The little village was suddenly excited by the cry, "They are coming!"

"They are coming!" It was not a body of Rebels, however, but the Union

cavalry, which had cut their way out from Harper's Ferry in the night

before the pusillanimous surrender of Colonel Miles. They crossed the

pontoon bridge, moved up the Potomac, through wood-paths and by-ways,

twice coming in contact with the Rebel pickets, and falling in with

Longstreet's ammunition trains between Hagerstown and Williamsport,

consisting of one hundred wagons, which were captured. Many of the

teamsters were slaves, who were very glad to see the Yankees. They

were contented under their capture.

"Were you not frightened when you saw the Yankees?" I asked of one.

"Not de leastest bit, massa. I was glad to see 'em. Ye see, we all

wanted to get Norf. De captain of de guard, he tell me to whip up my

horses and get away, but I done cut for de woods right towards de

Norf."

He chuckled merrily over it, and said, "I's in de service of de Union

now."

He was driving the horses with evident satisfaction at the sudden

change in his fortunes.

When John Brown woke the world from its dreaming at Harper's Ferry, he

had an accomplice named Cook, who escaped and concealed himself in the

mountains of Pennsylvania, but who was hunted down by Fitz Hugh Miller

of Chambersburg. Among the Rebel prisoners was this same Fitz Hugh,

dressed in a suit of rusty gray, with a black ostrich plume in his

hat, sun-burned, dusty, having a hang-dog look. He was a captain in

the Rebel service. The Dutch blood of the citizens, usually as calm

and steady in its flow as the rivers of their Fatherland, came up with

a rush.

"Hang him! Down with the traitor! Kill him!" they shouted. They rushed

to seize him, but the guards kept the populace at bay. The excitement

increased. Miller appealed to the guards to protect him. He was

quickly hurried into the jail, which was strongly guarded. A great

change had taken place in the opinions of the people. They had been

indifferent to the questions of the hour, but the Rebel raid, by which

they had lost their horses, had taught them an excellent lesson.

Self-interest is sometimes a stimulant to patriotism. They even began

to look with complacency upon what John Brown had done.

[Illustration: General McClellan at the battle of Antietam.]

The Rebels evacuated Hagerstown on the morning of the 16th of

September, and an hour later I entered it on the first train, which

was greeted by the people with shouts and hurrahs and demonstrations

of joy, as if it brought emancipation from long bondage. Some of the

citizens had manifested sympathy with the Rebels. Still there were

groups of excited men in the streets, shouting, "We'll hang the

cusses. We've spotted them, and if they ever come back we'll be the

death of them, as sure as there is a God."

The battle of South Mountain had been fought, and the hostile armies

were concentrating for a trial of strength along the peaceful banks of

the Antietam.

I was awakened at daylight on the morning of the 17th of September by

the booming of cannon. It was a dull, leaden morning. The clouds hung

low upon the mountains, and swept in drifts along the hillsides. The

citizens of Hagerstown were astir,--some standing on the house-tops,

listening to the increasing thunder of the cannonade, some in the

church-steeples, others making haste to visit the field of battle. I

had no horse, but finding a stable-keeper, was soon the owner of one.

The horse-dealer was quite willing to dispose of his animals.

"Horse-flesh is mighty onsartin these days," said he. "The Rebels took

my best ones, and if they should come here again, I reckon they would

clean me out."

My first impulse was to push directly down the Sharpsburg turnpike and

gain the rear of the Rebels, enter their lines as a citizen, and see

the battle from their side.

"Don't do it, sir," said a citizen.

Upon reflection, it appeared to be good advice, and so turning about

(for I had already gone a mile or more in that direction) I took the

Boonsboro pike and rode rapidly towards the battle-field. Two or three

miles out I came across a Rebel soldier,--barefoot and bareheaded,

pale, sallow, worn out by hard marching, lying under an oak-tree by

the roadside. His gun was by his side. He raised his head and held up

his hand, as if to implore me not to harm him. He belonged to a

Georgia regiment, and had dropped by the way, too feeble to keep his

place in the ranks. He was taken care of by two citizens.

Striking off from the turnpike in a by-path, then across fields,

through oak groves, directed by the roar of battle, descending a steep

hill, and fording the Antietam, I gained the battle-field in rear of

the right wing, where Hooker was in command. Passing beyond the field

hospitals, I reached the hill, on Poffenberg's farm.

The fire was raging fearfully in front of Sumner; but Hooker's and

Mansfield's cannon were silent, cooling their brazen lips after the

morning's fever. In the hollow behind the ridge, east of Poffenberg's

house, the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps--what was left of them--were

lying, sad, yet not disheartened. How changed from what they were a

year before, then fifteen thousand strong!

"We cannot lose many more," said one, as I talked of the morning's

action. Gibbons's brigade, of Hooker's corps, had crossed the

turnpike, and was holding the ground in the woods between it and the

Potomac.

Ascending the ridge, I came upon Battery B, Fourth Artillery, also

Cooper's and Easton's Pennsylvania batteries, the New Hampshire Ninth

and Rhode Island Fifth,--thirty pieces bearing on the cornfield and

the wood-crowned hill, where, alas! a thousand of as brave men as ever

breathed were lying, who just before had moved to meet the enemy.

The firing was hot and heavy a few rods south.

The fight began with the pickets in the night, and was taken up by the

artillery at daylight. The Rebels had concentrated a heavy force on

their left, we on our right, because the lay of the land required it,

the right being our strongest ground, and their left their weakest.

The ridge behind Poffenberg's house was the door-post on which our

fortunes hinged. Not so with them,--theirs was a double door, its

hinge being in the woods bordering the turnpike south of the

toll-house.

Hooker gave Meade, with the Pennsylvania Reserves, the right, Ricketts

the left, and placed Doubleday in support in rear. Mansfield joined

Hooker's left, but was an hour behind time. Sumner was slow to come

into action. Hooker advanced, drove in the Rebel pickets, found a

Rebel battery on his extreme right, which, as soon as he came within

its range began to plough him with a flanking fire. Meade obliqued to

the right, poured in a few volleys, and drove the enemy across the

turnpike. This was the extreme left of the enemy's line. Hooker

crossed the turnpike a few rods north of Poffenberg's, marched through

the fields to the ridge by the cornfield. Having obtained possession

of the ridge east of Poffenberg's, he planted his batteries and opened

a fierce cannonade upon the Rebels.

The ground in front of Hooker was the scene of repeated struggles. In

the afternoon the Rebels made a desperate attempt to regain what they

had lost. They came down through the cornfield, west of the turnpike,

under cover of their batteries. Hooker, Dana, Sedgwick, Hartsuff,

Richardson, and Mansfield, all general officers, had been carried from

the field wounded. General Howard was in command of the right wing. I

was talking with him, when an officer dashed up and said, "General,

the Rebels are coming down on us."

We were in the open field, a few rods southeast of Poffenberg's barn.

General Howard rode forward a few steps, looked through the leafy

branches of the oaks along the turnpike. We could see the dark lines

of the enemy moving through the cornfield. "Tell the batteries to give

them the heaviest fire possible," he said. It was spoken as

deliberately as if he had said to his servant, "Bring me a glass of

water." How those thirty pieces of artillery opened! Crack! crack!

crack! and then a volley by artillery! How those gray lines wavered,

swayed to and fro, and melted away!

In Poffenberg's door-yard, along the turnpike, were two noble horses,

both killed by the same cannon-shot, smashing the head of one and

tearing the neck of the other. The dead of the Pennsylvania Reserves

laid under the palings of the garden fence. The gable of the house was

torn to pieces by a shell. In the field in front dead men in blue and

dead men in gray were thickly strown; and still farther out, along the

narrow lane which runs southwest from the house, they were as thick as

the withered leaves in autumn. How the battle-storm howled through

those woods, fiercer than the blasts of November! It was a tornado

which wrenched off the trunks of oaks large enough for a ship's

keelson,--riving them, splintering them with the force of a

thunderbolt.

If the blow which Hooker gave had been a little more powerful,--if

Mansfield had been ordered in at the same instant with Hooker,--if

Sumner had fallen upon the Rebel centre at the same time,--there can

be but little doubt as to what would have been the result. But the

battle of Antietam was fought by piecemeal. Hooker exhausted his

strength before Mansfield came up; Mansfield was repulsed before

Sumner came in; while Burnside, who had the most difficult task of

all, was censured by McClellan for not carrying the bridge early in

the morning. Yet Franklin, who arrived at noon, was only partially

engaged, while Porter was ordered to stand a silent spectator through

the day. The several corps of the Union army were like untrained teams

of horses,--each pulled with all its strength, but no two succeeded in

pulling together.

It was not far from twelve o'clock when the arrangements were

completed for Sumner's movement. The artillery prepared the way for

advance, by pouring in a heavy fire from all directions. The

configuration of the ground admitted of this. The cornfield sloped

toward the Antietam, and by careful scrutiny the Rebels could be seen

lying down to avoid the shot and shells. It was a moment of anxious

expectation to us who beheld the movement.

The divisions moved past the cemetery, past Roulet's house, the left

of French's and the right of Richardson's, joining in the ravine. A

few rods beyond the house the Rebel skirmishers opened a galling fire.

Our own advanced rapidly, drove them in through the nearest cornfield.

They fled to the road, and the field beyond.

The road is narrow, and by long usage and heavy rains, has become a

trench, a natural rifle-pit about two and a half feet deep. The Rebels

had thrown off the top rails of the fence in front, and strengthened

the position by making them into _abatti_,--imitating the example set

by General Stark on the northeastern slope of Bunker Hill, in 1775.

The roadway was their first line; their second was in the corn, five

or six rods farther west.

[Illustration: The sunken road.]

The Union troops advanced in front of the road, when up rose the first

Rebel line. The fence became a line of flame and smoke. The cornfield

beyond, on higher ground, was a sheet of fire. With a rush and

cheer, the men in blue moved up to the fence, ploughed through and

through by the batteries above, cut and gashed by the leaden hail,

thrust the muzzles of their guns into the faces of the Rebels and

fired.

The first Rebel line was nearly annihilated, and the dead lying

beneath the tasselled corn were almost as many as the golden ears upon

the stalks. Visiting the spot when the contest was over, I judged from

a little counting that a thousand of the enemy's dead were in the road

and the adjoining field. A shell had thrown seven into one heap,--some

on their faces, some on their backs,--fallen as a handful of straws

would fall when dropped upon the ground. But not they alone suffered.

The bloody tide which had surged through all the morning between the

ridges above, along the right, had flowed over the hill at this

noontide hour. The yellow soil became crimson; the russet corn-leaves

turned to red, as if autumn had put on in a moment her richest glory.

How costly! Five thousand men,--I think I do not exaggerate,--wounded

and dead, lay along that pathway and in the adjoining field![6]

[Footnote 6: The accompanying illustration is an accurate

representation drawn by Mr. Wand, who witnessed the battle.

The battery in the foreground is north of the house of Mr.

Roulet, near the centre of Sumner's line. French's and

Richardson's divisions are seen in the middle of the picture,

and the Rebels under D. H. Hill and Longstreet beyond.]

To Burnside was assigned the duty of carrying the stone bridge, two

miles below the turnpike, and taking the batteries which were in

position south of Sharpsburg. It was a difficult task. A high-banked

stream, bordered by willows; a narrow bridge; a steep hill; cleared

lands, with no shelter from the batteries in front and on both his

flanks, after he should have succeeded in crossing the stream.

Burnside planted his cannon on the high hills or ridges east of the

river, and kept them in play a long time before any attempt was made

on the bridge by infantry. The Rebel batteries replied, and there was

an incessant storm of shot and shell.

The road on the eastern side winds down a ravine to the river, which

is an hundred feet below the summit of the hills where his artillery

was posted. It is a narrow path, with a natural embankment on the

right hand, covered with oaks. There is a piece of bottom land eight

or ten rods wide on the eastern side of the river. The bridge is

narrow and about seventy-five feet long. After crossing the stream the

road runs diagonally up the bank toward the north. On the western side

are willows fringing the stream, their graceful branches bending down

to the water, and covering the opposite shore. The bank is very

abrupt. A small force on either side can hold the bridge against a

large body of men.

