The struggle for the Slaughter Pen Farm, a pivotal part of the Battle of Fredericksburg, has been well documented and studied. The battle on the Slaughter Pen Farm is depicted in the famous 19th century painting by Carl Rochling entitled “The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862,” which resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Over the years, much interest on the Battle for Fredericksburg has been focused on the catastrophe that Ambrose Burnside’s Union Army of the Potomac suffered as wave after wave of men attempted to break the Confederate lines of Robert E. Lee at Marye’s Heights at the northern end of the battlefield. Indeed, the current battlefield visitor’s center is sited at the Sunken Road, adjacent to the storied stone wall behind which the Confederates stood, inflicting close to 8,000 Union casualties, while suffering perhaps 1,000.

More recent scholarship, however, has shifted attention to the important southern section of the battlefield, where the true outcome of the battle hung in the balance. Here, on the Farm, Stonewall Jackson’s Second Corps contended against William Franklin’s Left Grand Division. In some of the most desperate fighting ever described by the participants, the Union forces under George Meade and John Gibbon punctured the Confederate lines and, for a time, threatened to roll up Jackson’s line.

However, the timely arrival of Confederate reinforcements – and the notable lack of any such corresponding action on the Union side – ensured the Southern victory that day. The casualty totals clearly show what a close victory it was. On this part of the field, the attacking Union forces inflicted 4,000 Confederate casualties while losing 5,000 of their own men. These numbers attest to the savage closeness of the fighting, and historian Frank O’Reilly, in his seminal 2003 study on this battle, The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock, states, “Jackson’s engagement proved to be the decisive action on December 13, and can be rightfully called the true Battle of Fredericksburg.”

Fredericksburg is without question one of America’s most significant Civil War battlefields. With the exception of a few yards of land before the stone wall, all of the ground that saw the Union charges toward Marye’s Heights has been lost, obliterated as the city expanded over the decades. That same destruction threatens the southern part of the battlefield today.

The ground where this momentous battle was decided; the ground over which Gibbon’s division and part of Meade’s division attacked and were so bloodily repulsed; the hallowed ground that the Civil War Preservation Trust is attempting to save today, is the 205-acre Slaughter Pen Farm.

Historians now estimate that 5,000 of the total 9,000 casualties suffered on the entire southern end of the battlefield occurred on the Slaughter Pen Farm. Valorous actions on that ground led to the awarding of five Congressional Medals of Honor. The necessity of preserving this vital piece of America’s history cannot be overstated, as emphasized below by noted historians and authors.

Ed Bearss, Chief Historian Emeritus, National Park Service and Author:

"The Slaughter Pen Farm is without a doubt the most significant part of the battlefield at Fredericksburg that is not protected. Its acquisition will provide an opportunity to permit visitors to walk in the footsteps of history, from the launch of the Union attack all the way to its conclusion. If the advance by Gibbon’s Division on this land and by Meade’s Division, which breached and broke the Confederate lines just to the south, had been properly supported, the Union had an opportunity to win an overwhelming victory at Fredericksburg.

"To fully understand the battle and this lost Union opportunity, I would counsel that it is more important to save this land – which looks today much as it did on the day of the battle – than to try to reclaim any of the battlefield in front of Marye’s Heights.

"This is one of the most important pieces of battlefield land the Civil War Preservation Trust has ever attempted to save."  

Robert K. Krick, Historian and Author:

"The Federal troops who charged boldly toward the R.F. & P. Railroad tracks south of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, penetrated the Confederate front line and wreaked havoc before rallying Southerners drove them back. While Ambrose Burnside’s bloody disaster unfolded a few miles to the north at Marye’s Heights, Northerners under George Meade and John Gibbon achieved the only notable success their army enjoyed in the Battle of Fredericksburg.

"The Confederate line toward which Meade and Gibbon attacked has been protected for many years, but very little of the ground across which they charged had been preserved for posterity. The Slaughter Pen Farm, which CWPT is buying in its entirety, is the only remaining undeveloped piece of Fredericksburg Battlefield. It also represents the most expensive acquisition ever undertaken by any battlefield group, by a factor of several multiples. What a preservation coup!"

Frank O’Reilly, Historian and Author of The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock (The authoritative book on the action at Slaughter Pen Farm):

"The Slaughter Pen is the very heart and soul of the Fredericksburg Battlefield. Without it, nothing makes sense. This is the point where the battle was won and lost on December 13, 1862. After Burnside’s bloody failure here, there was nothing the Union army could do to win the Battle of Fredericksburg-or the Confederates to lose it. Correspondingly, this is where Preservation ultimately will win or lose the struggle for Fredericksburg’s history. Once this national treasure is gone, there will be nothing left worthy of saving. Standing on this unblemished historic land— christened in the blood of brave men, North and South—one touches the Past and understands the sacrifices of these men on the most decisive point of the Fredericksburg Battlefield. They fought for this land, and paid for it with their lives for the future, for us. We need to fight for this land too-for the past, for them, lest we forget.

"This property means more to me than just about any other property in Civil War history. If it goes, then the whole Fredericksburg Battlefield will become meaningless and irrelevant. This battlefield may die if that field disappears."