This continues the Christmas Season series. This week, we will continue with our “snapshots” of historical events that occurred during the Christmas Holiday season. Battle of Fredericksburg (1862) The Civil War was, without a doubt, the most terrible war in our history.
It was the costliest war in American history in terms of loss of life as an estimated 620,000 men died in the line of duty. The primary cause of those horrible casualties lies in the fact that the Civil War was the first “modern war.” It was the first war to use armaments such as repeating rifles, breechloading arms and automated weapons like the Gatling gun.
It was also the first conflict to use rifled weapons in a large context, increasing the accuracy of small arms, and also more accurate and deadly artillery. However, many of the generals on both sides prosecuted the war using earlier tactics, ones more attuned to muzzle-loading, single shot, smooth bore weapons, which were not nearly as accurate as those being carried by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. In short, many of the strategies employed during the war led to thousands killed in every battle.
Most Americans have a knowledge of battles such as Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh and Bull Run, but one that is perhaps not as well known but should be was the Battle of Fredericksburg, fought near the town of the same name in Northern Virginia in 1862. With more than 200,000 combatants, it was the engagement with the greatest number of combined t.