The bridge was carried in the afternoon by a desperate charge. I was

watching operations in the centre at the time, and saw only the smoke

of the contest on the left, and heard its deafening roar. Riding down

there later in the day, I witnessed the last attack. Both parties had

put on new vigor at the sunset hour. The fire kindled along the line.

Far upon the right was the smoke of thirty cannon, rising in a white

sulphurous cloud. The woods opposite, where the Rebel batteries were,

flamed like a furnace. A little nearer Sumner's artillery was

thundering and hurling its bolts into the Rebels by the Dunker church.

Ayers's battery was pouring a deadly fire into the cornfield, west of

Roulet's, where the Rebel line was lying under cover. Above, on the

highest hillock, a half-mile from Sharpsburg, a heavy Rebel battery

boomed defiance. Richardson's artillery, immediately in front, was

sending shells upon the hill and into Sharpsburg, where hay-stacks,

houses and barns were burning, rolling up tall pillars of cloud and

flame to heaven. At our left Burnside's heavy guns worked mightily,

answered by the opposing batteries. The musketry had ceased, save a

few volleys rolling from beyond the willows in the valley, and a

little dripping, like rain-drops after a shower. It was a continuous

roll of thunder. The sun went down, reddened in the smoky haze.

[Illustration: Battle of Antietam.]

After the retreat of Lee, I rode over the ground occupied by the

Rebels, and surveyed the field from every point. The dead were thickly

strewn. A Rebel battery had occupied the ground around the Dunker

church, a small brick building on the turnpike, a mile south of

Poffenberg's. At its door-step lay a major, a captain, and eleven men,

all dead. A wounded horse, unable to lie down, was standing near a

dismantled caisson. Almost human was the beseeching look of the dumb

beast! Near by was a soldier lying with his eyes fixed on heaven. He

had died calmly. His pocket Bible was open upon his breast. Taking it

up my eye fell upon the words: "Though I walk through the valley of

the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod

and thy staff, they comfort me." All the turmoil of life was over. He

had done his duty, and had passed on to his reward.[7]

[Footnote 7: Want of space compels me to give only a sketch

of the battle; but a full, circumstantial, and detailed

account of the positions and movements of the two armies may

be found in "Following the Flag," published by Messrs.

Ticknor and Fields of Boston.]

Lee recrossed the Potomac without molestation from McClellan, and the

two armies went into camp, as if mutually agreed upon having a season

of rest after the hardships of the campaign.

[Illustration: For the boys in blue.]

CHAPTER IX.

INVASION OF KENTUCKY.

[Sidenote: October, 1862.]

Simultaneous with Lee's advance into Maryland was that of General

Bragg into Kentucky. As there were no indications that McClellan would

follow Lee into Virginia, I hastened to Kentucky to observe the events

transpiring in that department. General Buell was still in command of

the Union forces. He had been lying quiet through the summer,

occupying Chattanooga on the east, Florence on the west, and spreading

his troops over a large territory. There were detachments at

Nashville, McMinnville, Murfreesboro, and Mumfordville. This force in

Tennessee was piled in the form of a pyramid, Florence and Chattanooga

being the base and Nashville the apex. In addition there was a force

under General Morgan holding Cumberland Gap, a passage in the

mountains at the extreme southwestern part of Virginia, where the Old

Dominion rests like the point of a ploughshare against the mountains

which separate it from Kentucky. Since Daniel Boone passed through it,

the Gap has been the great thoroughfare between the West and East. The

distance from the Gap, where Morgan was keeping watch and ward, to

Chattanooga, is about one hundred and forty miles. Through this

gateway the Rebels resolved to enter Kentucky, replenish their stores,

make a demonstration upon Cincinnati, capture Louisville, cut off

Buell's supplies and communications, outflank him, destroy his army,

transfer the war to the Ohio River, and redeem Kentucky. Buell was in

repose, unconscious of General Bragg's intentions.

Bragg formed his army in three columns near Knoxville,--one to move

upon the Gap, approaching it from the west, the second, under Kirby

Smith, to move directly upon Lexington, Danville, and Frankfort, the

third to capture the six thousand at Mumfordville, and then joining

the second division at Lexington, push on in conjunction with it to

Louisville. John Morgan, the commander of the Rebel cavalry, moved in

advance and captured Morgan's supply trains on the 17th of August. It

was the first intimation General Morgan or Buell had of the intentions

of the Rebels. Morgan knew not what was going on in his rear. The

Rebels prudently refrained from attacking him. The pass would fall

into their hands when all their plans were ripe. Morgan held his

position till the 17th of September, when, having exhausted his

provisions, he spiked his guns, destroyed the fortifications, and all

his tent equipage, and marched north to the Ohio River, through the

mountains, reaching it without loss.

The centre column of the Rebels moved upon Frankfort, gathering up

cattle, horses, goods of all kinds, cloth, clothes, boots, shoes,

grain, and everything which could minister to their comfort. They

visited the wealthy farmers of the bluegrass region, selected the best

Kentucky stock, purchased all the new wheat, set the flour-mills a

humming, keeping the millers at it day and night. Never were millers

so busy, each miller tending his grinding with a Rebel bayonet at his

door, the glittering of which reminded him that he had a duty to

perform to the Confederacy.

At Frankfort, the capital of the State, they took possession of the

state-house, inaugurated a governor, had a grand procession, with

speeches, and a banquet, and a general gala-day. They invited the

merchants to open their stores, made princely purchases of goods,

paying liberally in the legal currency of the Confederacy. They sent

off long lines of wagons toward the South laden with supplies. The

Kentucky farmers were relieved of their negroes as well as of their

horses. They _took_ the negroes, saying to their masters, "Swear

allegiance to the Confederacy and you shall be paid, but otherwise

they shall be confiscated."

Thousands of slaves fled across the Ohio, for fear of being captured.

Thus the war was a double reverse acting mill, grinding slavery to

powder in the State. For six weeks the Rebels had it all their own

way.

The third column moved upon Mumfordville, surprised the six thousand

men in that place, and pushed on towards Louisville. The Rebel forces

were far on their way before Buell awoke from his dreaming. He

gathered in his divisions, and keeping west of Bragg, made haste to

reach Louisville. If after taking Mumfordville Bragg had pushed on

rapidly, he doubtless could have taken Louisville, but waiting a day,

the golden opportunity was lost. He was evidently well pleased with

his reception at Lexington and Frankfort. A Rebel writer thus

describes the former:--

"The entrance of our troops into Lexington was the occasion of

the most inspiriting and touching scenes. Streets, windows, and

gardens were filled with ladies and little girls with streamers

of red and blue ribbons and flags with stars. Beautiful women

seized the hard brown hands of our rough and ragged soldiers, and

with tears and smiles thanked them again and again for coming

into Kentucky and freeing them from the presence and insults of

the hated and insolent Yankees. For hours the enthusiasm of the

people was unbounded. At every corner of the streets baskets of

provisions and buckets of water were placed for the refreshment

of our weary soldiers, and hundreds of our men were presented

with shoes and hats and coats and tobacco by the grateful people.

Private residences were turned for the time into public houses of

entertainment, free to all who could be persuaded to go and eat.

But if the reception of the infantry was enthusiastic, the tears,

the smiles, and shouts and cheers of wild delight which greeted

General John Morgan's cavalry, as they came dashing through the

streets amidst clouds of dust, was without a parallel. The

wildest joy ruled the hours. The bells of the city pealed forth

their joyous welcome, whilst the waving of thousands of white

handkerchiefs and tiny confederate flags attested the gladness

and delight of every heart."[8]

[Footnote 8: Pollard's Second Year of the War, p. 152.]

There were also gay times in Frankfort. Mr. Harris was inaugurated

Provisional Governor of the State by special order of General Bragg,

which read as follows:--

"HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF KENTUCKY, Lexington, October 2, 1862.

"Installation of the Provisional Governor at Frankfort on

Saturday, October 4th, at 12 M. Major-General Smith is charged

with the management of the military escort, guard, and salute.

"The Governor will be escorted from his quarters by a squadron of

cavalry, and accompanied by the Commander of the Confederate

State forces, Major-General Buckner, Brigadier-General Preston,

and their respective staffs. The Commanding General will present

the Governor to the people, and transfer in behalf of the

Confederate States the civil orders of the State, and public

records and property.

"By order.

"BRAXTON BRAGG, _General Commanding_."

A host of generals graced the occasion,--Bragg, Kirby Smith, Buckner,

Stevenson, Claiborne, Heath, Churchill, Preston Smith, and William

Preston. The Capital Hotel, where the politics of the country were

wont to be discussed by Henry Clay, Crittenden, and other great lights

of former days, was crowded by the chivalry of the South. The landlord

found his larder depleting, his liquors disappearing, but he had

baskets full of Confederate notes, in exchange for food, fire, and

lodging, liquors and cigars. The ladies kept open house, and invited

the Rebel officers to tea on the auspicious occasion.

Meanwhile General Dumont's division of Union troops, and General

Sill's division were approaching Frankfort from the north. General

Bragg was dining with the accomplished Mrs. Preston, when a messenger

dashed into town with the intelligence of the advance of the Union

troops. Governor Harris,--six hours a Governor,--packed his carpet-bag

in great haste. The brilliant throng of Rebel officers mounted their

horses, the ladies took down their miniature flags, while the citizens

of the place prepared to change their politics. The Rebel force in the

town consisted of two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry,

guarding the turnpike bridge across the Kentucky river.

The Union cavalry came thundering down the hill. It was in the

evening; and without halting to ascertain who or what they were to

encounter, dashed across the bridge. The Rebels gave one irresolute

volley and fled precipitately from the town, which was once more and

for a finality in the hands of the Union men. Four days later the

battle of Perryville was fought, and then the Rebels retired from the

State with their booty.

Their visit was at once a curse and a blessing,--a curse, because of

the havoc, the desolation, and pillage; a blessing, because it brought

Kentuckians to a sharp corner. The President had just issued his

Proclamation of freedom, and Kentucky slaveholders were grumbling, and

were ready to shake hands with the Rebels. They had welcomed their

Southern friends, who had robbed and plundered them without stint.

There was a marked change visible in the opinions of most men. The

high-handed outrages, the authorized thieving, the forcing of

Confederate notes upon the people, making it treason to refuse them in

exchange for horses, cattle, clothes, and provisions, the confiscation

of negroes, the grotesque appearance of the Rebel soldiers,--

"Some in rags, some in tags,

But none in velvet gowns,"--

as reads the old nursery rhyme, dissipated the illusion in which many

men had indulged. Bunyan's two pilgrims, Christian and Faithful, met a

black man clothed in white garments, as they journeyed over the

enchanted ground, who, with many fair speeches, would have turned them

from the glittering gates of the golden city; but when the robe

dropped from his limbs they saw that he was hideous, and that to

follow him was to go back again to the city of Destruction. So

Kentucky had seen the flatterer. The white robe had fallen; he was

repulsive. Ladies who wished to welcome the Rebels as soldiers of the

chivalrous South shrank with horror from the filthy crowd. The

enchantment was ended. Loyalty was taking root.

Yet there were many old planters, partisans of an effete party,--once

Democratic in principle,--who clung to slavery with a tenacity like

that of barnacles to a worm-eaten hulk. The Louisville _Journal_

condemned the Proclamation, giving utterance to the voice of the

slaveholders, declaring that the Proclamation would have no binding

force in that State; but the soldiers hailed it with joy. They felt

that slavery was the cause of the war, and were longing to see it

overthrown. Bragg having left the State, many masters began to look up

their slaves, some of whom had fled to the Union lines for protection.

One wing of the army was resting at Williamstown, about twenty-five

miles south of Cincinnati, in which was a division commanded by

General Q. A. Gillmore; then a brigadier who, in common with many

other officers, believed in what was called the "Kentucky policy."

When the army began a forward movement in pursuit of Bragg, General

Gillmore issued an order, known as General Order No. 5, which reads as

follows:--

"All contrabands, except officers' servants, will be left behind

when the army moves to-morrow morning. Public transportation will

in no case be furnished to officers' servants.

"Commanders of regiments and detachments will see this order

promptly enforced."

