Slaughter Pen Farm
Retreat and Counterattack
"For my part the more I think of that battle, the more annoyed I am that such a great chance should have failed me."
- Gen. George G. Meade, USA
"Our cannon flamed and roared, and the roar of musketry was terrific. The foe halts, wavers, and flies. We, double charging our guns, pour the canister among them."
- "Ben," Pee Dee (S.C.) Artillery, CSA
Forced back but not ready to give up, Gen. John Gibbon's soldiers launched three counterattacks, but each was repulsed. Hopelessness set in. "It was with real pain that I gave the order for the brigade to fall back," reported brigade commander Col. Adrian Root. "The officers and men received it with surprise and grief." Audacious Georgians pursued the Union soldiers into this field but ran headlong into late-arriving Union reinforcements under Gen. David Birney. The Georgians were driven back with substantial losses. Other Confederate counterattacks failed as well.
The fighting south of Fredericksburg left more than 5,000 Union and 4,000 Confederate soldiers dead, wounded, or missing. With its failure here, the Union lost its best chance for victory at Fredericksburg. The Union army fell back across the Rappahannock River and camped for more than four months before a new commander, Gen. Joseph Hooker, dared to cross the river again.
Marker can be reached from Tidewater Trail (U.S. 17), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
