The Carnage at Marye’s Heights

Burnside Pays the Butcher’s Bill, December 11-15, 1862

By Richard Garner

After the Battle of Antietam, in September 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had become completely exasperated with Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan who failed to pressure the stunned Confederates after successfully blunting their advance into Maryland. McClellan had fought the battle to a draw when he in fact knew their battle plan, had an army twice the size of his adversary and possessed every advantage of firepower and position to soundly defeat the Rebel army once and for all. Instead, after the bloodiest single day of battle in the American Civil War, he bowed to his overcautious nature and allowed the Rebels to escape unmolested with their army basically intact.

This wasn’t the first time McClellan had earned the ire of the President. Earlier that same year, Little Mac, as he was affectionately called by his troops, after taking almost two months to advance approximately eighty miles from his base at Fort Monroe, had been driven back from the very gates of Richmond by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. In a series of seven battles which occurred over a period of seven days, McClellan retreated all the way back down the Virginia peninsula to the James River suffering 16,000 casualties along the way. There, under the protection of Federal gunboats, he assumed what seemed to Lincoln a permanent defensive position at Harrison’s Landing.^[1]

The problem for Lincoln was that, with mid-term elections approaching, he felt he was losing the confidence of Northern voters in his ability to manage the war effort. Therefore, after the Battle of Antietam, he “issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in areas of rebellion (not already under Union control.) To give teeth to the Proclamation and give freedom to those enslaved people, Lincoln needed his armies to conquer those rebellious regions,” and speed was the key to the success of his proclamation.^[2] Though understanding them completely, McClellan was indolent and totally indifferent to Lincoln’s political aspirations and proclamations.

At length, after much bickering between the President and the commander of his army, Old Abe decided that if McClellan wasn’t going to use the Union army that he would borrow it for a while. Lincoln then promptly parceled out a large portion of McClellan’s army to another of his commanders.^[3] Unfortunately, due in part by McClellan’s tardiness in transferring those troops, the other commander, Gen. Maj. John Pope, was soundly thrashed in August of 1862 at the Battle of Second Bull Run, (Second Manassas) and his army humiliated and routed by the audacious Lee and his indomitable Rebels.

Quickly taking advantage of the void in command created by Pope’s disastrous defeat, McClellan managed to nose his way back into control of the Army of the Potomac, as he had named it. The appointment caused controversy in Lincoln’s cabinet, the majority of who were against it. Even Lincoln admitted that it was like “curing the bite with the hair of the dog” but there was no better man in the army to get the disorganized troops back into fighting trim.^[4]

By good fortune, one the Union troops found, in an abandoned Confederate camp, a copy of Lee’s general orders detailing the movements of his entire army and armed with that knowledge, McClellan was able to blunt Lee’s advance into Maryland.^[5] Satisfied with his success, McClellan, as was his nature, became content with resting on his laurels. Finally, after a visit to the battlefield to personally vent his frustration to his over cautious general, and much pleading and prodding, some of which was quite harsh but to no avail, Lincoln reached his last and final straw of patience. On November 5, 1862, he ordered George McClellan, the beau ideal of the Union army, to turn over command of the army to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside.

Burnside had been offered the job on two previous occasions and, considering himself unqualified for such a position of responsibility, refused both times. However, this time, it was not a request, it was a direct order with the understanding that if he refused again, the command would be given to Joseph Hooker, a man Burnside despised. After a period of deliberation and reflection, Burnside reluctantly accepted.^[6]

Burnside was unsure of his own abilities and lacked the necessary strategic guidance from the President and his General-In-Chief, Maj. General Henry Halleck. In order to compensate for his admitted inability to micromanage, Burnside quickly reorganized the army into three Grand Divisions of two corps each. However, he was at odds with the President as to what to do next. Knowing the math as he called it, Lincoln knew the Union army greatly outnumbered the Rebel army, therefore, he wanted to continue the advance east of the Blue Ridge mountains towards Warrenton Va. on the single line Orange and Alexander Railroad which he hoped would result in a direct confrontation with General Lee’s army which was spread out around Culpeper Va.

