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

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

Rev. Robert Campbell Gilmore. As a public speaker of wide reputation, especially on Southern themes, Hon. John T. Goolrick, Judge of the Corporation Court of Fredericksburg, Va., needs no introduction. It is my privilege to introduce him as a writer of history to an ever widening circle of readers. Other men can gather facts and put them in logical order, but few can give the history of the old town of Fredericksburg such filial sympathy and interest, such beauty of local color, as can this loya

One by one the little cabins are built along the river bank— Enveloped in the perfume of old English boxwood and the fragrance of still older poplars, and permeated with the charm of a two hundred and fifty year old atmosphere, the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, nestles in the soft foliage along the banks of the Rappahannock, at the point where the turbulent waters of the upper river rush abruptly against the back-wash of the sea, an odd but pleasing mixture of the old and the new. Subtly ric

In the days of its glory, the Old Town was famed and prosperous The first mention of Fredericksburg in the annals of the new Republic is an act of the legislature in 1781, incorporating the town and vesting the powers of its government in the hands of a mayor and commonality, consisting of a council and board of aldermen. Courts were established and provision made for future elections of its officials. The first mayor was Charles Mortimer, and the Board of Aldermen consisted of William Williams,

Shelled by 181 guns for hours, the town becomes a crumbled ruin Fredericksburg is the point through which the railway and the roads to Richmond pass, and is half way between Washington and the Southern city. During the Civil war the possession of the town was an advantage not to be despised, and so from the beginning the two great armies of the North and South were contenders for the town. The first attempt toward Fredericksburg was made June 1, 1861, when Federal gunboats and a small cavalry fo

When, at Mayre’s Heights and Hamilton’s Crossing, war claimed her sacrifice Following the shelling of Fredericksburg, on December 11th, the Union army began to cross on pontoons. On the 12th of December, under cover of the guns and of fog, almost the whole Union army crossed on three pontoons, one near the foot of Hawk street, another just above the car bridge, and one at Deep Run. On the morning of December 13th, General Burnside’s army was drawn up in a line of battle from opposite Falmouth to

The Struggle in the Pine Woods when death struck at Southern hearts From the close of the battle at Fredericksburg in December 1862, until the spring of 1863, General Burnside’s Army of the Potomac and General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia lay in camp; the first on the north and the second on the south bank of the Rappahannock. The little town, now fairly well repopulated by returned refugees, lay between the hosts. The Northern lines practically began at Falmouth, where General Daniel Butterf

The fearful fire swept Wilderness, and the Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania After Chancellorsville, the Confederate Army invaded the North, and Hooker left the Stafford Hills to follow Lee into Pennsylvania. When Gettysburg was over, both armies came back to face each other along the Rappahannock, twenty to thirty miles above Fredericksburg. Now, Chancellorsville is in a quiet tract of scrub pine woods, twelve miles west of Fredericksburg. The Plank Road and the Turnpike run toward it and meet ther

Dr. Charles Mortimer In a beautiful old home on lower Main Street, surrounded by a wall, mellowed by time, and ivy-crowned, lived Washington’s dear friend and physician, Dr. Charles Mortimer. He could often be seen, in the days gone by, seated on his comfortable “verandah,” smoking a long pipe, covered with curious devices, and discussing the affairs of the moment with those rare intellects who were drawn there by the interesting atmosphere of blended beauty and mentality. There was, as a backgr

Soldiers, Adventurers and Sailors, Heroes and Artists, mingle here. A prophet without honor in his own country was Moncure Daniel Conway because, a Fredericksburger and a Southerner, he opposed slavery. But his genius won him world praise, and later, honer in his own country. Born in 1832, near Falmouth, to which village his people moved later, the child of Walker Peyton Conway and Marguerite Daniel Conway he inherited from a long line of ancestry, a brilliant intellect and fearlessness to tread

