to pay, clothe, and feed him, and having left him penniless, ragged,
and starving with cold and hunger, he could not be expected to keep his
part of the contract. With this one exception the bearing of our men
was superb, and was in remarkable contrast with that of the army in
general.
At the company roll call at “retreat,” the soldier just referred to,
who had been in confinement all day, was marched through the camp under
guard, and made to face each company in succession, while a regimental
order was read acknowledging and thanking the men for their good
behavior under trying circumstances, and closing with the declaration
that “if on this day of Thanksgiving we have failed to enjoy the
abundance which has usually marked the festival, we have at least one
reason for thankfulness and that is, that when all of us were hungry
there was only one man who desired to shirk his duty, leaving it to be
done by his equally-hungry comrades, and that the name of that man was
---- ----.”
Notwithstanding the repeated declarations that there would be no winter
quarters short of Richmond, the army proceeded to make itself as
comfortable as possible. The woods melted rapidly to supply the great
camp-fires, now needed for warmth as well as cooking; and the soldiers,
organizing themselves into messes, built shelters more satisfactory
than the canvas which was provided for that purpose.
Great variety of ingenuity was exhibited in the construction of these
quarters. A few were content with an excavation in the ground, over
which would be pitched a roofing of tent cloth; but some of the
quarters rose almost to the dignity of cottages, having walls of logs,
the interstices closed by a plastering of clay, and roofs of rough-hewn
slabs, or thatched with branches of pine. Windows were covered by
canvas, and chimneys were built up cob fashion and plastered inside,
and comfortable fires blazed upon the hearths.
About the headquarters of the generals were enclosing fences of sapling
pines set into the ground upright, and held firmly in that position.
Within the enclosures were grouped the tents of the general, his staff,
and their servants, some of them having outer walls of boards enclosing
the sides of their wall tents.
The weather was of a variety indescribable, except as Virginia
weather--alternating periods of cold so severe as to freeze men on
picket duty, and so warm as to make overcoats an insupportable burden.
The rains made the earth everywhere miry, then it would freeze the
uneven mud to the hardness of stone, then a thaw made everything mud
and all travel impossible, and presently dry winds would convert all
into dust and blow about in clouds.
One of the wonders of these times was the army cough; what with the
smoke of the camp fires, the dust of the country, and the effect of the
variable weather upon people living out of doors, there was a general
tendency to bronchial irritations, which would break out into coughing
when the men first awoke, and it is almost a literal fact, that when
one hundred thousand men began to stir at reveille, the sound of their
coughing would drown that of the beating drums.
Here for three weeks in preparation for another movement “on to
Richmond,” we drilled, were inspected and reviewed--relieving these
severer duties by chopping, hauling, and burning wood.
Those of us who had the opportunity, occasionally went over toward the
river, where from the high lands we could watch the Confederate lines,
and look on to see them getting the opposite heights good and strong in
readiness for our attack.
On the 10th of December, the orders began to read as if they really
meant fight, and the great point of interest in our discussions was as
to the direction of the next movement--whether we were to flank Lee
by way of the fords of the Rappahannock as was generally believed, or
whether, as some said, we were to embark for Harrison’s Landing or City
Point, and flank Richmond itself.
No voice was heard to intimate that any such consummate folly could
be intended as to attack squarely in face those defenses which we had
apparently been quite willing to allow our enemy to construct, and for
weeks most deliberately to strengthen. But such was indeed the forlorn
hope imposed upon the Army of the Potomac.
December 11th, 1862.--Reveille sounded at 3 A.M. The morning was cool
and frosty, the ground frozen, the air perfectly still--so still and
of such barometrical condition that the smoke of the camp-fires did not
rise to any considerable height, and was not wafted away, but murked
the whole country with its haze, through which objects when visible
looked distorted and ghostly, and the bugles sounding the assembly had
a strange and impressive tone.
The first break of day found the brigade formed for the march. The
troops wore their overcoats, and outside of them were strapped
knapsacks, haversacks, cartridge-boxes, and cap-pouches, all filled to
their utmost capacity; and in rolls worn sash-like over one shoulder
and under the other, were their blankets and the canvas of their
_tentes d’arbri_.