However, fearing a flank attack by Stonewall Jackson’s Corps which was detached from Lee at that time, Burnside favored a feint in Lee’s direction, to hold that part of the Rebel army in place, and then a bold and rapid move to the southeast towards Fredericksburg and the Rebel capital of Richmond.^[7] At length, the administration in Washington agreed with Burnside, and Lincoln reluctantly approved the plan on November 14^th but cautioned Burnside to move with great speed as he doubted that Lee would react as Burnside anticipated.

With both Lincoln’s and Halleck’s blessings, Burnside abandoned McClellan’s sluggish southwesterly advance, supplied only by a single rickety railroad, and the next day set his troops in motion on a forty mile dash cross country to Fredericksburg and Lee’s right flank. If successful, such a bold maneuver would position the Federal army on the direct road to Richmond and ensure a more secure supply line to Washington via the Potomac River.^[8]

Passing through Morrisville and Grove Church, Burnsides most advanced troops took just two days, in the rain, to reach Hartwood Church, a landmark about ten miles upstream from Fredericksburg.^[9] Arriving there on November 17^th, there were only a handful of Rebels guarding the city. Lee had no desire to fight a battle along that line, therefore Burnside, as he had anticipated, got the drop him.^[10]

Lee’s vigilant scouts kept him apprised of the movements of the Union army but it would take another full day for the Rebel vanguard to reach that point. As the god of war would have it, a series of miscommunications, hesitations and bureaucratic mishaps prevented the Union pontoon trains from arriving at the front on time. This misfortune event allowed the highly disciplined Confederate veterans, by timely reports and seasoned marching, to concentrate a sizeable number of troops on the opposite bank of the river across from the Federal.^[11]

Quickly repairing the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad from Aquia Creek Landing on the Potomac River to the front lines at Fredericksburg, the Union army nestled in along a string of hills on the northern bank of the river which ran above and below the city, while the Southern Army deployed across from them in the city and along the heights which ran behind Fredericksburg and parallel to the river on the southern bank.^[12]

Burnside knew full well that he had been given command of the Army of the Potomac because of McClellan’s snailish pace and that the administration, as well as the country, demanded action. Therefore, on December 11, 1862, just five weeks after taking command, he ordered his army to cross the river at two points and attack the Rebel line on both its flanks. Involving more than 200,000 troops, this battle would prove to be the largest concentration of troops in any Civil war battle. Had it been able to take place on that day, as Burnside had carefully planned, it would have had a great chance of success.

One Grand Division was marched four miles downriver and ordered to attack the Rebel right flank in the direction of Hamilton’s Crossing which, at that time, was the terminus of the railroad which supplied the Rebel army. Simultaneously, to prevent Lee from reinforcing his right, and against the advice of all his commanders, Burnside ordered another of his Grand Divisions to cross directly in front of Fredericksburg and attack the Confederate left. Gen. Stonewall Jackson held the Rebel right and Gen. James Longstreet the left.^[13]

Neither of Lee’s flanks was fully developed on that day and the Grand Division sent downriver crossed with little resistance. However, crossing the river in front of a fortified city proved to be much more difficult. Normally it would take the engineer corps about an hour to construct a pontoon bridge across that span of river but that December morning would prove to be the exception.^[14] In the dense early morning fog, with temperatures dropping to a frigid 24 degrees, Union engineers from the 50^th New York Engineers under the command of Maj. Ira Spaulding slipped out into the frigid waters of the Rappahannock and began laying their bridges.^[15]

Except for the crowing of two Shanghai roosters on the Rebel side of the river, everything seemed quiet from the Union side. However, Lee’s alert pickets were very aware of the sounds being made by the Federal pontoniers. Quietly moving into their prepared positions along the river bank, the Rebels left the bridge builders unmolested until they were about half way across when, suddenly, the thundering blast of two unshotted Rebel cannon sounded the alarm.^[16] At that point the Federal cannon responded.

