All News & Blogs Guard engineers have brush with Civil War
history in training exercise on the Rappahannock Guard engineers
prepare floating bridge sections at Little Falls Run boat ramp
in Stafford. TOM ROTHENBERG FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More
Images from this story Visit the Photo Place By RUSTY DENNEN To
cross the Rappahannock River for the Battle of Fredericksburg,
Union Army engineers used horses, wagons and manpower to carry
wooden pontoon boats to the water while Confederate snipers
relentlessly picked them off. Union re-enactors of that Dec. 11,
1862, crossing from Stafford County will have a much easier time
today on a floating steel bridge erected by Army National Guard
engineers using big trucks, a small fleet of boats and
cellphones to communicate. And no one was taking pot shots at
them from the Fredericksburg shore. "This is definitely a lot
different than how they did it during the Civil War," said 1st
Lt. Marianne E. Heldmann, commander of the Bowling Green-based
189th Engineer Company, wh