Among the regiments of the division was the Twenty-Second Wisconsin,

Colonel Utley, an officer who had no sympathy with slavery. He had a

cool head and a good deal of nerve. He had read the Proclamation of

President Lincoln, and made up his mind to do what was right,

recognizing the President as his Commander-in-Chief, and not the State

of Kentucky. There were negroes accompanying his regiment, and he did

not see fit to turn them out. Three days later he received the

following note:--

"October 18, 1862.

"COLONEL: You will at once send to my head-quarters the four

contrabands, John, Abe, George, and Dick, known to belong to good

and loyal citizens. They are in your regiment, or were this

morning.

"Your obedient servant,

"Q. A. GILLMORE, _Brigadier-General_."

Colonel Utley, instead of sending the men, replied:--

"Permit me to say, that I recognize your authority to command me

in all military matters pertaining to the military movements of

the army. I do not look upon this as belonging to that

department. I recognize no authority on the subject of delivering

up contrabands save that of the President of the United States.

"You are, no doubt, conversant with that Proclamation, dated

Sept. 22, 1862, and the law of Congress on the subject. In

conclusion, I will say, that I had nothing to do with their

coming into camp, and shall have nothing to do with sending them

out."

The note was despatched to division head-quarters. Soon after an

officer called upon Colonel Utley.

"You are wanted, sir, at General Gillmore's quarters."

Colonel Utley made his appearance before General Gillmore.

"I sent you an order this evening."

"Yes, sir, and I refused to obey it."

"I intend to be obeyed, sir. I shall settle this matter at once. I

shall repeat the order in the morning."

"General, to save you the trouble and folly of such a course, let me

say that I shall not obey it."

The Colonel departed. Morning came, but brought no order for the

delivery of the contrabands to their former owner.

As the regiment passed through Georgetown, a large number of slaves

belonging to citizens of that place fled from their masters, and found

shelter in the army. Some of the officers who had less nerve than

Colonel Utley gave them up, or permitted the owners to come and take

them. A Michigan regiment marching through the town had its lines

entered by armed citizens, who forcibly took away their slaves.

Colonel Utley informed the inhabitants that any attempt to take

contrabands from his lines would be resisted.

"Let me say to you, gentlemen," he said to a delegation of the

citizens, "that my men will march with loaded muskets, and if any

attempt is made upon my regiment, I shall sweep your streets with

fire, and close the history of Georgetown. If you seriously intend any

such business, I advise you to remove the women and children."

The regiment marched the next morning with loaded muskets. The

citizens beheld their negroes sheltered and protected by a forest of

gleaming bayonets, and wisely concluded not to attempt the recovery of

the uncertain property.

The day after its arrival in Nicholasville, a large, portly gentleman,

lying back in an elegant carriage, rode up to the camp, and making his

appearance before the Colonel, introduced himself as Judge Robertson,

Chief Justice of the State of Kentucky.

"I am in pursuit of one of my boys, who I understand is in this

regiment," he said.

"You mean one of your slaves, I presume?"

"Yes, sir. Here is an order from the General, which you will see

directs that I may be permitted to enter the lines and get the boy,"

said the Judge, with great dignity.

"I do not permit any civilian to enter my lines for any such

purpose," said the Colonel.

[Illustration: Slaves fleeing to the Army for protection.]

The Judge sat down, not greatly astonished, for the reputation of the

Twenty-Second Wisconsin, as an abolition regiment, was well

established. He began to argue the matter. He talked of the

compromises of the Constitution, and proceeded to say:--

"I was in Congress, sir, when the Missouri Compromise was adopted, and

voted for it; but I am opposed to slavery, and I once wrote an essay

on the subject, favoring emancipation."

"Well, sir, all that may be. If you did it from principle, it was

commendable; but your mission here to-day gives the lie to your

professions. I don't permit negro-hunters to go through my regiment;

but I will see if I can find the boy, and if he is willing to go I

will not hinder him."

The Colonel went out and found the negro Joe, a poor, half-starved,

undersized boy, nineteen years old. He told his story. He belonged to

the Judge, who had let him to a brutal Irish man for $50 a year. He

had been kicked and cuffed, starved and whipped, till he could stand

it no longer. He went to the Judge and complained, but had been sent

back only to receive a worse thrashing for daring to complain. At last

he took to the woods, lived on walnuts, green corn, and apples,

sleeping among the corn-shucks and wheat-stacks till the army came.

There were tears in Joe's eyes as he rehearsed his sufferings.

The Colonel went back to the Judge.

"Have you found him?"

"I have found a little yellow boy, who says that he belongs to a man

in Lexington. Come and see him."

"This man claims you as his property, Joe; he says that you ran away

and left him," said the Colonel.

"Yes, sah, I belongs to him," said Joe, who told his story again in a

plain, straightforward manner, showing a neck scarred and cut by the

whip.

"You can talk with Joe, sir, if you wish," said the Colonel.

"Have not I always treated you well?" the Judge asked.

"No, massa, you hasn't," was the square, plump reply.

"How so?"

"When I came to you and told you I couldn't stand it any longer, you

said, 'Go back, you dog!'"

"Did not I tell you that I would take you away?"

"Yes, massa, but you never did it."

The soldiers came round and listened. Joe saw that they were friends.

The Judge stood speechless a moment.

"Joe," said the Colonel, "are you willing to go home with your

master?"

"No, sah, I isn't."

"Judge Robertson, I don't think you can get that boy. If you think you

can, there he is, try it. I shall have nothing to do with it," said

the Colonel, casting a significant glance around to the soldiers who

had gathered about them.

The Judge saw that he could not lay hands upon Joe. "I'll see whether

there is any virtue in the laws of Kentucky," he said, with great

emphasis.

"Perhaps, Judge, it will be as well for you to leave the camp. Some of

my men are a little excitable on the subject of slavery."

"You are a set of nigger-stealers," said the Judge, losing his temper.

"Allow me to say, Judge, that it does not become you to call us

nigger-stealers. You talk about nigger-stealing,--you who live on the

sweat and blood of such creatures as Joe! Your dwellings, your

churches, are built from the earnings of slaves, beaten out of them by

brutal overseers. You hire little children out to brutes,--you clothe

them in rags,--you hunt them with hounds,--you chain them down to toil

and suffering! You call us thieves because we have given your Joe food

and protection! Sir, I would rather be in the place of Joe than in

that of his oppressor!" was the indignant outburst of the Colonel.

"Well, sir, if that is the way you men of the North feel, the Union

never can be saved,--never! You must give up our property."

"Judge, allow me to tell you what sort of Unionism I have found in

Kentucky. I have not seen a half-dozen who did not damn the President.

You may put all the pure Unionism in Kentucky in one scale, and a

ten-pound nigger baby in the other, and the Unionism will kick the

beam. Allow me to say, further, that if the perpetuity or restoration

of the Union depends upon my delivering to you with my own hands that

little half-starved dwarf of a slave, the Union may be cast into hell

with all the nations that forget God!"

"The President's Proclamation is unconstitutional. It has no bearing

on Kentucky. I see that it is your deliberate intention to set at

naught the laws," said the Judge, turning away, and walking to General

Gillmore's head-quarters.

"You are wanted at the General's head-quarters," said an aid, soon

after, to Colonel Utley.

The Colonel obeyed the summons, and found there not only Judge

Robertson, but several fine old Kentucky gentlemen; also Colonel

Coburn, the commander of the brigade, who agreed with General Gillmore

in the policy then current. Colonel Coburn said:--

"The policy of the commanding generals, as I understand it, is simply

this: that persons who have lost slaves have a right to hunt for them

anywhere in the State. If a slave gets inside of the lines of a

regiment, the owner has a right to enter those lines, just as if no

regiment was there, and take away the fugitive at his own pleasure."

"Precisely so. The Proclamation has no force in this State," said the

Judge.

"I regret that I am under the necessity of differing in opinion from

my commanding officers, to whom I am ready at all times to render

strict _military_ obedience, but (the Colonel raised his voice) _I

reverse the Kentucky policy!_ I hold that the regiment stands

precisely as though there were no slavery in Kentucky. We came here as

free men, from a free State, at the call of the President to uphold a

free government. We have nothing to do with slavery. The Twenty-Second

Wisconsin, while I have the honor to command it, will never be a

regiment of nigger-catchers. I will not allow civilians to enter my

lines at pleasure; it is unmilitary. Were I to permit it, I should be

justly amenable to a court-martial. Were I to do it, spies might enter

my lines at all times and depart at pleasure."

There was silence. But Judge Robertson was loath to go away without

his flesh and blood. He made one more effort. "Colonel, I did not come

to your lines as a spy, but with an order from your General. Are you

willing that I should go and get my boy?"

The Colonel reflected a moment.

"Yes, sir, and I will remain here. I told you before that I should

have nothing to do with it."

"Do you think that the men will permit me to take him?"

"I have no orders to issue to them in the matter; they will do just as

they please."

"Will you send the boy into some other regiment?"

This was too much for the Colonel. He could no longer restrain his

indignation. Looking the Judge squarely in the face, he vented his

anger in scathing words.

The Judge departed, and at the next session of the Court Colonel Utley

was indicted for man-stealing; but he has not yet been brought to

trial. The case is postponed till the day of Judgment, when a

righteous verdict will be rendered.

The Judge returned to Lexington, called a public meeting, at which he

made a speech, denouncing the Twenty-Second Wisconsin as an abolition

regiment, and introducing resolutions declaring that the Union never

could be restored if the laws of the State of Kentucky were thus set

at defiance. This from the Judge, while his son was in the Rebel

service, fighting against the Union.

But the matter was not yet over. A few days later, the division

containing the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, commanded by General Baird,

_vice_ Gillmore, was ordered down the river. It went to Louisville,

followed by the slave-hunters, who were determined to have their

negroes.

Orders were issued to the colonels not to take any contrabands on

board the boats, and most of them obeyed. Colonel Utley issued no

orders.

A citizen called upon him and said,--

"Colonel, you will have trouble in going through the city unless you

give up the negroes in your lines."

The regiment was then on its march to the wharf.

"They have taken all the negroes from the ranks of the other

regiments, and they intend to take yours."

The Colonel turned to his men and said, quietly, "Fix bayonets."

The regiment moved on through the streets, and reached the Gault

House, where the slaveholders had congregated. A half-dozen approached

the regiment rather cautiously, but one bolder than the rest sprang

into the ranks and seized a negro by the collar.

A dozen bayonets came down around him, some not very gently. He let go

his hold and sprang back again quite as quickly as he entered the

lines.

There was a shaking of fists and muttered curses, but the regiment

passed on to the landing, just as if nothing had happened.

General Granger, who had charge of the transportation, had issued

orders that no negro should be allowed on the boats without free

papers.

General Baird saw the negroes on the steamer, and approaching Colonel

Utley, said,--

"Why, Colonel, how is this? Have all of these negroes free papers?"

"Perhaps not all, but those who haven't, _have declared their

intentions!_" said the Colonel.

The Twenty-Second took transportation on the steamer Commercial. The

captain of the boat was a Kentuckian, who came to Colonel Utley in

great trepidation, saying: "Colonel, I can't start till those negroes

are put on shore. I shall be held responsible. My boat will be seized

and libelled under the laws of the State."

"I can't help that, sir; the boat is under the control and in the

employ of the government. I am commander on board, and you have

nothing to do but to steam up and go where you are directed. Otherwise

I shall be under the necessity of arresting you."

The captain departed and began his preparations. But now came the

sheriff of Jefferson County with a writ. He wanted the bodies of

George, Abraham, John, and Dick, who were still with the

Twenty-Second. They were the runaway property of a fellow named Hogan,

who a few days before had figured in a convention held at Frankfort,

in which he introduced a series of Secession resolutions.

"I have a writ for your arrest, but I am willing to waive all action

on condition of your giving up the fugitives which you are harboring

contrary to the peace and dignity of the State," said the sheriff.

"I have other business to attend to just now. I am under orders from

my superiors in command to proceed down the river without any delay,

and must get the boat under way," said the Colonel, bowing, politely.

"But, Colonel, you are aware of the consequences of deliberately

setting at defiance the laws of a sovereign State," said the sheriff.

"Are you all ready there?" said the Colonel, not to the sheriff, but

to the officer of the day who had charge of affairs.

"Yes, sir."

"Then cast off."

