Hey everyone, welcome to episode 237 of our Civil War podcast.

I'm Tracey.

Hello y'all.

Thanks for tuning into the podcast.

As y'all recall at the end of the last show, the fighting was finally over at Fredericksburg

and darkness covered the landscape on the evening of December 13, 1862.

On the northern part of the battlefield, seven federal divisions had been hurled against

a Confederate position on Marie's Heights, but not a single Union soldier had reached

the Stonewall.

In its fruitless attacks against Marie's Heights, the federal suffered close to 8,000 casualties.

While across the way, James Longstreet's Confederates lost barely a thousand men, making

the combat here on this sector of the battlefield one of the most one-sided contests of the Civil

War.

Several burial parties would report that Zook's 53rd Pennsylvania, Mars' 69th New York, and

Caldwell's 5th New Hampshire, shared the sad honor of having their dead closest to the

Stonewall.

When Sumners and Hookers casualties in front of Marie's Heights were added to Franklin's

losses at Prospect Hill down below Fredericksburg, the butcher's bill for the federal attacks

came to 1,284 dead, 9,600 wounded, and 1,769 captured or missing, a total of 12,653 Union

casualties.

Confederate losses on December 13 were 608 killed, 4,116 wounded, and 653 captured or missing

for a total of 5,337 casualties.

...