You are now standing beside the Sunken Road, part of a heavily used 19th-century road system that linked Washington, D.C. and Richmond. In 1862, Confederate riflemen fired from the road upon line after line of Union troops advancing across open fields to your left. (Houses constructed early last century now cover most of these fields.) A waist-high stone wall protected the Confederate riflemen; Union troops had no such protection.

To your right is Marye's Heights. Nine guns of the Washington Artillery occupied the heights during the battle. By depressing the muzzles of their pieces, Confederate artillerists could scour the plain in front - firing over the heads of infantry here in the Sunken Road. It was perhaps the strongest natural position ever defended by Lee's army.

Our boys fired into the dense masses without the fear of missing & with a fair prospect of cutting down 2 at a time....

S.H. Walkup, 48th North Carolina Infantry

Marker is on Sunken Road 0.1 miles from Lafayette Boulevard (Virginia Highway 1), on the right when traveling north.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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