The game of bluff had been played between the Twenty-Second Wisconsin

and the State of Kentucky, and Wisconsin had won.

The sheriff jumped ashore. There were hoarse puffs from the

steam-pipes, the great wheels turned in the stream, the Commercial

swung from her moorings, and the soldiers of Wisconsin floated down

the broad Ohio with the stars and stripes waving above them.

By their devotion to principle, by the firmness of their commander,

they had given the cause of Freedom a mighty uplift in the old State

of Kentucky.

I recall an evening in the Louisville Hotel. Officers of the

army,--majors, captains, lieutenants,--were there from camp, chatting

with the ladies. It was a pleasant company,--an hour of comfort and

pleasure. The evening was chilly, and a coal-fire in the grate sent

out its genial warmth. The cut glass of the chandeliers sparkled with

ruby, purple, and amethyst in the changing light. In the anterooms

there were chess-players absorbed in the intellectual game, with a

knot of silent spectators.

At the dinner-table Mr. Brown was my servant. His complexion was a

shade darker than mine. He served me faithfully, wearing a white

cotton jacket and apron. He entered the parlor in the evening, not

wearing his hotel uniform, but faultlessly dressed as a gentleman. He

brought not a lady, but a double-bass viol. He was followed by two

fellow-servants, one with a violin, the other with a banjo. The one

with the violin was a short, thick-set, curly-headed African,--black

as the King of Dahomey. The other was whiter than most of the officers

in the room.

They were the hotel table-waiters and also a quadrille band. The

violinist did not know B flat from F sharp. Musical notation was Greek

to him; but he had rhythm, a quick, tuneful ear, and an appreciation

of the beautiful in music rarely found among the many thousands who

take lessons by the quarter. He did not give us Old Tar River, Uncle

Ned, and O Susannah, but themes from Labitsky and Donizetti,--melodies

which once heard are long remembered. His two comrades accompanied him

in time and tune. For the young ladies and officers it was a

delightful hour. Mr. Brown was the factotum, calling the changes with

as much steadiness and precision, while handling the double-bass, as

Hall or Dodworth at the grand ball to the Prince of Wales. So we were

served by four thousand dollars' worth of body and soul!

The doorway leading into the hall was a portrait-gallery of dusky

faces,--Dinah, Julia, Sam, and James; old aunt Rebecca, with a yellow

turban on her head; young Sarah, three feet high, bare-legged,

bare-armed, in a torn, greasy calico dress,--her only garment; young

Toney, who had so much India-rubber in his heels that he capered

irrepressibly through the hall and executed a double-shuffle. While

the grand stairway, leading to the halls above was piled with dark,

eager faces, reminding one of the crowded auditory looking upon

Belshazzar's feast in the great picture of Allston,--fifteen, twenty,

thirty thousand dollars' worth of bones, blood, and brains!

The violinist was in trouble. The screws would not stick, and in spite

of his spitting in the holes, his twisting and turning, he was obliged

to stop in the middle of the dance. He made strenuous efforts to keep

his instrument in tune. A man in shoulder-straps, leading a

fair-haired, graceful maiden, his partner in the dance, with a

clenched fist and an oath informed the musician that if he didn't fix

that quick he would knock his head off! It was a little glimpse of the

divine, beneficent missionary institution ordained of God for the

elevation of the sons of Ham!

It was not difficult to make a transition in thought to a South

Carolina rice-swamp or Louisiana sugar-plantation or Arkansas

cotton-field, where a master's passion was law, and where knocking off

men's heads was not so rare a performance.

Among the dusky crowd gazing in upon the waltzers was a girl, sixteen

or seventeen years old,--a brunette, with cherry lips, sparkling black

eyes, and cheeks as fresh and fair as apricots. She was a picture of

health. She gazed with evident delight, and yet there was always upon

her countenance a shade of sadness. In form and feature she was almost

wholly Anglo-Saxon, and more than Anglo-Saxon in beauty.

I met her in the hall during the day having charge of a young child,

and had marked her beauty, ease, grace, and intelligence, and supposed

that she was a boarder at the hotel,--the daughter or young wife of

some officer, till seeing her the central figure of the dusky group.

Then the thought came flashing, "She is a slave!"

She could have joined in the cotillon with as much grace as any of the

fair dancers.

Her father, I learned, was a high-born Kentuckian, and her grandfather

was from one of the first families of Virginia; but her

great-great-great-grandmother was born in Africa, and that was the

reason why she stood a silent spectator in the hall, instead of

whirling with the gay colonel in the dance.

[Illustration: A silent spectator.]

CHAPTER X.

FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO FREDERICKSBURG.

[Sidenote: Nov., 1862.]

Returning to Virginia I accompanied the army of the Potomac in the

march from Berlin and Harper's Ferry to the Rappahannock. The roads

were excellent, the days mild, the air clear. Beautiful beyond

description the landscape, viewed from the passes of the Blue Ridge.

Westward in the valley of the Shenandoah was Longstreet's corps,

traced by rising clouds of dust and the smoke of innumerable

camp-fires. Eastward was the great army of the Union, winding along

the numerous roads, towards the south. Many of the soldiers had their

pets,--one had two yellow dogs in leading-strings. A gray-bearded old

soldier carried a young puppy with its eyes not yet open, in his arms

as tenderly as if it were a child. A Connecticut boy had a little

kitten on his shoulders, which kept its place contentedly.

Occasionally the lad caressed it, while kitty laid its face against

that of the beardless boy and purred with pleasure.

The march was tediously slow. General McClellan was averse to making

it at all. He had delayed from day to day, and from week to week, till

ordered by the President to advance. He had no well-considered plan of

operations.

The President's patience was exhausted, and at Warrenton he was

deprived of the command of the army.

General Burnside, his successor, took the command reluctantly; but he

was quick in deciding upon a plan. General McClellan's line of march

was towards Gordonsville. Burnside decided to move upon

Fredericksburg. The movement was made with great rapidity, and

Burnside only failed of seizing the place because the pontoons were

not there at the time appointed. Lee came and occupied the town, threw

up his earthworks, and planted his batteries. Burnside planned to

have Franklin cross the Rappahannock below Port Royal, Hooker above

it, while Sumner was to cross opposite the town; but a heavy storm

frustrated the movement.

It was generally supposed that the army would go into winter quarters,

and many of the correspondents accordingly returned to their homes. My

friend and companion in the West, Mr. Richardson, left the army of the

Potomac in disgust, and proceeded West again in search of adventure.

His wishes were more than gratified soon after at Vicksburg, where he

fell into the hands of the Rebels, who boarded him awhile at the Libby

in Richmond, and afterward at the Salisbury prison in North Carolina.

He ungraciously turned his back upon his Rebel friends one night, took

all his baggage, and left without paying his bills.

He gained the Union lines in Tennessee after months of imprisonment,

with his desires for adventure in that direction fully satisfied.

Nearly one half of the correspondents with the various armies either

fell into the hands of the Rebels or were wounded. Several died of

diseases contracted in the malarious swamps. As a class they were

daring, courageous, venturesome, always on the alert, making hard

rides, day and night, on the battle-field often where the fire was

hottest,--writing their accounts seated on a stump, spreading their

blankets where night overtook them, or frequently making all-night

rides after a day of excitement, hardship, and exposure, that the

public might have early information of what had transpired. Their

statements were often contradictory. Those first received by the

public were not unfrequently full of errors, and sometimes were wholly

false, for the reason that many papers had a correspondent a few miles

in rear of the army, at the base of supplies, who caught up every wild

rumor and sent it flying over the land.

Gold speculators improved every occasion to gull the public by false

news. There is reason to believe that men in high official positions

were in collusion with operators in bullion, to the mutual advantage

of all concerned.

The press of the country, reflecting the feelings of the people,

pronounced the campaign at an end. The friends of General McClellan

were clamorous for his return. Congress and political advisers in

Washington demanded that Burnside should move somewhere. They knew

nothing of the obstacles in his path.

In a letter written on the 9th of December, 1862, the following view

of the situation was presented by the correspondent of the Boston

_Journal_:--

"It is a clear, cold morning. The sky is without a cloud.

Standing near General Sumner's quarters, I have a wide sweep of

vision. The quarters of the veteran general commanding the right

grand division are in a spacious mansion, newly constructed, the

property of a wealthy planter, whose estate is somewhat shorn of

its beauty by the ravages of war. The fences are all gone, the

forests are fast disappearing, the fine range of cedars which

lined the Belleplain road are no longer to be seen. All around

are the white tents of the command, the innumerable camp-fires

sending up blue columns of smoke. The air is calm. You hear the

rumbling of distant baggage-trains, the clatter of hundreds of

axes felling the forests for fuel,--the bugle-call of the

cavalrymen, and the rat-a-plan of the drummers, and mingling with

all, the steady, constant flow of the falling waters of the

winding stream.

"Looking far off to the southeast, across the intervale of the

river, you see a white cloud of steam moving beneath the fringe

of a forest. It is a locomotive from Richmond, dragging its train

of cars with supplies for the Rebel camps. The forests and hills

beyond are alive with men. Resting my glass against the side of

the building to keep it steady, I can count the men grouped

around the camp-fires, turning at times to keep themselves warm.

Others are bringing in wood. An officer rides along. A train of

wagons is winding down the hill toward the town. All along the

range of hills are earthworks with sandbag embrasures, and

artillery behind,--not quaker guns, I think, but field artillery,

so ranged that a movement directly across the river would be

marching into the jaws of death,--as hazardous and destructive as

the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.

"I know that there is a clamor for an onward movement, a desire

and expectation for an advance; but I think there are few men in

the country who, after taking a look at the Rebel positions,

would like to lead in a movement across the stream.

"Looking into the town of Fredericksburg we see but few smokes

ascending from the chimneys, but few people in the streets. It is

almost wholly deserted. The women and children have gone to

Richmond, or else are shivering in camp. Close upon the

river-bank on either side face the pickets, within easy talking

distance of each other. There has been no shooting of late. There

is constant badinage. The Rebel picket asks the Yankee when he is

going to Richmond. The Yankee asks the Rebel if he don't want a

pair of boots. I am sorry to say that such conversation is mixed

with profane words. Each party seems to think that hard words hit

hard."

"Last night the southern sky was red with the blaze of Rebel

camp-fires. Far off to the southeast I see a hazy cloud, and

columns of smoke, indicating the presence of a large army. I do

not doubt that if we attempt to cross we shall meet with terrible

opposition from a force nearly if not quite as large as our own.

"If the President or General Halleck insist upon Burnside's

making the movement, it will be made with whatever power, energy,

determination, and bravery the army can exhibit. I am as anxious

as any one can be to see a great blow given to the Rebellion; but

I am not at all anxious to see the attempt made against such

disadvantages as are apparent to the most casual observer from

this position."[9]

[Footnote 9: Letter to Boston _Journal_, December 9, 1862.]

[Sidenote: Dec., 1862.]

It was an unreasonable demand which the public made upon Burnside. He

had been just one month in command of the army. His first plan had

failed through the remissness of others; his second effort to move had

been made abortive by the storm. He could not attempt again the

movement with any hope of success, for Lee had taken precautions

against an attack upon his flank. Neither the public, the politician,

nor the War Department would consent to his going into winter

quarters. He had no alternative other than to devise a new plan. These

considerations are to be kept in remembrance in reviewing the battle

of Fredericksburg.

General Burnside obtained correct information of the position held by

General Lee. Jackson's corps was separated from Longstreet's by a

ravine, but General Lee had constructed a road through the woods and

across a ravine, by which troops could be readily marched to the right

or left, as they might be needed. He was satisfied that Lee did not

expect him to cross at the town, but lower down the river. He decided,

therefore, to cross the Rappahannock, and make a desperate push to

obtain possession of the road, which would divide Lee's army.

[Illustration: Fredericksburg.]

The plan was accepted by a council of officers on the 10th of

December. Preparations wore made that night for the passage of the

river in three places. The artillery was drawn in position along the

bank,--about one hundred and fifty pieces, some of which were

thirty-pounders. Orders were issued to the troops to be ready at a

moment's warning. General Woodbury, with a brigade of engineers, was

ordered down to the river.

