I have been to the Fredericksburg National Military Park at least half-a-dozen times over the years, but I only went to the Chatham Manor across the Rappahannock River from the city once before. Last week, when I went to accept an award from Emerging Civil War in Spotsylvania, I visited the house, which is under control of the National Park Service. When I went there last Friday I heard a talk on Black Resistance to Slavery at Chatham Manor. It was well worth the trip.
During the Civil War, it was a headquarters, a hospital, and a place visited by Lincoln and his generals.
Chatham Manor was completed in 1751 and it became one of the most prestigious houses in Virginia. Planter William Fitzhugh built the house. He was very concerned with American freedom and joined the revolutionary struggle in 1776, even serving in the Continental Congress, but throughout the Revolution he held ownership of scores of Black men, women, and children as slaves.
When I had visited the manor many years ago there was little mention of slavery. That has changed. While the house has been maintained in its grand style and the Civil War period is the focus of many of the exhibits, slavery, the cause of all the fighting, was the subject of the talk. If you are going, phone ahead to determine when the talk will be given. The day I went, it was offered at 2 PM. I would also note that in October of 2024 the house will close for preservation. After then, please check to see if it has been reopened.
We parked in the small parking lot near the house and walked through the beautiful grounds to the manor house.
There were grape vines and many flowing plants on the way to the house, as well as decorative art placed outdoors over the two hundred years this house was a home. Of course, it was impossible for me to tell which statues were on-site in the period of the Civil War.
When I went into the house, I was greeted by Quincy Balius, a Seasonal Employee of the National Park Service. Like many “Seasonals,” she was a teacher who spent her summers with the National Park Service. She would later talk to our group about Black Resistance. While I was waiting for the talk to start, I gave myself a self-guided tour through the landscape outside.
As you can see, the non-profit partners of Chatham Manor have done an excellent job of maintaining the grounds and planting the gardens.
You are free to walk around and admire the plantings.
Quincy Balius is from Montana and she travels nearly 2,000 miles every summer to come east and work at different National Park sites and then in September she journeys back 2,000 miles to teach history to Montana’s school kids. When you hear modern politicians criticize how history is taught, please remember Quincy and the many hundreds of teachers I have met over the last sixty years who are so devoted to teaching the subject to kids, and to elderly people like myself.
Balius told us that while Fitzhugh’s portrait hung at Chatham, nearly 80% of the people who lived there were Black. During most of the time of slavery, there were over 100 slaves held there. During the late 18th Century there were nearly 200 Blacks enslaved there.
Much of the manor was built using slave labor, and of course the materials for building came from the profits of slavery. Leaders of American liberty came to Chatham to meet with slave owners, enjoy the victuals raised by slaves, and drink the wine purchased with the profits of slave labor. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were guest here.
Balius told us that while Blacks were enslaved from the earliest days of the manor, enslaved persons were resistant to slavery even before the Revolution. She talked about escaped slaves and other forms of resistance.
In 1805, a quarter century after the American Revolution, the Chatham slaves staged their own revolution. The overseer who worked for William Fitzhugh decided to cut short the Christmas holiday by one week. This was one of the few times enslaved people could decide on their own what to do. Many slaves visited family members on other plantations or they spent time with their children. The Blacks at Chatham overpowered Fitzhugh’s overseer, stripped off his shirt, and publicly whipped him.
In 1857 the owner of Chatham, Hannah Jones Coalter, died and her will offered freedom to her slaves. Her relatives had her will overturned based on the Dred Scott Decision which said that a Black did not have rights that a white man was bound to respect. Even a white owner like Coalter could not really free an enslaved Black in Virginia in her will.
I thank Quincy Balius for making me aware of this.