The bridge builders were immediately greeted by heavy rifle fire from the Mississippians of Gen. William Barksdale’s Brigade ensconced in rifle pits and buildings along its banks.^[17] Commanded by Col. John C. Fiser of the 17^th Mississippi, these troops had been picketing the river from Falmouth, located upriver from Fredericksburg, to a point below the city where Deep Run Creek emptied into the Rappahannock.^[18] It proved impossible to progress any further. Time and again, between short intervals of cannonading, the Yankee engineers rushed out into the dense morning fog to extend their 400-foot long bridge only to be driven back by the intrepid Magnolia State warriors.^[19]

In the predawn darkness, from their positions on the main Confederate line behind the city, additional units of the Mississippi Brigade rushed forward to assist. It was still quite dark and the horizon was lit up by each flash of the Union projectiles which exploded in flame on the Rebel side of the river.^[20] Pvt. William Davis of the 13^th Mississippi wrote: “Red balls cover the air like falling stars striking terror and alarm to the women and children which were leaving the ill-fated city.”^[21]

One citizen who remained wrote: “We packed our trunks amid it all, made a fire in the cellar, and thither repaired. We had not been there an hour when a shell went through our attic room, breaking bedsteads, etc. One shot went through the parlor; five in all through the house. As they passed, the crash they made seemed to threaten instant death to all; it sounded as though the house were tumbling in, and would bury us in its ruins.”^[22]

Awakened abruptly by the thundering roar of Union cannon, alarmed citizens, who had not previously fled, had no time to prepare. Grabbing together what they could carry, they fled in terror. “As we neared the city we were met by many females…hurrying out of town to seek asylums of safety beyond reach,” wrote another member of the 13^th Mississippi.^[23]

Nothing could be seen in the dense morning fog so the Rebel marksmen stationed along the river banks fired at the sounds the noisy Union engineers were making. At such close range, their rapid shots proved both deadly and effective.^[24]

After several attempts, with mounting casualties, the fog began to thin and the spectral forms of the luckless Engineers materialized. Barksdale’s “Confederate Hornets,” as their Corp commander fondly called them, began stinging the bridge builders into a frenzy.^[25] Being one of Lee’s most trusted veteran brigades, the Mississippians had occupied the city since their arrival and, during the interim, established a long line of rifle pits and other entrenchments along the river bank. In the early morning fog, the Union engineers became sitting ducks for the Rebel sharp shooters who unleashed a relentless fire upon them.

After assuring a local resident, who had remained in the city, that he would make sure that her cow, which had been killed by one of the Yankee projectiles, would be consumed by his Rebels and not the Yankees,^[26] Gen. Barksdale sent word back to his commander that if he wanted a bridge of dead Yankees he could furnish him with one.^[27] Becoming frustrated at the failed attempts of his engineers, Burnside ordered every cannon that could be brought to bear on the water’s edge to open fire.

“And now the work of destruction began, and for long hours the only sounds that greeted our ears were the whizzing and moaning of the shells and the crash of falling bricks and timber,” wrote civilian Francis Goolrich; whose family had remained in town despite previous warnings to leave. From their lofty positions on Stafford Heights, 147 Union cannon began bombarding the rifle pits along the banks of the river and the buildings where the Rebels concealed themselves.^[28] At first it was only the houses along the river bank but when that proved ineffective, the entire city was bombarded.

“The rapidity of the discharges was more like musketry than like artillery fire,” wrote a captain the 7^th Rhode Island who was startled awake by the heavy cannonading.^[29] On the other side of the river, flying debris caused by the Union cannon balls was almost as deadly to the Rebels as the exploding shells themselves. “Chimneys came tumbling down killing and wounding nearly whole companies,” recorded one Mississippian.^[30]

Suffocating the air with a sulfurous odor, like that of brimstone, the smoke from the muzzles of their brazen cannon became as thick and opaque as the dense fog which closely hugged the ground along the hazy river valley.^[31] Launching over 8,000 projectiles during a span of four hours, Union shot and shell belched forth destruction upon the hapless city.^[32] The billowing smoke roiled and swirled above the water and was accentuated by the ghoulish fire which spiraled into the sky.

