Chatham - 2

Continuing the sharing of what I have learned from my visit to Chatham.

James Lacy married the niece of Churchill Jones and owned Chatham during the war years. He served the Confederacy as a staff officer at 37.  His wife and children were forced to leave the house in 1862 by Union Soldiers.  Using Pontoon bridges - General Ambrose Burnside brought his 120,000  man army of the Potomac to Fredericksburg.  Crossing the Rappahannock river below Chatham - seized Fredericksburg.  Lees Confederates suffered  bloody attacks.   Along with the Union defeat of Fredericksburg was 12,600 casualties suffered by Burnside.  Many of them brought back to Chatham for care.   Hundreds of Army soldiers were operated on inside the house.  Two of the volunteers assisting the surgeons - Clara Barton, who later founded the American Chapter of the International Red Cross and poet Walt Whitman who came searching for a brother who was wounded in the fighting.  
Whitman notes that  outside at the base of a tree,the amputated limbs,  about enough to load a one horse cart, and bodies of soldiers wrapped in their blankets.
  130 or more Union Soldiers died at Chatham and buried there.

Amputated limbs were thrown from the window and landed at the base of this tree.

After the war, bodies were taken to the cemetery in Fredericksburg   Three bodies were  found later and buried at Chatham.
The Lacys  returned home after the war and found blood stained floors , marred plaster walls with graffiti and forest cut down for fuel.
Their yard - a graveyard.   Chatham was sold in 1872 and the Lacy family moved to their other home - Ellwood,  Stonewall Jackson's arm is buried there.
Many sales later and in 1920's , Daniel and Helen Devore bought Chatham , restored and made changes.  
John Pratt an industrialist purchased the house in 1931 and willed the 12,000 square foot mansion  to the Park service..

The limb trees in distance at the end of side walk are in front of room where injured were cared for and amputations took place - left side of pix

original entrance roads wind down the bluff to the river

On the front of the home(original entrance) there used to be a two story Greek revival style porches

Outline of porches are still visible today 

In 1984 restoration had begun on the colonial revival east garden

The walls, columns and statues represent this period

green house 1900