Chatham Manor has several rooms on the first floor that are devoted to its use during the Civil War. J. Horace Lacy, brother-in-law to Hannah, became the owner of the house and its people. Lacy was a supporter of the Confederacy when it was formed and he went to the Confederate capitol in Richmond to assist the rebellion. Lacy said after the war that he had delivered messages to General Robert E. Lee. Lee’s wife was the granddaughter of a previous owner of the house and Lacy may have invented some discussion between himself and the Confederate commander. During the final years of the war, he was a quartermaster in Mississippi.
After the war, Lacy returned home to find that his “wealth”, meaning his slaves, was gone. He became a principal figure among those constructing the Lost Cause in Fredericksburg as well as post-war white supremacy. You can see his effective use of Lost Cause rhetoric in this speech when he was running for railroad commissioner:
For myself let me say that born in affluence, broadly cultivated, allied by ties of blood to many of the first families in this glorious Commonwealth, I have been utterly impoverished by a cruel war and now find myself reduced to the poor expedient of eking out a pitiful livelihood by cutting hoop poles in Spotsylvania from soil consecrated by heroes.
The Fredericksburg News supported Lacy in a subsequent election saying:
Like all of us…[he] may have his faults, yet he is the representative of the white man’s party of Spotsylvania, he is the bearer of the white man’s flag, and it is the duty, the sacred duty, of every Conservative who desires to perpetuate the purity of his blood and the pride of his race to vote and earnestly work for the election of Major Lacy…When the great object is the supremacy of the white race, let not any petty personal feeling or prejudice come between you and the consummation of the great end to be obtained.
Lacy was captured by Union troops in 1862 and sent to Fort Delaware where he remained for three months. Abner Doubleday had this to say on Lacy:
June 16, 1862
Col. W. W. Whipple, Chief of Staff
Headquarters, Middle Dept.
Baltimore, Maryland
‘Colonel:
“I sent today, in pursuance of orders from the Secretary of War, Major J. H. Lacy of the Rebel Army, to be confined in Fort McHenry. This man is one of the most wealthy and influential proprietors in this part of Virginia, and by his persistent efforts last year, in the cause of secession, had great influence in deluding many into its support. He was for a long time Chief of Staff to General Holmes, and more recently to Gustavus H. Smith. While he was acting in that capacity, a number of Union citizens were arrested, and sent to Richmond, and afterwards to Salisbury, North Carolina, where, I am reliably informed, they were exposed to many hardships.
He is regarded by the few remaining Union men here as by far the most dangerous rebel of the County, and one whose release would be a signal for renewed persecution. Great efforts will undoubtedly be made by his influential friends to obtain his release, or some mitigation of his punishment.
‘I am, Colonel, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
A. Doubleday, Brig. Gen. Vols., Commanding.’
The first floor of the house contains displays on the Civil War. Lincoln visited here to meet with his generals. Clara Barton and Walt Whitman were among the nurses who cared for the wounded here after the Battle of Fredericksburg.
Clara Barton dedicated herself to following Florence Nightingale’s example of a professional nursing corps that included both men and women in the care of the wounded.
Dr. Mary Walker was another woman pioneer in treating patients. While the War Department did not give her a commission at the start of the Civil War, she volunteered to treat wounded patients at Chatham. She was later awarded a Medal of Honor, although it was revoked in the 20th Century right before her death.
Walt Whitman was a poet and newspaper editor from Long Island, where I live, who went to Fredericksburg to take care of his brother after the battle. He stayed caring for the wounded brought to Chatham House.
Whitman published his recollections in Specimen Days which recounts:
December 23 to 31.—The results of the late battle [of Fredericksburg] are exhibited everywhere about here in thousands of cases, (hundreds die every day,) in the camp, brigade, and division hospitals. These are merely tents, and sometimes very poor ones, the wounded lying on the ground, lucky if their blankets are spread on layers of pine or hemlock twigs, or small leaves. No cots; seldom even a mattress. It is pretty cold. The ground is frozen hard, and there is occasional snow. I go around from one case to another. I do not see that I do much good to these wounded and dying; but I cannot leave them. Once in a while some youngster holds on to me convulsively, and I do what I can for him; at any rate, stop with him and sit near him for hours, if he wishes it.