“The roar of the cannon, the bursting shells, the falling of walls and chimneys, and the flying bricks and other material dislodged from the houses by the iron balls and shells, added to the fire of the infantry from both sides and the smoke from the guns and from the burning houses, made a scene of indescribable confusion…” recorded Gen. Lafayette McLaws who commanded the division in which the Mississippi Brigade belonged.^[33] Echoing those same sentiments almost exactly, James Dinkins of the 18^th Mississippi added: “no tongue or pen can describe the dreadful scene.” There was hardly a single window left in the whole city and dead dogs, cats, chickens and Rebels were scattered everywhere.^[34]

Except for the shapes of the buildings nearest the water’s edge, Union gunners could discern little in the heavy fog. At length, heavy torrents of thick black smoke began to rise and spiral above it. The wooden buildings closest to the river received the greatest attention but destruction was rampant throughout the city. A Yankee newspaper correspondent, observing from Burnside’s vantage point reported: “A huge black column of dense black smoke towers like a monument above” the city, with “livid flames that leap, and hiss, and crackle, licking up the snow upon the roofs with lambent tongues…”^[35] Fredericksburg shook as if it was being swallowed up by the earth itself.

Observing from the hills behind the city, Confederate artillerist E. P. Alexander wrote: “The atmosphere was so perfectly calm and still that the smoke rose vertically in great pillars for several hundred feet before spreading outward in black sheets. The opposite bank of the river, for two miles to the right and left, was crowned at frequent intervals with blazing batteries, canopied in clouds of white smoke…The earth shook with the thunder of the guns, and, high above all, a thousand feet in the air, hung two immense (observation) balloons. The scene gave impressive ideas of the disciplined power of a great army, and of the vast resources of the nation which had sent it forth.”^[36]

“A Confederate colonel described the scene from a vantage point beyond Fredericksburg. On the opposite bank, he saw a ‘line of angry blazing guns firing through white clouds of smoke & almost shaking the earth with their roar. Over & in the town the white winkings of the bursting shells reminded one of a countless swarm of fire-flies.’”^[37]

As furious a conflagration as it was, and as horrific as was its effect, the bombardment failed to dislodge the resolute Mississippians whose job that day was to delay the crossing long enough to allow Lee time to complete his dispositions on the southern end of his line. When at last the shelling ended, Yankee bridge builders sallied forth yet again, only to be repelled yet again, by the same murderous fire of the Rebel marksmen who had crawled from the rubble or found safety in the thick walled cellars. Leaving their unfinished bridge covered in blood, the brave Yankee engineers made yet another hasty retreat to the banks of the river, but not before many of them had tumbled into the icy waters of the Rappahannock River and floated away.

Finally, after nine attempts, each of which was attended by heavy loss, Burnside’s artillery chief, Gen. Henry Hunt, suggested that infantrymen be ferried across the river in pontoon boats.^[38] How Burnside failed to consider this option in the first place, while he had the cover of a heavy fog as protection, is a question that will never be understood.

Under a constant and heavy fire from the Rebels across the river, troops of the 7^th Michigan were ordered to cross in the boats but, due to the heavy fire of the Rebels, at first hesitated.^[39] After an appeal to their patriotism by Gen Burnside and a shot of whiskey, some 70 of the Wolverines climbed into several of the 31-foot-long pontoon boats scattered along their side of the river and, followed by other troops from the 19^th and 20^th Massachusetts, quickly poled or paddled across.^[40] Led by Lt. Col. Henry Baxter, the small armada raced across the turbulent river with Rebel bullets churning up the water around them and splintering the sides of their boats. Baxter and a few others were wounded but, remarkably, just one man was killed in this boat.