Some of Many Who Left a Record of Brilliancy, Service or Sacrifice. The stars that shine in the galaxy of the heavens do not all glow with the same lustre. One is gifted with a steady and dependable splendor, another scintillates and fades to shine afresh. So, it is, that the women of Fredericksburg have in their individual ways added to the glories of the town and well sustained its deserved reputation, as being the home of capable, brilliant, and beautiful women. A distinguished French officer

Where Famous Men Met; and Mine Host Brewed Punch and Sedition. Standing back a few feet from the Main Street of Fredericksburg, the Rising Sun Tavern looks out on the automobiles and trucks that hurry by over the concrete streets. Silk and woolen mills and “pants” factories spin and weave and rumble, while the old tavern, with the dignity of its century and a half calmly flaunts the sign of the rising sun with its radii of red light. The knocker that felt the hand of almost every famous American

After Forty Years of Failure, He Hears the Echo of His Youthful Triumph. Forty years after his return to France at the end of the American Revolution, General Lafayette came back to visit the nation he had helped to create. Cities of the United States heaped honor and hospitality upon him. The people greeted him in villages and taverns as he traveled, and it is not strange that he returned to France “astonished” at the vigor of the young republic. He himself had seen France taste freedom, turn t

Staid Documents, Writ by Hands That Are Still, Are History For Us. For simple beauty of line there is probably no Court House in Virginia that equals that at Fredericksburg. While to the casual eye its grace is obvious, to artists’ and architects’ it makes the stronger appeal, and it is from those familiar with the lines of new and old world buildings that the Court House receive highest praise. Inside, in a modern vault, are many interesting records of the past. The Court House was completed in

“Ghosts of Dead Hours, and Days That Once Were Fair” Fredericksburg was, in anti-bellum days, the center of a large number of slave holding land proprietors who lived within its gates, yet cultivated their farms in the adjacent territory, hence the colored population of the town was large; and very much to the credit of these colored people as well as a testimonial to the manner of their treatment, and to the methods of their humane and kind discipline, the colored population was law abiding and

Old Gardens, at Old Mansions, Where Bloom Flowers from Long Ago Buds and blossoms everywhere! and honey-bees, butterflies and birds! It is Spring now in the lush meadows and sweeping hills about Fredericksburg. Flowers, leaves, shrubs and vines have burst forth once more with joy and life. The wild tangle of beauty and fragrance is everywhere perceptible; hedges of honeysuckle, whose hidden foundation is the crumbling old stone wall, trellises heavy with old-time roses, arbors redolent with swee

How They Grew in the New World; Pathways to the Light. In the spring of 1877, during the rectorate of Reverend E. C. Murdaugh at St. George’s Church, questions arose as to certain forms of the Episcopal ritual. Some of the members of the congregation approving Dr. Murdaugh’s views, believed them to be in perfect accord with the doctrines of the church, but others felt that the introduction of these debated minor forms was an innovation and tended towards a High Church ritual. These discussions w

First in Virginia, the Church of England Has the Longest History. It has been said, and by reliable searchers after historical truths, that the first Christian shrine in America was built by Spanish missionaries, and on the site where now stands the City of Fredericksburg. But as no proof has been found, we relinquish this claim, and find our first authentic beginnings of Christianity in an old entry found in the records of Spotsylvania County, 1724: “Information brought by Thomas Chew, Church w

Fredericksburg Celebrates an Anniversary Many months were given to preparation for this greatest event in the modern history of Fredericksburg, the celebration of her 250th birthday as a chartered community. Much thought was spent on how best to portray the Town’s history from the granting of the “Lease Lands” by Governor Berkley, in May, 1671, to be settled by the Colonists. The entire city officially and individually had given itself up, practically, to staging a Celebration befitting the uniq

Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Convention of 1776 was the successful patron and aggressive advocate of the resolution for the appointment of a Committee to revise certain laws in order that they might be in accordance with and conform to the changed status and conditions of the State, from a Colony of Great Britain to an independent sovereignty. This Committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, George Mason of Gunston Hall, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton and Thomas L. Lee, met in the Rising Sun