Chatham Manor
- Also Known As: Lacy House
- Address: 120 Chatham Ln
- Vicinity: Chatham Heights Rd, N of Kings Hwy
- Neighborhood of Chatham Heights, Fred in Fredericksburg, VA
Chatham Manor is a large Georgian mansion in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia. - AsNotedIn
Began my visits among the camp hospitals in the Army of the Potomac, under General Burnside. Spent a good part of the day in a large brick mansion [Chatham] on the banks of the Rappahannock, immediately opposite Fredericksburg. It is used as a hospital since the battle, and seems to have received only the worst cases. Outdoors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house [probably the still standing Catalpa tree], I noticed a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc. -- about a load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woolen blanket. In the dooryard, toward the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt.The house is quite crowded, everything impromptu, no system, all bad enough, but I have no doubt the best that can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, some frightful, the men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody. Some of the wounded are rebel officers, prisoners. One, a Mississippian -- a captain -- hit badly in the leg, I talked with him some time ; he asked for papers, which I gave him. (I saw him three months afterward in Washington, with leg amputated, doing well.)
I went through the rooms, down stairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that night, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, etc. Also talked to three or four who seemed most susceptible to it, and needing it.