Sunken Road Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
Commisso M and Roberts L. 2025. Sunken Road Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300173. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
The Sunken Road landscape, located within the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, is part of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The park was established in 1927 to protect and commemorate four major Civil War battlefields fought near Fredericksburg and is a National Register historic district comprised of five discontiguous areas encompassing around 9,429 acres. The 36.6-acre Sunken Road landscape preserves an important portion of the Confederate line from the First Battle of Fredericksburg, where artillery atop Marye’s Heights and infantry stationed behind a stone wall along the “sunken road” contributed to perhaps the most lopsided Confederate victory of the war. The site was also the location of fighting during the larger Chancellorsville Campaign. The irregularly-shaped site surrounds three sides of the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, established in 1865, and is roughly bordered on the east by dense residential development, on the north and west by the campus of the University of Mary Washington, and on the south by industrial and commercial development. The central organizing feature of the landscape is the Sunken Road itself, which runs roughly north-south along a break in slope that represents the physiographic transition between the Virginia Piedmont and the coastal plain. Surrounded by open lawn areas and scattered trees, the road has been rehabilitated to reflect its historic earthen character, and its northern portion still appears sunken in relation to the surrounding landscape. Portions of original stone wall remain alongside the road, and other segments have been reconstructed. East of the road, the Sunken Road landscape includes a portion of the gently-sloped plain which holds one small pre-Civil War home and the sites of two others, as well as several memorial and commemorative features. Also on the road’s east side at its southern end is the Fredericksburg Battlefield visitor center, constructed in 1937 and set within a landscape constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, including a length of reconstructed stone wall. West of the road, the topography rises more steeply up the terraced slope of Willis Hill, where a large post-Civil War house stands near a small family cemetery, which served as a field hospital during the battles. The southwest slope of Willis Hill drops back down into a small valley along the Hazel Run stream, where remnants of a nineteenth-century mill complex used as a Confederate supply depot are located.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Commisso, Michael; Roberts, Laura
- Date of Issue
- 2025
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- FRSP , NER
- Keywords
- Archeology, Architecture, Battle Site, Battlefield, Battlefield Preservation, CCC, Civil War, Civilian Conservation Corps, CLI, Colonial Revival Design, Commemoration, Confederate General Thomas Cobb, December 11, Designed Landscape, Earthworks, First Battle of Fredericksburg, General Burnside, General Lee, historic site, Infantry, Innis House, Kirkland Monument, Marye's Heights, Memorial, Military, oclp, olmsted center for landscape preservation, Pre-Civil War Design, Stone Wall, Telegraph Road, Topography, Virginia, Visitors Center, War Department, Willis Hill