As the two Confederate Generals gazed intently at the continuous stream of assaulting Federal columns, General Lee turned to his Lieutenant and remarked, "General they are massing very heavily and will break your line, I am afraid." Prophetically, Lee's old war horse noted in reply, "General, if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line. Look to your right. You are in some danger there, but not on my line." [24]

It was about the Confederate line that stretched over and below these heights that Lieutenant General James Longstreet spoke. In a sadly ironic twist, the hills on which the men in blue could not set foot, now serve as a place of eternal rest for over fifteen thousand Union dead. Collected from the fields below as well as those of other battles, only about fifteen percent of those resting here are identified. The once formidable Marye's Heights is now home to this National Cemetery at Fredericksburg for countless, anonymous Civil War dead.