Missed my stop...

The wall at Marye’s Heights, battle of Fredericksburg, was iconic to Confederate forces as wave after wave of Federal troops fell before the guns of the rebels behind it.  Ironically, though the battle preceded the Emancipation Proclamation’s release in January 1863, decades later, still oppressed and segregated African Americans helped rebuild that symbolic wall.

The Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park (FRSP) was created by an act of Congress on February 14, 1927. The park came into being during the time of Jim Crow laws and segregation throughout the south. Although the park was under federal control – initially by the War Department and then transferred in 1933 to the National Park Service (NPS) – it appears to have been the unwritten policy of the federal government to follow local laws with regard to segregation. At FRSP, some of the reminders of segregation still remain.

. The “rebuilt” stone wall, located along Sunken Road and below the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, was the work of (Civilian Conservation Corps) Company 362c.

The photo was taken June 1938 and shows members of Company 362c reconstructing the stone wall.  

Company 362c was a segregated “negro” company of the CCC.  Some white Virginians in the area complained about the presence of the company, until the Federal government threatened to withdraw them along with the $10,000 a month it was spending in the area.