Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, VA

Part of Wilderness Battlefield. Dense trees on left. You can still see trenches in the woods.

This park covers four separate sites - Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, Wilderness and Chancellorsville. The battles weren't all at once, or even sequential.
Fredericksburg - December 11-13 1862 - Confederate victory. Union fighting uphill against dug in Confederate troops behind the town of Fredericksburg. Town of Fredericksburg shelled and looted by Union Army on their way through.

Chancellorsville - April 27- May 6 1863 - Big victory by outnumbered Confederate army. Celebrated 12 mile march to carry out surprise right flank attack. Unfortunately, Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own troops coming back from a night-time scout, and died of pneumonia on May 10 as a result of his wounds. Robert E Lee lost his best general, and history shows (according to the National Parks Brochure that i am sourcing from) he struggled after that.

After this, Lee went on offensive to Gettysburg. The union roughly sort of won this one, but the cost to both sides was such that no one really came out on top.

The Wilderness - May 5-6, 1864. A year later, the two sides met again, in a bit of land called the Wilderness - an area of land with a thick forest that had been logged and had lots of regrowth, undergrowth, etc, with small farm plots (cleared fields) scattered about. This one was a stalemate, with 30,000 killed, wounded or missing in two days.

Spotsylvania Court House - May 8-21, 1864 - stalemate. Lee dug in and held on until Grant abandoned the field. They were fighting over an important cross roads that controlled the most direct route to Richmond, VA (capital of the Southern states). Fighting here was considered most desperate in the whole war.

We only had a few hours, so we visited The Wilderness and Chancellorsville (both sort of briefly). We also visited the Old Salem Church, scene of the Battle of Salem Church, May 3-4, 1863. What was interesting about this church was the side door for black people, with an enclosed staircase leading to the right gallery, while the left gallery was for the women and children.
It was used as a place of refuge, then a battle, then a field hospital (surgeons treated both sides together here), so the congregation, which has moved into a larger building next door, had a lot to clean up when they returned after the Civil War was over.