Besides the hospitals, I also go occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men, &c. Sometimes at night among the groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. These are curious shows, full of characters and groups. I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp, with officers or men, and am always well used. Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best. As to rations, the army here at present seems to be tolerably well supplied, and the men have enough, such as it is, mainly salt pork and hard tack. Most of the regiments lodge in the flimsy little shelter-tents. A few have built themselves huts of logs and mud, with fire-places.
Three hundred men were treated in the two week period after the battle.
Some rooms contain original furniture from the 19th Century. For example, this mahogany “secretary” was made around 1800. However, it was purchased for the house after the Civil War.
When you leave the house, turn to your left and go to the small brick building. This is one of the two outbuildings where enslaved people worked. There are no slave dwellings at Chatham Manor even though dozens of enslaved people lived on the property. The laundry and the kitchen, both built in the 18th Century, are the only buildings showing where Blacks had at least some degree of autonomy, even if under a white man’s control.
Looking out on the lawn, there are representations of European “civility” and “culture.”
I have visited a number of slave-supported “manor houses” and most of them are not Tara. This edifice is. Not only did Washington and Jefferson visit here, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Washington Irving stayed at the house.
The structure is well cared for, but it will be closing in October so that a fire suppression system my be installed.
These Catalpa trees date back to the Civil War.
Right in front of the house are two Civil War cannon. The manor sits on a commanding bluff overlooking the Rappahannock River with the City of Fredericksburg just across the way.
The Union pontoon bridge crossing used in the December 1862 assault on Fredericksburg was right below the plantation.
As you can see from the artillery position in front of the house, the property is only a mile from the downtown of Fredericksburg.
The river was crossed using pontoon bridges which began on the river just a little bit to the right of where this cannon is standing.
The site includes a recreation of a section of a pontoon bridge. This was particularly useful in explaining to kids how a river whose bridges had been burned could be crossed.
The National Park interpretive signs do a good job of explaining the pontoon bridges, but they seem to be a half century old and need replacing.
The reconstruction is well-worth seeing. It is right outside the house towards the river and below the cannons.
The area in the river seen below is where the bridges were extended. Union engineers would carry each section out into the river while under fire from Confederate snipers.
After exploring the bluff, I passed by the recreation and headed back up to the house. In all, my tour took an hour and a half both inside and outside the house.
After I toured the Civil War exhibits, I went back to the front of the house. To the right is the kitchen for the property.
The kitchen served some of the country’s economic, cultural, and political elite, all coming from enslaved cooks and waiters.
The Kitchen was built in 1768 and is actually older than the manor house.
The interpretive signs out front are well worth the read.
They also have a depiction of slave life at the plantation.
After touring, I said goodbye to the National Park Service representative and went back into town.
The trip from Chatham Manor to downtown Fredericksburg is only seven minutes by car. The address is 120 Chatham Ln, Fredericksburg, VA 22405. The phone is (540) 693-3200. Call to see if the talk on Blacks resistance to slavery is being given or any other talks. More information can be found at the National Park website.
All color photos taken by Pat Young.
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Quincy Balius is an outstanding and knowledgeable
NPS historian. She opens the door to other insights.
Spend more time on the complexities of a military headquarters. The use of hot air balloons and extensive telegraph lines connecting the forward attacking grand divisions should have enabled Burnside to better manage the fight. Next time focus more on the actions and writings of CPT Brainerd of the 50th NY Engineers who sat in the Lacy House writing what he thought was his last letter to his father, at 0100 hrs while waiting to move down to the River and construct pontoon bridges. The tolling of the bell he notes is the same bell that tolls in Saint George’s Church today. And most of all, more focus on the most significant person in the entire Civil narrative; the individual Union soldiers and their ultimate sacrifice across all the battlefields especially those Unknowns interred in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, 15000 men and only 3000 names.