FREDERICKSBURG, a city of Spottsylvania county, Virginia, U.S., on the S.W. side of the Rappahannock river, 110 miles above its mouth in Chesapeake Bay, and 61 miles N. of Richmond. The river, which is tidal up to this point, is here closed by a dam 900 feet long. It supplies motive-power for flour and other mills, and affords facilities for transportation of grain, marble, and freestone. Near the city is an unfinished monument, begun in 1833, over the grave of the mother of Washington. At Fredericksburg the Federal troops sustained a repulse by the Confederate forces, December 13, 1862. The population in 1860 was 5022, and in 1870 4046, of whom 1331 were coloured.