The dull boom of two guns from the westward was evidently a signal, and
the bugle sounded “forward.” That day it was the turn of our Regiment
to lead the Brigade, and of our Brigade to lead the Corps, and we were
at once _en route_ in the direction of Fredericksburg, which was three
miles away. Soon after the march began the sun rose, showing at first
only its huge, dull-red disk, but soon rising above the haze, throwing
its bright beams athwart the landscape, making it and us cheery with
their warmth and shine. With the sunrise came a gentle movement of
the air, pushing away the smoke from the uplands, but leaving the
river valley thick with fog. Midway between our camp and the river
we crossed the summit of a round-topped hill, from which, by reason
of the sweep of the river, we could see for a distance the rolling
lands of Stafford Heights, which on its left bank form the immediate
valley of the Rappahannock, and over all these hills, now glowing in
the sunlight, were moving in columns of fours, converging, apparently,
toward a common centre, the various corps and divisions of the Army of
the Potomac, more than a hundred thousand men.
Across the river could be seen, but not as yet distinctly, the
fortified line of hills occupied by Lee’s Army of Virginia. Between us
and them, the river and the river bottoms on the farther side, with all
of the town of Fredericksburg except the church spires and the cupola
of its Court House, were shrouded in vapor.
General Burnside had established headquarters in the Phillips house, a
fine brick mansion overlooking the valley and the town, and our grand
division was massed near by in a large field of almost level land,
entirely bare of tree or shade, and here we passed the whole day under
a warm December sun, which softened the ground into mud, glared in our
eyes, and baked our unprotected heads.
Before we reached this spot the dogs of war were in full cry. Down by
the river side there were frequent sputterings of musketry, and the
hills on either side of the river were roaring with the sound of the
great guns from their earth-work batteries.
About the Phillips house, on its piazza and in its rooms, there were
gatherings of general and field officers, discussing with more or less
warmth the situation and the probabilities. Occasionally a mounted
officer or orderly would come dashing up from the river side, looking
hot and anxious, and after delivering or receiving reports or orders,
would hasten down again to his station; but, on the whole, things were
very deliberately done.
When the fog lifted, below us, and directly on our bank of the stream,
could be seen the hospitable-looking Lacy house with its low wings,
under the lee of which, sheltered from the fire of the enemy, were
groups of officers, their horses picketed in the dooryard. On the
opposite side of the river, its houses coming close down to high-water
mark, lay the compactly built town of Fredericksburg; beyond it a space
of level land, narrowing at the upper end of the town to nothing, but
opening below into a wide plain, which, so far as we could see, was
everywhere bounded to the west by a rise of land more or less abrupt,
forming the lip of the valley there. This rising land terminated just
above the town, in a bluff at the river bank.
The right and centre grand divisions of Burnside’s army occupied the
heights on the eastern side of the river. Lee’s forces were entrenched
in those on the western side. Between them, the River Rappahannock and
the city of Fredericksburg.
The left grand division, under Franklin, one or two miles down the
river, before 10 o’clock had laid pontoon bridges and secured a
foot-hold on the opposite shore. Between him and the enemy was a nearly
open plain, the extent of which, from the river to the rising ground,
was more than a mile. On our left everything had gone smoothly and
well; all opposition to the crossing had been easily overcome, but in
the immediate front of the town it was quite another story.
At early dawn the engineers were ready and began to lay the pontoon
bridges opposite the town. A dozen or more of the boats had been moored
into position, and men were actively at work laying plank across,
when Barksdale’s Mississippians opened fire and drove the Union men
to cover. Calling up a brigade of Hancock’s men to cover the work,
repeated attempts were made to bridge the river, but the Confederates
occupying the houses on their bank could fire from windows without
being seen themselves, and the endeavors of the engineers, although
gallantly made, were unsuccessful.
Then followed a long consultation at headquarters, which resulted in
an order to concentrate the fire of our artillery on Fredericksburg,
and for an hour or more a hundred and fifty guns played on the town.