According to a soldier in the 17^th Mississippi: “There were six men in the basement of [a] two-story house, and any one of them now living will testify to the fact that the house was tom to pieces, the chimney falling down in the basement among us…A few moments after the batteries opened, several regiments of Union infantry came yelling down the hill toward the river, laying hold of the boats and coming over toward where we were stationed. As they came up the bank we tried to get out at the end of the house.”^[41] The river’s banks on the Confederate side were high enough that the Mississippians could only fire onto a portion of the river and its far banks from the houses along Sophia St., the first street paralleling the river. This limited the number of men Barksdale could position to fire onto the river thus aiding the attackers.

Downstream at the bridge below town, using four pontoon boats, one hundred men of the 89^th New York crossed in the same manner.^[42] One of the survivors wrote: “We all expected to be killed before we reached the shore.”^[43] Without knowing it, these combined regiments of bold and heroic men had made history by being the first U.S. soldiers in American history to have successfully completed an amphibious river crossing under fire of an enemy.^[44]

When the armada reached the Rebel side of the river they were protected from the fire of the Mississippians by its steep banks. Without organization, the Bluecoats swarmed up the muddy banks and, smashing in doors and firing through windows drove back the Confederate skirmishers.^[45] Capturing thirty-one Mississippians and portions of three companies of the 8^th Florida who had refused the order to fire and were caught fleeing, these Federals were about to rewrite the rules of war yet again.^[46] “The problem was solved. This flash of bravery had done what scores of batteries and tons of metal had failed to accomplish.”^[47]

Reinforced by the 19^th Massachusetts on their right, the two regiments overrun the houses on Sophia St., and expanded the bridgehead one block north to Pitt Street. As more Federal troops arrived and solidified their grip, they began working their way deeper into town. Before they could get very far, Barksdale launched a counter attack and drove them nearly back to the river. As additional troops arrived from the 20^th Massachusetts, the Union troops again advanced slowly driving back the Mississippians to as far as Caroline St.^[48]

“The Rebels pop up by the hundreds, like so many rats, from every cellar, rifle pit and stone wall, and scamper off up the streets of the town,” reported another Yankee newspaperman who witnessed the event.^[49] More boatloads of Union soldiers arrived and soon a bridgehead was established between Sophia Street in town and the river bank allowing the first bridge to be completed. It was also reported, that at this time, “A large rebel flag was captured” by Charles Oakley, of the 7th Michigan regiment, “and borne across the bridge in triumph, amid cheers of thousands.”^[50]

Once dispossessed of their places of concealment, Barksdale’s sharp shooters fell back on their reinforcements in town who occupied previously prepared defensive positions within and behind houses, fences and piles of rubble caused by the bombardment. Barrels and boxes filled with dirt and stone had been placed between the houses to serve as additional breastworks.^[51] “I had two barrels of sand and an old mattress stuffed with cotton, and from behind this, through a peep hole,” claimed Mississippian Lamar Fontaine.^[52]

The bombardment had knocked holes in the walls and roofs of several buildings, which did not catch on fire, and the Rebels availed themselves of those crude loopholes to snipe away at the slowly advancing Yanks. Lee needed more time and the Mississippians were determined and prepared to provide it for him.

Earlier in the war some of these same Massachusetts troops fought these same Mississippians at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff where the Union men had been driven down the banks of that bluff into the Potomac River. However, on this day, they were charging up the banks from the Rappahannock River driving the Mississippians back into the city. At that point, for the first time in the war, hand to hand street fighting broke out between the troops of the Bay State and those of the Magnolia State.

Fighting house by house, street by street and block by block, the Rebels had to be driven from every house and from behind every fence, and crumbled wall. This was one of the earliest examples of urban warfare in the American Civil War.^[53] This was also the first American city to be bombarded since the British shelled Washington in 1814. This time however, it was Americans doing the shelling.