Soon after dark on the night of the 10th, the brigade, with its long

train of boats on wheels, came down from the Stafford hills. Boats

sufficient for the construction of two bridges halted near the

railroad; enough for two more went a third of a mile down stream,

opposite the lower end of the town, while the remainder went a mile

and a half farther down, almost to Mr. Bernard's house. Sumner and

Hooker were to use those opposite the town, and Franklin those at

Bernard's. A brigade of troops was ordered to protect the engineers in

their work. The gunners stood beside their guns, ready to open fire if

the Rebels opposed them. The engineers took the boats from the wagons,

pushed them out over the thin ice, anchored them in the stream, and

commenced laying the timbers and planks. A dense fog hung over the

river, which concealed their operations, and before daybreak the

bridges were nearly completed. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth

Mississippi regiments of Barksdale's brigade, and the Eighth Florida,

of Perry's brigade, were on picket along the river, while the

Thirteenth and Twenty-First Mississippi and Third Georgia were in

reserve in the town.

Lee was wary. He expected an advance of the Union army. His scouts

were alert. All the commanders were ordered to be vigilant. So keeping

a sharp lookout, the sentinels walked the bank through the long winter

night, peering into the darkness, and listening to catch the meaning

of the confused hum which floated to them across the stream.

CHAPTER XI.

BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

[Sidenote: Dec., 1862.]

At five o'clock on the morning of the 11th of December two signal-guns

were fired on the heights of Fredericksburg. Deep and heavy their

roar, rolling along the valley, echoing from hill to hill, and rousing

the sleepers of both armies. We who listened upon the Falmouth hills

knew that the crossing was not a surprise, but that the Rebels were

ready for battle. And now as the day dawned there came a rattling of

musketry along the river. The Rebel pickets opened the fire. The

gunners at the batteries were quick to respond, and sent grape and

canister across the stream. The Rebel pickets at the lower bridges

soon retired, and the engineers completed their work. But in the town

the Mississippians took shelter in the buildings, and poured a deadly

fire upon the bridge-builders. Almost every soldier who attempted to

carry out a plank fell. For a while the attempt was relinquished.

"The bridge must be completed," said General Burnside.

Once more the brave engineers attempted it. The fog still hung over

the river. Those who stood on the northern bank could only see the

flashes of the rifles on the other shore. The gunners were obliged to

fire at random, but so energetic their fire the engineers were able to

carry the bridge within eighty or ninety feet of the shore, and then

so deadly in turn was the fire of the Rebels that it was murder to

send men out with a plank.

General Burnside stood on the piazza of the Phillips House, a mile

from the pontoons. General Sumner and General Hooker were there. Aids

and couriers came and went with messages and orders.

"My bridge is completed, and I am ready to cross," was Franklin's

message at half past nine.

"You must wait till the upper bridge is completed," was the reply to

Franklin.

Two hours passed. A half-dozen attempts were made to complete the

upper bridge without success. Brave men not belonging to the engineers

came down to the bank, surveyed the scene, and then volunteering their

services, seized planks and boards, ran out upon the bridge, but only

to fall before the sharpshooters concealed in the cellars of the

houses not ten rods distant. Captain Brainard of the Fiftieth New

York, with eleven men, volunteered to finish the nearly completed

work. They went out upon the run. Five fell at one volley, and the

rest returned. Captain Perkins of the same regiment led another party.

He fell with a ghastly wound in his neck. Half of his men are killed

or wounded. These were sacrifices of life with nothing gained. It was

soul-inspiring to witness such heroic devotion, but heart-sickening to

stand on the bank and see them slaughtered,--their blood turning to

crimson the turbid waters of the Rappahannock.

General Burnside had no desire to injure the town, but under the

usages of war he had a right to bombard it; for the Rebels had

concealed themselves in the houses, making use of them to slaughter

his men.

"Bring all your guns to bear upon the city and batter it down," was

the order issued to General Hunt, chief of artillery. Colonel Hays had

eight batteries on the right; Colonel Tompkins had eleven batteries on

the right centre, opposite the upper pontoons,--some of them in the

yard of Mr. Lacey's house, near the river; Colonel Tyler had seven

batteries a little farther down on the left centre; while Captain De

Russey had seven batteries opposite the lower pontoons. There were in

all thirty-five batteries, with a total of one hundred and

seventy-nine guns, all bearing upon the town. The artillerymen

received the orders to prepare for action with a hurrah. They had

chafed all the morning, and longed for an opportunity to avenge the

death of their gallant comrades.

The hour had come. They sprang to their pieces. The fire ran from the

right to the left,--from the heavy twenty-four-pounders on the heights

of Falmouth to the smaller pieces on the hills where Washington passed

his boyhood. The air became thick with the murky clouds. The earth

shook beneath the terrific explosions of the shells, which went

howling over the river, crashing into the houses, battering down

walls, splintering doors, ripping up floors. Sixty solid shot and

shells a minute were thrown, and the bombardment was kept up till nine

thousand were fired. No hot shot were used, but the explosions set

fire to a block of buildings, which added terrible grandeur to the

scene.

The Rebel army stood upon the heights beyond the town and watched the

operations. Lee's Rebel artillery was silent, and the Mississippians

concealed in the houses were alone participants in the contest.

The fog lifted at last and revealed the town. The streets were

deserted, but the houses, the church-steeples, the stores were riddled

with shot; yet no impression had been made on the Mississippians.

Burnside's artillerymen could not depress their guns sufficiently to

shell them out. A working party went out upon the bridge, but one

after another was killed or wounded.

The time had come for a bold movement. It was plain that the

Mississippians must be driven out before the bridge could be

completed, and that a party must go over in boats, charge up the hill,

and rout them from their hiding-places. Who would go? Who attempt the

hazardous enterprise? There were brave men standing on the bank by the

Lacey House, who had watched the proceedings during the long hours.

They were accustomed to hard fighting: Hall's brigade, composed of the

Seventh Michigan, Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, and

Forty-Second New York. They had fought at Fair Oaks, Savage Station,

Glendale, Malvern, and Antietam. The Twentieth had been in all these

battles, and also at Ball's Bluff.

"We will go over and clean out the Rebels," was the cry of this

brigade.

"You shall have the privilege of doing so," said General Burnside.

There were not boats enough for all,--not enough for one regiment

even. A portion of the Seventh Michigan was selected to go first,

while the other regiments stood as a supporting force.

The men run down the winding path to the water's edge, jump into the

boats, and push out into the stream. It is a moment of intense

anxiety. No one knows how large the force opposing them. The Rebel

sharpshooters are watching the movement from their hiding-places. They

have a fair view and can pick their men. The men in the boats know it,

yet they move steadily onward, steering straight across the stream,

without a thought of turning back, though their comrades are

falling,--some headlong into the river, others dropping into the

boats. The oarsmen pull with rapid strokes. When one falls another

takes his place. Two thirds the distance over,--the boats ground in

shoal water. The soldiers wait for no word of command, but with a

common impulse, with an ardor which stops not to count the cost, they

leap into the water, wade to the shore, and charge up the bank. Some

fall to rise no more, but their surviving comrades rush up the

slippery slope. A loud hurrah rings out from the soldiers who watch

them from the Falmouth shore. Up, up they go, facing death, firing

not, intent only to get at the foe and win victory with the bayonet!

They smash the windows, batter down doors, driving or capturing the

foe.

Loud and hearty the cheers of the regiments upon the other shore. The

men of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts would give anything

to be there. All the while the cannon are roaring, hurling solid shot

and shell into the doomed city.

"They leaped in the rocking shallops.

Ten offered where one could go;

And the breeze was alive with laughter

Till the boatmen began to row.

"Then the shore, where the Rebels harbored,

Was fringed with a gush of flame,

And buzzing, like bees, o'er the water

The swarms of their bullets came.

"Not a whisper! Each man was conscious

He stood in the sight of death;

So he bowed to the awful presence,

And treasured his living breath.

"And many a brave, stout fellow,

Who sprang in the boats with mirth,

Ere they made that fatal crossing,

Was a load of lifeless earth.

"But yet the boats moved onward;

Through fire and lead they drove,

With the dark, still mass within them,

And the floating stars above.

"Cheer after cheer we sent them,

As only armies can,--

Cheers for old Massachusetts,

Cheers for young Michigan!

"They formed in line of battle;

Not a man was out of place.

Then with levelled steel they hurled them

Straight in the Rebels' face.

"'O help me, help me, comrade!

For tears my eyelids drown,

As I see their starry banners

Stream up the smoking town.'"[10]

[Footnote 10: Boker's "Crossing at Fredericksburg."]

[Illustration: Fredericksburg.

UNION POSITIONS.

1. French's Division} 10. Gibbon's Division}

2. Hancock's " } 2d Corps. 11. Meade's " } 1st Corps.

3. Howard's " } 12. Doubleday's " }

4. Sturgis's " } 13. Sickles's " }

5. Getty's " } 9th Corps. 14. Birney's " } 3d Corps.

6. Burns's " }

15. Cavalry.

7. Brooks's " } 16. Union Batteries.

8. Howe's " } 6th Corps. 17. Bernard's House.

9. Newton's " } 18. Pontoon Bridge.

19. Hamilton's House.

20. Maryee's House.

REBEL POSITIONS.

A. Anderson's Division} F. A. P. Hill's Division}

B. Ransom's " } G. Ewell's " }

C. McLaw's " } Longstreet, H. Taliferro's " } Jackson,

D. Pickett's " } 1st Corps. I. D. H. Hill's " } 2d Corps.

E. Hood's " } J. Stuart's Cavalry }

K. Lee's Head-Quarters.

L. Longstreet Head-Quarters.

M. Jackson's "]

When the bridge-builders saw the soldiers charge up the hill, they too

caught the enthusiasm of the moment, and finished their work. The

other regiments of the brigade, before the last planks were laid,

rushed down the bank, ran out upon the bridge, dashed up the bank,

joined their comrades, and drove the Rebels from the streets nearest

the river.

History furnishes but few records of more daring exploits than this

action of the Seventh Michigan. Their work was thorough and complete.

In fifteen minutes they cleared the houses in front of them, and took

more prisoners than their own party numbered.

It was now half past four in the afternoon, one of the shortest days

of winter. The sun was going down. The Rebels had delayed the crossing

through the entire day. General Burnside was severely censured by some

Northern as well as Southern papers for bombarding the town; he had no

desire to do injury to the citizens in person or property, but the

stubborn resistance of the Rebels made it necessary thus to use his

artillery. When General Sumner arrived at Falmouth, three weeks

before, he demanded the surrender of the place; but the citizens and

the women begged the officer in command not to give it up.

"We would rather have the town burned than given up to the

Yankees,"[11] said they.

[Footnote 11: Richmond Examiner, December 15, 1862.]

But now the Yankees were there, marching through the streets. The

houses were battered, torn, and rent. Some were in flames, and a

battle was raging through the town.

As soon as the bridge was completed, the other brigades of General

Howard's division moved across the river. The Rebel batteries, which

till now had kept silence, opened furiously with solid shot and shell,

but the troops moved steadily over, and took shelter along the river

bank. The Rebels were falling back from street to street, and the men

from Michigan and Massachusetts were pressing on.

I stood upon the bank of the river and watched the scene in the

deepening twilight. Far up the streets there were bright flashes from

the muskets of the Rebels, who fired from cellars, chamber windows,

and from sheltered places. Nearer were dark masses of men in blue, who

gave quick volleys as they moved steadily on, demolishing doors,

crushing in windows, and searching every hiding-place. Cannon were

flaming on all the hills, and the whole country was aglow with the

camp fires of the two great armies. The Stafford hills were alive with

men,--regiments, brigades, and divisions moving in column from their

encampments to cross the river. The sky was without a cloud. The town

was lighted by lurid flames. The air was full of hissings,--the sharp

cutting sounds of the leaden rain. The great twenty-pounder guns on

the heights of Falmouth were roaring the while. There were shouts,

hurrahs, yells, and groans from the streets. So the fight went on till

the Rebels were driven wholly from the town to their intrenchments

beyond.