Fires broke out in several places and raged without restraint. During
and after the cannonade our troops essayed again and again to moor the
boats and lay the bridge, but the fire of the enemy, although reduced,
was yet too fierce, and at last, about four, P. M., two or three of
the boats of the pontoon train were loaded with volunteers and pushed
across the river at a bend above the buildings, the rebels were flanked
and driven from their shelter, and the bridge was speedily constructed.
To us, three-quarters of a mile away, the delay finally became irksome
and the Colonel and Major, moved by curiosity, rode down to the river.
The Rappahannock here lies deep between its banks and they rode to
the edge of the bluff, peering over, up and down the stream, to see
what might be seen. The firing for the time had ceased, and all
seemed quiet except the crackling flames of the burning buildings.
The gunners of the two-gun battery close by were chatting, leaning
lazily against the gun-carriages. Below, the river, waiting the turn
of the tide to flood, was still and smooth. Opposite, the warehouses,
thrusting their unhandsome walls down to the line of tidal mud, seemed
utterly deserted; two or three of them were yet burning, a few were
badly battered, but on the whole the storm of shot and shell had done
wonderfully little harm.
A rifle ball, passing between the two officers, singing as it went,
reminded them that everything was not as peaceful as it seemed, and
they turned away just as the battery joined the renewed bombardment to
cover the forlorn hope in their boat crossing.
That night we bivouacked in a neighboring wood, where we remained also
the next day and night, while Franklin on one side of us, and Sumner
on the other, were crossing and deploying their commands below and in
the town, covered for the greater part of the day by a dense fog which
allowed neither the enemy nor us to see much of the movements.
General Burnside would seem to have had an idea that he could push his
army across the river, attack Lee’s army and win the heights, before
Jackson, from his position eighteen miles below, could come to aid his
chief. This possibly might have been done by flanking, if he had been
content to cross the Rappahannock where Franklin, at 9 o’clock on the
11th, had succeeded in establishing his bridges; but before the upper
pontoon bridges could be laid, the rebel right wing, under Jackson, had
effected its junction with the lines of Longstreet, and Lee’s army was
again united.
December 13th, 1862,--the day of the battle of Fredericksburg,--opened
clear and bright, except that over the lowlands bordering the river
was stretched a veil of vapor which laid there until 9 o’clock. The
grand divisions of Sumner and Franklin were over the river and ready
for battle--Sumner in the streets of Fredericksburg, which ran parallel
to the river, and Franklin in the open plain below the town. Our
(Hooker’s) grand division yet occupied the heights on the eastern side
of the Rappahannock, from which--except for the fog--could be seen the
slightly undulating plain, which was to be Franklin’s field of battle,
but from which the greater part of Sumner’s field was hidden by the
town itself.
The letter A may be used to demonstrate the topography of the battle.
The left limb of that letter may represent the line of higher land
occupied by the Confederates, the right limb the line of the
Rappahannock river, and the cross-bar the course of a sunken creek
which separated the lines of Sumner’s troops from those of Franklin,
but which offered no advantage to our troops, and no impediment to
the fire of either of the combatants. Below the cross-bar of the A,
the space between the limbs may have averaged two-thirds of a mile in
width, over which Franklin’s men must advance to the attack, almost
constantly exposed to the fire from the batteries of the rebels, and
for at least half the way to that from the rifles of their infantry.
Within the triangle--the upper portion of the A--was included the city
of Fredericksburg and Sumner’s _aceldama_, and here the lines of the
enemy were strengthened by earthworks on the summit of the heights,
(not fifty feet above the level of the plain), and by stone walls and
rifle pits along their base. Here the space between the foremost rebel
line, and the nearest blocks of houses in the town was nowhere two
thousand feet, and within this narrow space, under the fire of a mile
of batteries, and at least ten thousand rifles, the Union lines must be
formed for the attack.
