Union engineers crept to the riverbank and began laying their pontoons. Skilled workmen from two New York regiments completed a pair of bridges at the lower crossing and pushed the upstream spans more than halfway to the opposite bank. The Federals were meet fierce opposition from Confederate musket fire the river-front houses and yards of Fredericksburg. Burnside now turned to his artillery chief, Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt, and ordered him to blast Fredericksburg into submission with some 150 guns trained on the city from Stafford Heights. Hoping this barrage would dislodge the Confederate infantry and permit completion of the bridges. The bombardment continued for nearly two hours but did not halt the Confederate fire. Burnside meets with his officers and approves a plan to send a landing party across the river to hunt down the Confederate snipers and secure a bridgehead in the town. Colonel Norman Hall, a brigade commander in Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin’s Left Grand Division, volunteers his brigade to row across the river. Under fire, regiments from Michigan and Massachusetts successfully cross the Rappahannock and drive the riflemen from the riverbank. An engineer regiment begins to assemble the pontoon bridges opposite the town in the foggy pre-dawn hours. On complete of the bridge Union regiments follow across the river, and the Confederates withdraw after a few hours of house-to-house fighting in the street of town. This map is a original, antique map No.1 (not a reproduction) a section taken carefullyfrom folio page XXXIII (39)of maps from the Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Commissioned by Resolution of Congress May 19, 1864,in accordance to serve as the official historical record of the war.(It was published between 1891-1895) The atlas from which this map was taken still remains the definitive source of Civil War information available. The Atlas was never publicly sold but exclusively distributed to federal depositories, universities, museums and various public institutions until they were withdrawn from these institutions and entered the public domain years later. The map comes from the larger folio plate XXXIII(The photos of the large plate & title pages shown are not part of the sale but for documentation of map's source)

Price: 19.95 USD

Location: Bar Harbor, Maine

End Time: 2024-03-20T15:28:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.95 USD