Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Fredericksburg, Virginia
For a mobile public history site, I visited the National Park Service Visitor’s Center near the Fredericksburg National Cemetery, located in downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. They offer a self-guided tour of the Sunken Road Trail, which is approximately one half mile along an easy walking terrain path behind the Visitor’s Center. The mobile audio tour is available on the National Park Service app or on Google Play. Using the app on our phones was convenient and easily accessible.
The Sunken Road Tour tells the story of a particular part of the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg during the US Civil War. The Union and Confederacy troops were fighting for control of the strategic location along the Rappahannock River and geographically centered between their capitals of Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia. Civilians living along Sunken Road were caught in the fighting.
The Sunken Road audio tour app utilized several easily identifiable place-based markers for users’ engagement. We followed a gravel path, while the audio instructions told us exactly where to stop to hear stories about the specific place. The Innis House, the first stop along the tour, is easy to see as it is the only remaining house in that particular location. Other physical markers include monuments, a stone wall, and the cemetery. The audio tour also utilizes geographic features, such as land elevation. We were instructed to walk along the gravel path to Marye’s Heights, where Confederate Soldiers took advantage of the higher ground to position their cannons.
What I appreciated about using the app for the tour was the ability to move at our own pace. While we did not have the advantage of a tour guide available to answer any questions we might have had, we were able to look up additional information on our phones. Visiting memorial sites is a good reminder about lives lost because of an inability to see the humanity in others.
https://www.nps.gov/frsp/planyourvisit/upload/Sunken-Road-Walking-Trail-Map.pdf