Virginia History
This interview with Milton Terrell was conducted on January 10, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
This interview with Dr. Altamont Dickerson was conducted on November 30, 2000, by Christine Walsh and Merl Witt. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
This interview with Mr. & Mrs. Gordon Hilldrup was conducted on April 2, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
This interview with Eugene Buck Brumley was conducted on July 31, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
This interview with Agnes Whitlock was conducted on September 24, 2000, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
This interview with Hallie Rowley Sale was conducted on August 11, 2003, by Christine Walsh. This interview is a project of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation.
Follow Marlborough Point Road down to the eastern tip of Stafford County, and you will pass by lots of new housing mushrooming into the forests and fields that were once favored by both the Native Americans and colonial settlers. This section of the county is home to not just centuries of local history but millennia.
One hundred and forty-seven years ago, lines of blue advanced on a hillside near the outskirts of Fredericksburg. Those heights were manned by gray-uniformed soldiers, powerfully well-armed and rather surprised that the Union commander should send wave after wave of troops into their maelstrom of cannon and rifle fire. What followed was a slaughter about which Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible...we should grow too fond of it."
When some Yankee looters tried to supplement their rations with stocks from Fredericksburg homes and businesses in December of 1862, they bit off more than they could chew.
December 14th, 1862
In Fredericksburg, Va.
In 1873, a steamboat loaded with passengers, livestock and produce caught fire and sank on the Potomac River near Aquia Creek. Traveling from Washington, the overloaded vessel carried three times more people than allowed by its license, and the engulfing flames and churning waters claimed 76 passengers, most of them women and children. A new book, Disaster on the Potomac: The Last Run of the Steamboat Wawaset, by Alvin Oickle, gives the details of that terrible day.
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