The Seventeenth Mississippi was the most actively engaged of the Rebel

regiments. Its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Fizer, in his report,

says:--

"The Yankees made nine desperate attempts to finish their

bridges, but were repulsed at every attempt. They used their

artillery incessantly, with a heavy detachment of sharpshooters,

for twelve hours, we holding our position firmly the whole time,

until about half past four, P. M., when they increased their

artillery and infantry, and their batteries becoming so numerous

and concentrated, we could not use our rifles. Being deprived of

all protection, we were compelled to fall back to Caroline

Street, and from there were ordered from town. The casualties of

the regiment during the engagement were one hundred and sixteen

wounded, killed, and missing."[12]

[Footnote 12: Lieutenant-Colonel Fizer's Report.]

When the soldiers of the Seventh Michigan leaped into the boats, a

drummer-boy joined them,--Robert Henry Hendershot. He was only twelve

years old, but his dark eyes flashed brightly under the excitement of

the moment. His drum was upon his neck.

"Get out, you can't go," said an officer.

"I want to go," said Robert.

"No, you will get shot. Out with you."

Robert jumped into the water, but instead of going ashore, remained to

push off the boat; and then, instead of letting go his hold, clung to

the gunwale, and was taken across.

As the boat grounded upon the other shore, a piece of shell tore

through his drum. He threw it away, seized the gun of a fallen

soldier, rushed up the hill, and came upon a Rebel soldier, slightly

wounded. "Surrender!" said Robert, pointing his gun at him. The Rebel

gave up his gun, and Robert marched him to the rear. When he returned

to the other side of the river, General Burnside saw him, and said,--

"Boy, I glory in your spunk! If you keep on in this way a few more

years, you will be in my place."

His regiment, after the battle, was sent West, and Robert was in the

battles of Lebanon, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, and McMinnville, where

he fought gallantly.

As the Rebels had used the houses for a defence, the soldiers, now

that they were in possession of the town, appropriated to their own

use whatever suited their fancy. Their great desire was to obtain

tobacco, and the tobacco shops were first broken open. A large

quantity had been thrown into the river by the Rebel authorities to

prevent its falling into the hands of the Yankees; but the soldiers

soon fished it up, dried it by their bivouac fires, and through the

long night, while keeping watch, enjoyed their pipes at the expense of

the enemy. Soldiers who did not care for tobacco helped themselves to

flour, meat, potatoes, sugar, and molasses. They had a merry night

cooking bacon and eggs, frying pork, making hot cakes in the kitchens.

The houses were ransacked; beds, blankets, carpets, sofas,

rocking-chairs, settees, and lounges were carried into the streets.

Some dressed themselves in old-fashioned and antiquated clothes which

they found in the chambers.

It was a carnival night. One fellow appropriated a heavy volume of

Congressional documents, which he carried about several days. Another

found a stuffed monkey in one of the houses, which he shouldered and

bore away. One soldier had a dozen custard-cups on a string around his

neck. Another, finding a nice beaver hat, threw aside his old cap and

took his place again in the ranks, the sport of all his comrades, for

being so nice a gentleman. It was not, however, an indiscriminate

pillage of the whole town. A great many dwellings were not entered at

all, and the owners, after the evacuation of the city, found their

premises but little injured. In the houses nearest the river the

soldiers felt that they were entitled to whatever they could lay their

hands on. But those who had taken mattresses and bedding were obliged

to give them up. The surgeons in charge of the hospitals seized the

articles for the benefit of the wounded.

"Rev. Arthur B. Fuller is killed," said an acquaintance, as I stood

upon the bank of the river. "His body is lying in the street."

He had been chaplain of the Massachusetts Sixteenth through all the

Peninsula campaign, working hard day and night in the hospital, till

his health had given out, and he had been honorably discharged. He had

preached his last sermon on the Sunday before; but although no longer

in the service, knowing that there was to be a great battle, so

intense was his patriotism that he could not go away, but remained to

do what he could. He took a musket, became a volunteer, and went over

with the regiments.

"I must do something for my country. What shall I do?" he asked of

Captain Dunn in the streets of Fredericksburg on that fatal evening.

"Now is a good time for you,--fall in on the left," said the captain,

who saw that he was cool and collected, although the bullets were

falling thick and fast around them. He stood in front of a grocery

store, loaded his musket and fired, and then coolly loaded again. He

was taking aim once more when he was shot by a sharpshooter. The

Rebels advanced, and Captain Dunn was obliged to fall back. He lay

where he fell till the enemy were driven from the town, when his body

was recovered. The Rebels had picked his pockets. They stabbed a

wounded man who was lying by his side. The soldiers of his regiment

who had listened to his teachings in life came in groups to gaze with

silent sorrow upon the marble brow of him who had been a faithful

teacher, and who gave his life freely for his country.

At his funeral obsequies in Boston, Rev. E. O. Haven said of him:--

"Could he whose mangled body now lies before you, from which the

deadly bullet has expelled the noble Christian's soul, rise again

and speak out as he was wont to do in ringing words, they would

not be apologetic, but words of exultation. Were it possible for

him to be at once fallen in battle and yet alive with us, I know

that he would fill our souls with his own holy enthusiasm. I know

that he would make us understand and feel the magnitude of his

thought and the love of his heart, when he offered to his

country, in what he thought her bitterest trial, the sight of his

eye and the strength of his arm, and above all the moral example

of his character, won by many years' devotion to the good of his

fellow-men. He offered all this to his country, and he did right.

It was an overflowing love. He gave his life for liberty to all

men, instead of slavery for negroes, vassalage for the great

majority of the whites, and a despotism,--greatest curse of

all,--for a few. He offered his life to inspire the army with

noble purpose, and if need be, to inspire the nation. He knew

that his life might be taken, and is not now surprised; but there

comes a voice from his spirit to us saying, Waste not your

sympathies in inactive sorrow, but connect the strong tide of

your emotion into vigorous thought and powerful action. Weep not

for me, but weep for yourselves and your children,--or see to it

that they are so protected as not to need your tears."

Rev. James Freeman Clarke was his playmate in boyhood, and his friend

through life, and standing by his coffin, looking for the last time

upon his face, said:--

"Arthur Fuller was like the most of us, a lover of peace; but he

saw, as we have had to see, that sometimes true peace can only

come through war. In this last struggle at Fredericksburg he

took a soldier's weapon, and went on with the little forlorn

hope, who were leading the advance through the streets. He had

not been in battle much before, but more among the sick in

hospitals. Perhaps he thought it right to show the soldiers that

in an hour of emergency he was ready to stand by their side. So

he went with a courage and devotion which all must admire, and

fell, adding his blood also to the precious blood which has been

shed as an atonement for the sins of the nation. May that blood

not be shed in vain. May it be accepted by God as a costly

sacrifice, and may we as a people, when our necessary trials and

punishments are sufficiently endured, become that righteous and

happy nation God meant us to be; setting an example to mankind of

a Christian republic in which there is no master and no slave, no

tyrant and no victim,--not a mere rabble scrambling for gain, but

brothers, co-operating in building up a grand commonwealth of

true liberty, justice, and humanity. Let our friends go or stay,

let us live or die,--

'So wake we to higher aims,

Of a land that has lost for a little her love of gold,

And love of peace; that was full of wrongs, shames,

Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told,

And hail once more the banner of battle unrolled!

Though many an eye shall darken, and many shall weep,

Yet many a darkness into light shall leap.'

" ... To die thus, full of devotion to a noble cause, is not to

die,--it is to live. It is rising into a higher life. It is

passing up into the company of the true and noble, of the brave

and generous,--it is going to join heroes and martyrs of all

ages, who have not counted life dear when given to a good cause.

Such devoted offerings by the young and brave surrendering up

their lives raise us all above the fear of death. What matters it

when we die, so that we live holy?--

'They are the dead, the buried,

They who do still survive,

In sin and sense interred;--

The dead!--they are alive!'"

Foothold having been secured on the southern bank of the Rappahannock,

the army began to cross. A third pontoon bridge was constructed at the

lower end of the town. A thick fog hung over the river on the morning

of the 12th. The air was calm, and I could distinctly hear the

confused hum of preparation for the great battle. Burnside's troops

were moving into position, and so were Lee's; but all the movements of

both armies were concealed by the fog.

The Rebel pickets still clung to the outskirts of the town. At noon

the fog disappeared, drifting up the Rappahannock. Suddenly the Rebel

batteries on the hills above the town began to throw shells upon the

Second Corps, which had crossed the upper bridge and was forming in

the streets. Colonel Tyler, who commanded the heavy guns on the

Falmouth hills, was quick to reply. The batteries in the centre

opened, also those on the left. The distance from the most remote

battery on the right to the farthest on the left was five miles. The

Second and Ninth Corps were in the town, the front line was in the

streets and the rear line along the bank of the river. Artillery

trains and wagons loaded with ammunition were going over. Solid shot

from the Rebel batteries tossed up the water in the river. Shells were

bursting in the town.

The First and Sixth Corps, under Franklin, had crossed at the lower

bridge by the house of Mr. Bernard, and were moving over the wide

plain. The Bernard House, where Franklin had established his

head-quarters, was a fine old mansion surrounded by trees. Beyond the

house there was a smooth intervale, with here and there a hollow,

where the troops could find shelter from the artillery-fire of the

enemy.

General Stoneman was moving down from the Falmouth hills with Birney's

and Sickles's divisions. Opposite Falmouth, on the Rebel left, was

Longstreet's corps, with Anderson's division on Stanisbury Hill,--his

pickets stationed along the canal, which winds around its base. Next

to Anderson was Ransom's division, on Maryee's Hill, directly in rear

of the town. Two roads run up the hill, leading west,--the

Gordonsville plank-road and the Orange turnpike. Mr. Maryee's house

stands between them. It is a fine brick dwelling, with a stately

portico before it, with a beautiful lawn sloping towards the city,

shaded by oaks and adorned with flowering shrubs. From the roof of the

mansion General Longstreet can obtain a fair view of what is going on

in the Union lines. He can see the troops gathering in the streets and

behold the dark masses under Franklin moving out past the Bernard

House.

At the base of the hill he can see some of his own soldiers,

sheltered behind a stone-wall along the Old Telegraph road, which is

dug like a canal into the side of the hill. It is a sheltered

position, and their rifles and muskets will sweep the level field in

front towards the town. His heaviest cannon and his largest howitzers

are in position around Maryee's house, behind earthworks. The

Washington Artillery, which was in the first battle of Manassas, and

which fought through all battles of the Peninsula, at Groveton and

Antietam, is there.

Ransom's division extends to Hazel Run,--a stream which comes down

through a deep ravine from the west, gurgling over a rocky bed, and

turning the great wheel of a grist-mill, just hid from sight as you

look up the river from the town. An unfinished railroad embankment is

thrown up in the run,--the Gordonsville road,--which was in

construction when the war broke out. There is a hollow in the smooth

field in front of the telegraph road,--a place to be kept in

remembrance. There is a higher elevation beyond Maryee's house, which

overlooks the town, and all the plain below, called Lee's Hill, where

Lee has placed his guns of longest range.

Across the ravine is McLaw's division, behind an embankment which

extends up the hill and into the woods along the Telegraph road.

Beyond McLaw's is Pickett's division; then Hood's division, which

forms the right of Longstreet's command, and reaches to Deep Run.

Longstreet's head-quarters are in rear of Hood.

Across Deep Run are the head-quarters of Lee, who can stand by his

tent and look down upon the battle-field. He can see what Couch and

Wilcox are doing in the town. He is directly in front of Bernard's

mansion, and can also behold all the movements of the Union troops on

the plain. A. P. Hill's division of Jackson's corps is in front of

him,--Hill's left resting on Deep Run, and his right reaching to

Captain Hamilton's house, where the railroad crosses the old Richmond

road. Hill's troops are partially concealed in the woods. Behind Hill

are the divisions of Early and Taliferro,--Taliferro being on the

right, near Hamilton's house. Farther in the rear, on the hill, is D.

H. Hill's division, which is held in reserve. There are fourteen

guns--from Pegram's, McIntosh's, Crenshaw's, Latham's, and Johnson's

batteries--on the hill near Hamilton's.

[Illustration: Franklin's attack.

The diagram represents the position of the troops as witness from

Franklin's Head-quarters, looking south.

UNION POSITIONS.

