In December, 1862, General Ambrose Burnside ordered the Union Army to cross the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to attack the Confederate forces led by Robert E. Lee. The largest battle of the war, with more than 200,000 soldiers participating, Fredericksburg was the first to require a river crossing at the point of attack, and the first battle to be fought in an urban setting. More than a dozen units from Maine were part of the Union effort. For some, like the 16th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, it was their first fighting in the war.