What we saw of Franklin’s battle was what happened before noon, and
after 9 o’clock,--at which latter hour the fog disappeared, revealing
to us and to the enemy the advancing line of Meade’s division, to
us a moving strip of blue on the dun-colored plain. We saw it halt,
covered no doubt by some undulation of the land, while a battery on the
left was silenced by the Union guns--then the line moved on, fringed
sometimes with the smoke of its own volleys, at other times with the
silver-like sheen of the rifle barrels. We saw the smoke of the rebel
rifles burst from the woods that covered the first rise of ground--saw
Meade’s line disappear in the woods, followed by at least one other
line,--then our bugles called “attention! forward!” and we saw no more
of Franklin’s fight.
Early in the morning two of Hooker’s divisions had been sent to
strengthen Franklin, and now two others, Humphrey’s and Griffins’
(ours) were ordered to the support of Sumner. A new boat-bridge had
been laid, crossing the river at the lower part of the town, just below
the naked piers of what had been and is now the railroad bridge, and
just above the outlet of a small stream. The two divisions were massed
on the hill-side near this bridge--an attractive mark for the rebel
cannoneers, who however, having food for powder close at hand, spared
to us only occasionally a shell. The crossing must have occupied an
hour. Down the steep hill-side and the steeper bank; over the river
and toiling up the western side; with many waits and hitches--the
serpent-like column moved tediously along. Once up the bank, and the
rifle balls whistled about us and our casualties began; but we wound
our way, bearing a little to the left, through the lower portion of the
town, where the buildings were detached and open lots were frequent,
availing ourselves of such cover as could be used, until in a vacant
hollow each regiment as it came up was halted to leave its knapsacks
and blankets. These were bestowed in heaps, and the men and boys of the
drum-corps were left to guard them. Here too, by order of the Colonel,
the field and staff officers dismounted, leaving their horses in charge
of servants. Then in fighting trim we moved forward past the last
buildings, out upon the field of battle. Here was still between us and
the enemy a swell of land, six or eight feet in its greatest height,
affording some slight protection, and we trailed our arms to conceal
our presence from the enemy.
The confusing roar of the battle was all about us. Our own batteries
of heavy guns from Stafford Heights were firing over us--a few of our
field pieces were in action near by. The rebel guns all along their
line were actively at work--their shells exploded all around us, or
crashed into the walls of neighboring buildings, dropping fragments at
every crash; whatever room there might have been in the atmosphere for
other noise, was filled by the rattle of musketry and the shouts of men.
No words can fully convey to a reader’s mind the confusion which
exists when one is near enough to see and know the details of battle.
One reads with interest in the reports of the generals, the letters
of newspaper correspondents, or in the later histories constructed
from those sources, a clear story of what was done; of formations
and movements as if they were those of the parade; of attack and
repulse--so graphically and carefully described as to leave clear
pictures in one’s mind. But it may be doubted whether one who was
actively engaged, and in the thick of the fight, can correctly describe
that which occurred about him, or tell with any degree of accuracy the
order of events or the time consumed.
The reports of the battle of Fredericksburg describe occurrences
that never happened, movements that were never made, incidents that
were impossible. “History” tells how six brigades formed for attack
on our right, in column of brigades, with intervals of two hundred
paces--where no such formation was possible, and no such space existed.
And at least one general (Meagher), in his reports must have depended
much upon imagination for the facts so glowingly described.
To the memory now comes a strange jumble of such situations and
occurrences as do not appear in the battles of history or of fiction.
Of our Regiment separated from the rest of the brigade, getting into
such positions that it was equally a matter of wonder that we should
ever have gone there, or having gone should ever have escaped alive--of
rejoining the division, where, one behind the other and close together
in the railroad cut, were three brigades waiting the order for attack.
We recall the terrific accession to the roar of battle with which the
enemy welcomed each brigade before us as it left the cover of the cut,
and with which at last it welcomed us. We remember the rush across
that open field where, in ten minutes, every tenth man was killed or
wounded, and where Marshall Davis, carrying the flag, was, for those
minutes, the fastest traveller in the line; and the Colonel wondering,
calls to mind the fact that he saw men in the midst of the severest
fire, stoop to pick the leaves of cabbages as they swept along.