1. Doubleday.

2. Meade's First Position.

3. Meade's Second Position.

4. Gibbon.

5. Sickles.

6. Birney.

7. Newton.

8. Howe.

9. Brooks.

10. Burns.

11. Franklin's Head-quarters.

REBEL POSITIONS.

A. Hood.

B. Lane, Pender.

C. Thomas's Brigade.

D. Gregg's "

E. Archer's "

F., G., H. Taliferro's Division.

I. Batteries.

J. Ewell's Division.

K. D. H. Hill's Division.

L. Stuart.

M. Batteries.]

Mr. Bernard has been a large slaveholder. His estate is known in the

county round by the name of Mansfield. His negroes live in humble

homes,--in cabins near the railroad, out towards Hamilton's. There,

around the cabins, Jackson has placed twenty-one guns from Davidson's,

Raines's, Caskie's, and Braxton's batteries. To the right of these,

and between Bernard's and the railroad, are twelve guns,--Wooding's

and Carpenter's batteries.

The road from Fredericksburg to Port Royal runs parallel to the river,

about half a mile distant from the stream.

General Stuart, with two brigades of cavalry and his batteries of

light artillery, hold the road. The Louisiana Guards are sent down to

aid him. His line runs nearly at right angles with Jackson's infantry

line, and extends from the railroad to the river. His batteries will

have a cross-fire upon the First and Sixth Corps, whenever they

attempt to move out from Bernard's to gain possession of the railroad

at Hamilton's.

Such is the field,--a smooth plain, a mile wide and two miles long,

around Bernard's, reaching up to the town. Bernard's farm is cut

across by the Port Royal road, the old road to Richmond, and by the

railroad. The Port Royal road is bordered by cedars, thick-set hedges,

and a deep ditch. There are fences dividing the intervale into fields.

Deep Run is fringed with alders. Maryee's Hill is quite steep. The

Rebel cannon sweep all the plain, the field at the base of Maryee's,

and the town itself. The Rebel troops have the protection of the

sunken road, of the rifle-pits along the crests of the hills. They are

sheltered by woods, by ravines, by the hedges and fences, but Burnside

has no cover for his troops. They must march out upon the plain,

charge up the hillsides, and receive the fire of a sheltered foe.

To win a victory, even with a superior force, under such

circumstances, there must be not only great courage and

self-possession, but a well-laid plan and harmonious action of all

subordinate commanders.

Burnside's plan was to make a vigorous movement with a large portion

of his army to gain the railroad at Hamilton's house, and at the same

time rout Longstreet from his position on Maryee's Hill. If he

succeeded at Hamilton's, even if he failed at Maryee's, Lee would be

compelled to evacuate the town, because Burnside would hold the

railroad over which Lee received his supplies.

In the council of officers, held on the night of the 11th, General

Franklin, who had about sixty thousand men, urged such a movement on

the left. There was delay in issuing the orders, which gave Lee ample

time to strengthen his position. The plan adopted was substantially

that which Franklin had urged. These were Burnside's directions to

Franklin:--

"General Hardee will carry this despatch to you, and remain with

you through the day. The general commanding directs that you keep

your whole command in 'position' for a rapid movement down the

old Richmond road; and you will send out at once a division at

least, to pass below Smithfield, to seize, if possible, the

heights near Captain Hamilton's, on this side of the Massaponax,

taking care to keep it well supported and its line of retreat

open. He has ordered another column of a division or more to be

moved from General Sumner's command, up the Plank-road to its

intersection with the Telegraph road, where they will divide,

with a view of seizing the heights on both those roads. Holding

these heights, with the heights near Captain Hamilton's, will, he

hopes, compel the enemy to evacuate the whole ridge between these

points."

In a letter to General Halleck, written on the 10th, a week after the

battle, General Burnside explains his plan more fully.

"The enemy," he says, "had cut a road in rear of the line of

heights where we made our attack, by means of which they

connected the two wings of their army and avoided a long detour

around through a bad country. I obtained from a colored man

information in regard to this road, which proved to be correct. I

wanted to obtain possession of this road, and that was my reason

for making my attack on the extreme left. I did not intend to

make an attack on the right till that position was taken, which I

supposed would stagger the enemy, cutting their line in two; and

then I proposed to make a direct attack in front and drive them

out of their works."

The day (the 12th) passed, and night came on before the army was in

position to make the attack. At sunset the batteries along the lines

opened fire, but the shells for the most part burst harmlessly, and

the soldiers, accustomed to danger, cooked their coffee by the

glimmering bivouac fires, spread their blankets on the ground, and lay

down to sleep, giving no heed to the cannon's roar or the constant

firing along the picket lines.

THE MORNING.

The morning of the 13th dawned. A thick fog hung over the river, so

dense that it was hardly possible to distinguish objects a hundred

yards distant. General Sumner's head-quarters were by the house of Mr.

Phillips, north of the river. General Burnside rode down from his own

head-quarters, and met General Sumner and General Hooker, and other

officers. He wore an anxious look, and justly, for it was the most

responsible hour of his life. Up to that time all of his well-laid

plans had failed. He had hoped to cross the river and surprise the

Rebels, but two days had passed since the beginning of the movement,

giving Lee time to strengthen his defences. Now the fog hung over the

river, and he was afraid of collision between different divisions of

his troops. But a password was whispered along the lines, and orders

were issued to go forward.

While the troops were waiting for the advance the mails arrived. How

eagerly were the letters and papers grasped by the soldiers! It was

affecting to see them, as they read the words of love from home, dash

the tears from their eyes. Home was dear to them just then.

The fog began to drift along the valley. It was like the drawing aside

of a curtain. The entire battle-field was in view. Two signal-guns

were fired in quick succession by the Rebels far down on the left in

front of Franklin. There was a quick mounting of horses at Burnside's

head-quarters. The officers had received their final orders, and

dashed away to carry them into execution.

The main attack was to be led by Franklin. He had his own two corps,

numbering forty thousand; Stoneman was moving to his support with

twenty thousand, and Butterfield, with the Fifth Corps, could be

called to aid him if needed.

Standing where General Tyler had planted his guns, I had a fair view

of the entire battle-field. The position was below the town, near the

lower bridge, on the Washington farm. Rebel officers were riding to

and fro around Maryee's house. The gunners of the Washington Artillery

were leaning upon their pieces, watching the movements in the town.

The Second Corps had moved out from the streets past the old

burying-ground, and was near the gas-works. The right of the line

extended north of the Plank-road to the monument erected to the memory

of Washington's mother.

General French's division of the Second Corps was on the right;

General Hancock's was next in the line, with Howard's division, as

reserve, in the rear. The Second Corps batteries were standing in the

streets of the town, the officers vainly seeking positions where they

could fire upon the Rebel batteries which looked down upon them from

Maryee's Hill.

The Ninth Corps under Wilcox was joined to the Second Corps, and

occupied the lower end of the town. General Sturgis's division was in

front, with Whipple's, forming the second line. Burns's division was

in reserve, near Deep Run. The Rebel ammunition trains were in sight

far up Hazel Run, and on the distant hill there was a group of Rebel

officers around Longstreet's head-quarters. Troops and teams were

passing to and fro between Hood's and Pickett's divisions. Wilcox's

troops were taking position, marching and countermarching, closing in

solid mass under the shelter of the banks of Hazel Run. The right of

the Sixth Corps, under General Smith, rested on Deep Run, Brooks's

division joining Burns's west of the run, almost up to the railroad.

Howe's division was next in line, where the Rebel batteries had full

sweep of the broad intervale. The ground is a dead level east of the

run, extending from the river to the wooded hill, where Lee had

established his head-quarters. Howe's troops were lying along the old

Richmond road, where, beneath the cedars and sodded fences, the

soldiers found shelter from the shells of the enemy. General Newton's

division was on the left of Howe's, also lying under cover.

General Gibbon's division of Reynolds's corps, the First, was next in

line. Meade stood next, directly in front of the railroad-crossing at

Hamilton's,--the vital point, which, if seized and held, would force

Lee out of his intrenchments. Meade had crossed the old Richmond road,

and was facing south; Doubleday's division was on the extreme left,

extending from Meade's left to the river, facing east, and standing

nearly at right angles with Meade's division.

The battle was begun by General Meade, his divisions having been

selected to lead the advance towards the railroad-crossing. The

Bucktails, who had been in nearly all the engagements on the

Peninsula, who first exhibited their valor at Drainsville, who were

under Hooker at Antietam, were first engaged. They moved over the open

field beyond Bernard's, and drove the enemy's skirmishers. The Rebel

batteries--Latham's, Johnson's, McIntosh's, Pegram's, and

Crenshaw's--opened a heavy fire. Jackson knew the importance of

holding the position at Hamilton's, and had massed these batteries,

which gave a concentrated fire upon the advancing force. Reynolds's

batteries galloped into position and replied; and so for an hour the

pounding of the batteries went on along the left.

Meade's division was composed of three brigades. The First was

commanded by Colonel Sinclair, and was composed of the First Rifles

(Bucktails), the First, Second, and Sixth regiments of the

Pennsylvania Reserves. The Second Brigade was commanded by Colonel

Magilton, and consisted of the Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth

regiments of the Pennsylvania Reserves, and the One Hundred and

Forty-Second Pennsylvania Volunteers. The Third Brigade was commanded

by General C. F. Jackson, and was composed of the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth,

Eleventh, and Twelfth regiments of the Reserves. Attached to this

division were four batteries of four guns each, Captain Ransom's Third

United States artillery, Lieutenant Simpson's, Captain Amsden's, and

Captain Cooper's of the First Pennsylvania regiment of artillery.

Captain Ransom and Lieutenant Simpson had twelve-pounders, the others

were three-inch rifled guns.

Sinclair's brigade was in the front line, and Magilton's three hundred

paces in rear of it. Jackson's was in rear of the left of the two

lines, with his men in column of regiments, about one hundred paces in

rear of Magilton's line. These three brigades numbered about six

thousand men.

THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT.

It was just nine o'clock when Meade moved from his position near the

Bernard House.

A ravine comes down from the hills and forms the dividing line between

the Bernard and Smithfield estates. As soon as Meade crossed the

ravine, he turned the head of his column to the south, and moved to

the Bowling Green or old Richmond road, where he was obliged to stop

while the pioneers could cut away the hedges, level the sod fences,

and bridge the ditches, in order that his artillery could pass. While

he was doing this, Stuart's batteries opened fire. They were on

Meade's left flank and enfiladed his lines, throwing shells directly

up the road. Meade apprehended an immediate attack on his left flank,

and swung his second brigade towards Stuart, facing east, while his

first brigade was still facing south towards Hamilton's crossing. His

line thus made two sides of a square. There was a little knoll on the

left of the first brigade.

"That is the place for you," said Meade to Cooper and Ransom. The

batteries were quickly wheeled into the position indicated. The

gunners had a fair view of the Rebel batteries over the level plain.

Simpson brought his battery up and placed it in front of the Third

Brigade, and replied to Pegram. Such was the opening of the battle.

Meanwhile, Doubleday was pushing down by the river. When the Rebel

batteries opened fire, he brought his own into position and gave a

cross-fire, which was so severe that Stuart's Rockbridge battery was

quickly silenced and the guns withdrawn. While this was going on, a

body of Rebel sharpshooters crept up by the hedges and commenced

firing; but two companies of marksmen were sent out by General

Jackson's brigade, which drove them back.

An hour passed before Meade was ready to move again. Doubleday had

advanced towards Stuart, but Gibbon was not yet upon Meade's right.

Stonewall Jackson, seeing that Doubleday was moving down the river,

thought that it was Franklin's intention to turn his right flank. D.

H. Hill's division, which was close by Hamilton's house, was sent

upon the double-quick to help Stuart hold his line.[13] This weakened

his centre. It was at this auspicious moment that Meade's division

advanced alone to pierce the Rebel line.

[Footnote 13: Jackson's Report.]

It was twelve o'clock, and Franklin's force was in the following

position: Doubleday on the left, well down towards Stuart, his

batteries in full play; Meade thirty or forty rods beyond the Bowling

Green road, in the open field; Gibbon and Newton just over the road;

Howe up to it; Birney and Sickles filing out from the bridges, a mile

in rear of Meade.

