I wish to share the following [for reference only]
I would like to please share the following:
Ref:Howison Mill site
On May 25,2023 I sent the following query To Historian Fredericksburg NMP Sir In regard to this May 1863 photograph on Marye's Height of a wrecked Cassion of the Washington Artillery of La disabled by fire from the 2d Mass Artillery..two questions please? Was it taken on the top or reserve slope of Marye heights? Was it taken looking toward the position of the 2nd Mass Artillery position? Or is position too vague for identification? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_photographic_history_of_the_Civil_War_-_thousands_of_scenes_photographed_1861-65,_with_text_by_many_special_authorities_(1911)_(14739760236).jpg Sincerely T.Fazzini
I received two replies;"
May 28,2023
Hello,
Thank you for reaching out. I sent your question to one of our very knowledgeable staff members, Noel Harison, and he sent the following:
"I recall the moment when I was working the CVC front desk, c. 1988-88, and staring for the umpteenth time at our office copy of a volume of that 1911 book and suddenly realizing that the berm-like feature in the background of that May 3, 1863 photo was the berm ("fill" technically) of the Unfinished Railroad on the west side of Hazel Run, between modern Lafayette Boulevard and the Blue-Gray Parkway. I'd walked the west berm with a buddy several times earlier in the decade, and when I came over from Mary Washington to visit the cemetery, watched a little switching-locomotive cross a wooden bridge over Hazel Run to operate in the industrial park. (A mile or so of the railroad at its Fredericksburg end remained intact and operational, until 1990 or so, after the rest of the track through Chancellorsville and Wilderness to Orange was removed in the 1930's.) Subsequent construction of the Parkway and its intersection with the Boulevard removed the railroad bridge and changed the berm and its setting dramatically. But I suspect that a bit of the berm still survives in the brushy area on the west bank of Hazel Run, and between the Parkway and the edges of the business parking-lots fronting on the Boulevard."
Hopefully that provides a little context as to where that particular photograph was taken.
Best,
Mary O'Neill
Park Ranger
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
On May 29,2023 {Spotslvania Blog]
That photo was taken on the reverse slope, along a road that led up from the Howison's Mill site below. As for the artillery that wrecked it, that was not something I have considered. You may be correct. I know that Noel Harrison has put a great deal of thought and research into that photo. He included a 1986 photo from the same approximate position as Russell's photo. It's on page 285 of his Fredericksburg Civil War Sites Volume Two, published by H. E. Howard in 1995.
John Cummings
Also a blog
https://mercersquare.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/howisons-mill/comment-page-1/#comment-151