We remember how, coming up with the 62d Pennsylvania of our brigade,
their ammunition exhausted and the men lying flat on the earth for
protection, our men, proudly disdaining cover, stood every man erect
and with steady file-firing kept the rebels down behind the cover of
their stone wall, and held the position until nightfall. And it was a
pleasant consequence to this that the men of the gallant 62d, who had
before been almost foes, were ever after our fast friends.
Night closed upon a bloody field. A battle of which there seems to have
been no plan, had been fought with no strategic result. The line of
the rebel infantry at the stone wall in our front was precisely where
it was in the morning. We were not forty yards from it, shielded only
by a slight roll of the land from the fire of their riflemen, and so
close to their batteries on the higher land that the guns could not be
depressed to bear on us. At night our pickets were within ten yards of
the enemy.
Here we passed the night, sleeping, if at all, in the mud, and
literally on our arms. Happily for all, and especially for the
wounded, the night was warm. In the night our supply of ammunition was
replenished, and toward morning orders were received not to recommence
the action.
The next day, a bright and beautiful Sunday, there was comparative
quiet along the lines, but to prevent the enemy from trees or houses or
from vantage spots of higher land bringing to bear upon our line the
rifles of their sharp-shooters, required constant watchfulness and an
almost constant dropping fire from our side.
Several attempts were made to communicate with us from the town, but
every such endeavor drew a withering fire from the enemy. None of us
could stand erect without drawing a hail of rifle balls. A single
field-piece from the corner of two streets in the city exchanged a few
shots over our heads with one of the batteries on the heights, but soon
got the worst of it and retired.
Sergeant Spalding, in a printed description of this day, says: “It was
impossible for the men in our brigade to obtain water without crossing
the plain below us, which was a hazardous thing to attempt to do, as he
who ventured was sure to draw the enemy’s fire; nevertheless, it was
not an uncommon thing to see a comrade take a lot of canteens and run
the gauntlet.” Seldom were they hit, but in a few instances we saw them
fall, pierced by the rebel bullet.
“I remember seeing a soldier approaching us from the city, with
knapsack on his back and gun on his shoulder. I watched him with
special interest as he advanced, knowing that he was liable to be fired
upon as soon as he came within range of the enemy’s rifles. He came
deliberately along, climbed over the fence, and was coming directly
towards where we lay, when crack went a rifle and down went the
man--killed, as we supposed, for he lay perfectly still. But not so, he
was only playing possum. Doubtless he thought that by feigning to be
dead for a few moments he would escape the notice of the enemy. So it
proved, for unexpectedly to us, and I doubt not to the man who shot him
(as he supposed), he sprang to his feet and reached the cover of the
hill before another shot was fired.”
The day wore away and the night came again, and we, relieved by other
troops, returned to refresh ourselves by sleeping on the wet sidewalks
of one of the city streets.
The next day three lines of infantry were massed in this street, which
ran parallel to the river, but the day passed without any renewal of
the battle. It was not pleasant, looking down the long street so full
of soldiers, to think what might happen if the rebel guns, less than
a thousand yards away, should open on the town--but it was none of
our business. As it came on to storm at nightfall we took military
possession of a block of stores, and the men, for the first time for
many months, slept under the cover of a roof. It was a fearfully windy
night, and whether it was the wind, or anxiety about the situation,
the Colonel could not sleep. His horses were kept in the street
conveniently at hand, and once or twice he rode out to the front and
heard Captain Martin objurgating the General for his orders to entrench
his battery with one pick and one shovel.
About 3 A. M. came an orderly seeking the commander of the brigade,
whom nobody had seen for the past two days. The Colonel was inclined to
be gruff until he learned that the orders were to move the brigade back
over the river; then, indeed, he was sprightly. Declaring himself the
ranking officer of the brigade, he receipted for the order and, sending
his orders to the other regiments, began to retire the brigade to the
easterly bank, and thence ordered the regiments to their old camps at
Stoneman’s Switch, where the real brigadier found them soon after dawn.