All of Franklin's batteries which were in position, one hundred and

sixteen guns, commenced a rapid fire upon the woods beyond the

railroad, to protect Meade in his advance. De Russey opened with his

sixty pieces from the hills north of the Rappahannock, throwing shells

over the heads of the advancing troops.

Jackson's batteries were equally active. There were twenty-one guns by

the negro cabins in front of Howe, twelve in front of Newton, fourteen

in front of Meade, while other single batteries under Stuart were

playing on the left. More than two hundred and fifty pieces were

roaring as Meade advanced.

It was a magnificent spectacle; but it was a moment of anxiety to

Burnside, who could only judge of the progress of the battle by the

following despatches, received from time to time.

"HEAD-QUARTERS, FRANKLIN'S GRAND DIVISION,

December 13, 7.40 A. M.

GENERAL BURNSIDE:

"General Meade's division is to make the movement from our left;

but it is just reported that the enemy's skirmishers are

advancing, indicating an attack upon our position on the left."

"9 o'clock A. M.

"General Meade just moved out. Doubleday supports him. Meade's

skirmishers engaged, however, at once with enemy's skirmishers.

Battery opening, on Meade probably, from position on old Richmond

road."

"11 o'clock A. M.

"Meade advanced half a mile, and holds on. Infantry of enemy in

woods in front of extreme left, also in front of Howe. No loss,

so far of great importance. General Vinton badly, but not

dangerously wounded.

"Later.--_Reynolds has been forced to develop his whole line._

"An attack of some force of enemy's troops on our left seems

probable, as far as can now be judged. _Stoneman has been

directed to cross one division to support our left._ Report of

cavalry pickets from the other side of the river, that enemy's

troops were moving down the river on this side during the latter

part of the night. Howe's pickets reported movements in their

front, same direction. Still they have a strong force well

posted, with batteries, there."

"12 o'clock M.

"Birney's division is now getting into position. That done,

Reynolds will order Meade to advance. Batteries over the river

are to shell the enemy's position in the woods in front of

Reynolds's left. He thinks the effect will be to protect Meade's

advance. A column of the enemy's infantry is passing along the

crest of the hills from right to left, as we look at it."

"12.5 P. M.

"General Meade's line is advancing in the direction you

prescribed this morning."

"1 o'clock P. M.

"Enemy opened a battery on Reynolds, enfilading Meade. Reynolds

has opened all his batteries on it; no report yet. Reynolds hotly

engaged at this moment. Will report in a few moments again."

"1.15 o'clock P. M.

"Heavy engagements of infantry. Enemy in force where battery is.

Meade is assaulting the hill. Will report in a few minutes

again."

"1.25 o'clock P. M.

"Meade is in the woods in his front; seems to be able to hold on.

Reynolds will push Gibbon in, if necessary. The battery and woods

referred to must be near Hamilton's house. The infantry firing is

prolonged and quite heavy. Things look well enough. Men in fine

spirits."

"1.40 o'clock P. M.

"Meade having carried a portion of the enemy's position in the

woods, we have three hundred prisoners. Enemy's battery on

extreme left retired. Tough work; men fight well. Gibbon has

advanced to Meade's right; men fight well, driving the enemy.

Meade has suffered severely. Doubleday to Meade's left,--not

engaged."

"2-1/4 o'clock P. M.

"Gibbon and Meade driven back from the woods. Newton gone

forward. Jackson's corps of the enemy attacks on the left.

General Gibbon slightly wounded. General Bayard mortally wounded

by a shell. Things do not look as well on Reynolds's front;

still, we'll have new troops in soon."

"2.25 P. M.

"Despatch received. Franklin will do his best. New troops gone

in. Will report soon again."

"3 o'clock P. M.

"Reynolds seems to be holding his own. Things look better,

somewhat."

"3.40 o'clock P. M.

"Gibbon's and Meade's divisions are badly used up, and I fear

another advance on the enemy on our left cannot be made this

afternoon. Doubleday's division will replace Meade's, as soon as

it can be collected, and, if it be done in time, of course

another attack will be made.

"The enemy are in force in the woods on our left, towards

Hamilton's, and are threatening the safety of that portion of our

line. They seem to have detached a portion of their force to our

front, where Howe and Brooks are now engaged. Brooks has some

prisoners, and is down to the railroad. Just as soon as the left

is safe, our forces here will be prepared for a front attack, but

it may be too late this afternoon. Indeed, we are engaged in

front anyhow. Notwithstanding the unpleasant items I relate, the

_morale_ generally of the troops is good."

"4-1/2 o'clock P. M.

"The enemy is still in force on our left and front. An attack on

our batteries in front has been repulsed. A new attack has just

opened on our left, but the left is safe, though it is too late

to advance either to the left or front."

Such was the intelligence which reached General Burnside of the

operations on the left. It was not very encouraging. He expected that

Franklin, with sixty thousand men at his disposal, would sweep Jackson

from his position by Hamilton's, and thus gain the rear of Lee's left

flank, which would make it easy for Sumner with the right wing to

break through the line in rear of the town. Instead of throwing forty

thousand men upon Jackson, as he could have done, dealing a blow which

might have broken the Rebel lines, Meade's division alone was sent

forward. The fire of the batteries was terrific as he advanced, and so

severe was the cannonade that the Rebel batteries which had been

advanced from the main line were forced to retire, with two caissons

blown up and several guns disabled.[14]

[Footnote 14: Lee's Report.]

As the troops moved on they came to a hollow before reaching the

railroad. They halted a moment on the edge of the depression and

corrected their lines. It was a clear field to the railroad

embankment, behind which they could see the gleaming of the sunlight

on the bayonets of A. P. Hill's division.

Meade's three brigades were now in line, the first on the right, with

the Sixth regiment of the Reserves thrown out as skirmishers; the

Second in the centre, and the Third on the left.

The direction of Meade's advance brought him against Lane's and

Archer's brigades. Lane's brigade was composed of five North Carolina

regiments,--the Seventh, Eighteenth, Twenty-Eighth, Thirty-Third, and

Thirty-Seventh. Archer's was composed of the First, Seventh, and

Fourteenth Tennessee, and Nineteenth Georgia regiments, and Fifth

Alabama battalion. They were on the railroad and in the woods. There

was a gap between the brigades, and there Meade drove the entering

wedge. It was a fierce and bloody contest along the railroad, in the

woods, upon the hillside, in the ravine, on the open plain, and on the

crest of the ridge. The fourteen guns on the hill poured a murderous

fire into Meade's left flank. The guns by Deep Run, in front of

Pender's brigade, enfiladed the line from the right, while in reserve

were two full brigades,--Thomas's and Gregg's,--to fill the gap. But

notwithstanding this, Meade, unsupported, charged down the slope,

through the hollow, up to the railroad, and over it, routing the

Fourteenth Tennessee and Nineteenth Georgia, of Archer's, and the

whole of Lane's brigade. With a cheer the Pennsylvanians went up the

hill, crawling through the thick underbrush, to the crest, doubling up

Archer and knocking Lane completely out of the line. It was as if a

Herculean destroyer had crumbled, with a sledge-hammer stroke, the

key-stone of an arch, leaving the whole structure in danger of

immediate and irretrievable ruin.

Archer shifted the Fifth Alabama from his right to his left, but was

not able to stop the advancing Yankees. He had already sent to Gregg

for help, and that officer was putting his troops in motion. He had

sent to Ewell, who was by Hamilton's, and Trimble and Lawton were

getting ready to move, Lane was still running, and the gap was

widening between Archer and Pender.

Gibbon ought to have been following Meade, driving up the hill through

the gap, but he halted at the railroad; his men were loath to move,

for Pender's batteries were cutting across his flank. Howe and Newton

and Brooks were by the Bowling Green road, showing no signs of

advancing. Sickles and Birney were almost back to Bernard's mansion.

Doubleday was holding the flank against Stuart, and Meade was

struggling alone.

The latter officer thus speaks of his position at this moment:--

"The first brigade to the right advanced several hundred yards

over cleared ground, driving the enemy's skirmishers before them

till they reached the woods in front of the railroad, which they

entered, driving the enemy out of them to the railroad, where

they were found strongly posted in ditches and behind temporary

defences. The brigade (First) drove them from there and up the

heights in their front. Owing to a heavy fire being received on

their right flank, they obliqued over to that side, but continued

forcing the enemy back till they had crowned the crest of the

hill, crossed a main road which runs along the crest, and reached

open ground on the other side, where they were assailed by a very

severe fire from a larger force in their front, and at the same

time the enemy opened a battery which completely enfiladed them

from the right flank. After holding their ground for some time,

no support arriving, they were compelled to fall back to the

railroad."[15]

[Footnote 15: General Meade's Testimony, Conduct of the War,

Part I. p. 696.]

Gibbon, the nearest support to Meade, was nearly half a mile

distant.[16] That officer was wounded while the fight was hottest, but

of the part which he was performing he says:--

[Footnote 16: See map accompanying General Franklin's reply

to Report of Committee on Conduct of the War.]

"As soon as the enemy's guns slackened fire, I saw General

Meade's troops moving forward into action, and I at once sent

orders to my leading brigade to advance and engage the enemy.

Shortly afterwards I ordered up another brigade to support the

first. The fire was very heavy from the enemy's infantry, and I

ordered up the Third Brigade and formed it in column on the right

of my line, and directed them to take the position with the

bayonet, having previously given that order to the leading

brigade. But the general commanding that brigade told me that the

noise and confusion was such that it was impossible to get the

men to charge, or to get them to hear any order to charge. The

Third Brigade--my last brigade--went in and took the position

with the bayonet, and captured a considerable number of

prisoners. During the fighting of the infantry I was establishing

the batteries which belonged to my division in position to assist

in the assault. I had just received the report of the success of

this Third Brigade, when shortly after I saw a regiment of Rebel

infantry come out on the left of my line between myself and

General Meade. I rode up towards a battery that was on their

left, and directed them to open fire upon that regiment. I was

riding back towards the right of my line, when I was wounded, and

left the field about half past two o'clock in the afternoon, I

think."[17]

[Footnote 17: Testimony, Conduct of the War, Part I. p. 715.]

It will be seen by Franklin's despatches that Meade had broken the

line before Gibbon was engaged. At 1.15 P. M. he telegraphed to

Burnside, "Meade is assaulting the hill." Ten minutes later, at 1.25

P. M., "_Reynolds will push Gibbon in if necessary._" At 1.40 P. M.,

"Meade has carried a portion of the enemy's position in the woods. We

have three hundred prisoners. Gibbon has advanced to Meade's right."

It was in this advance to the railroad, when Gibbon came in collision

with Pender's and Thomas's brigades, that Gibbon was wounded.

While this was going on in front, the Second and Third Brigades of

Meade were enveloping Gregg's brigade of South Carolinians, which had

been hurried up to retrieve the disaster to the line. There was a

short but bloody contest. Three hundred South Carolinians fell in that

struggle, including their commander, General Gregg, who was mortally

wounded.

It was a critical moment with Stonewall Jackson. The whole of Ewell's

division, under the command of General Early, was brought up to regain

the ground. Lawton's brigade came first upon the Pennsylvanians,

followed by Hayes's, Trimble's, and Field's brigades, with Early's

own, commanded by Colonel Walker.

Had Newton, Howe, Brooks, Sickles, and Birney been near at hand, or

had Gibbon been pushed promptly and effectively to Meade's support,

the record of that bloody day would have been far different from what

it is. But they were not there. They had not even been ordered to

advance!

Unable to withstand the onset of the whole of Jackson's force (with

the exception of a portion of Taliferro's reserves), Meade was obliged

to fall back, and give up the position won by such heroic valor. As

his troops went to the rear, they met Ward's brigade of Birney's

division advancing. The Rebels were in full pursuit. Birney wheeled

his batteries into position, and opened with canister, and the Rebels

fled to the shelter of the woods.

The divisions of Howe and Newton and Sickles were slightly engaged

later in the day, but only in repulsing a second advance of the

Rebels. The attack which Meade had opened so gallantly, and which was

attended with such good success, had failed. Less than ten thousand

men had broken the enemy's line, and opened the way to victory. Of the

sixty thousand men at Franklin's disposal not more than sixteen or

eighteen thousand were engaged during the day,[18] and of those not

more than eight thousand at any one time.