Simply Murder

This Civil War history and guide offers a vivid chronicle of this dramatic yet misunderstood battle, plus invaluable information for battlefield visitors.

The battle of Fredericksburg is usually remembered as the most lopsided Union defeat of the Civil War. It is sometimes called “Burnside’s folly,” after Union commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside who led the Army of the Potomac to ruin along the banks of the Rappahannock River. Confederates, fortified behind a stone wall along a sunken road, poured a hail of lead into them as they charged. One eyewitness summed it up saying, “it is only murder now.”

But the battle remains one of the most misunderstood and misremembered engagements of the war. Burnside started with a well-conceived plan and had every reason to expect victory. How did it go so terribly wrong?

Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have worked for years along Fredericksburg’s Sunken Road and Stone Wall, and they’ve escorted thousands of visitors across the battlefield. Simply Murder not only recounts Fredericksburg’s tragic story of slaughter, but includes vital information about the battlefield itself and the insights they’ve learned from years of walking the ground.