Most of the civilians had been removed from the city or had fled in the days prior to the battle, but hundreds still remained. Many of them hung white sheets from their windows or waved handkerchiefs to alert the combatants of their presence.^[54] It was reported that one elderly citizen, who was unwillingly compelled to act as a guide for the 20^th Massachusetts, “was killed at the head of the column by the first volley.”^[55] Charging up one street in platoon front, hemmed in on each side by houses, it was an almost suicidal charge and ninety-seven men from that regiment “were killed or wounded in the space of about fifty yards.” One witness deemed it “a useless slaughter of gallant men.”^[56]

Every street, intersection and alleyway was contested. Many of the Confederates remained hidden in basements or attics and rose up and fired into their rear as the Union troops passed them.^[57] The heavy bombardment had taken its toll on the determined Mississippians as witnessed by their headless bodies, mangled torsos and twisted corpses which lay scattered about.^[58] The dead lay everywhere in the streets, on the door stoops and steps, in the yards of the houses and in the gardens nearest the river.^[59]

“The entire place was heaped with bodies, and although night was coming on, the Rebels were not silenced but still fired,” wrote Lt. Henry Ropes of the 20^th Massachusetts.^[60] “All about the streets, many a dead rebel lay, showing our men had not fought in vain,” recorded Lt. Edgar Burpee of the 19^th Maine which crossed later in the day. “In the street where we were two or three rebels lay; one had his whole side and his arm off, another had the top of his head and brains carried away—both shocking sights.”^[61]

One of the members of the Richmond Howitzers related that Confederate Lt. Lane Brandon, leading the 21^st Mississippi, learned that he was fighting his old Harvard classmate, Capt. Henry Abbott who was leading the 20^th Massachusetts. It was towards evening and the fighting had been furious all day. At about that same time, Robert E. Lee, having perfected his defenses, ordered the Mississippians to retire. Not to be bested by his old classmate, the stubborn Rebel Lieutenant refused to acknowledge the order and continued fighting until compelled to retire under the threat of arrest if he did not pull back from the fight.

After a full day of stubborn resistance, in which they could not be driven, at a cost of 240 men, a subaltern withdrew the last of the stalwart Mississippians to the vicinity of the Market House before abandoning the town. Thus ended the first days fight.^[62]

The contributions of Barksdale’s Mississippians in the final outcome of the Battle of Fredericksburg cannot be understated. The delay in the laying of the bridges on December 11, 1862 rendered a total change in Burnsides plan of attack. Burnside reported: “But for the fog and unexpected and unavoidable delay of building the bridges, which gave the enemy twenty-four hours more to concentrate his forces in his strong positions, we would almost certainly have succeeded, in which case the battle would have been, in my opinion, far more decisive that at the places first selected; as it was we came very near success.” ^[63]

There is much truth in Burnside’s claim for had Franklin been able to cross his entire Left Grand Division on the night of December 10^th and attack Lee’s right the next morning he would have been facing as few as eighteen regiments from Longstreet’s corps left at Hamilton’s Station to guard his right flank until Jackson could arrive with his corps. At that time, Jackson’s troops lay scattered 20 miles southeast of Hamilton’s along a twenty three mile long line from Port Royal to Guiney Station. The 24 hours thus afforded Lee allowed him time enough to concentrate eighteen brigades of Jackson’s corps in that position. Therefore, Franklin faced eighteen brigades when he finally attacked instead of eighteen regiments.^[64]

Burnside spent the day of December 12^th visiting his various commands and revising his plans while large portions of his army crossed the river on several pontoon bridges.^[65] Union soldiers, pouring into the city, spent that snowy day looting and pillaging it’s burned out and deserted buildings. “The streets were filled with a confusion of all things, splendid furniture and carpets, provisions, bottles, knapsacks, dead men and horses, blankets, muskets, the pomp of war and paraphernalia of peace mingled together. Men were ransacking every house, taking everything they wanted,” wrote bugler Oliver Norton in a letter to his sister.^[66]

“The room that I stayed in had a piano, sofa, and chairs in it when we went in. But getting short of firewood, we chopped them up and burnt them,” wrote Charley Howe of the 36^th Massachusetts.”^[67]The plundering was widespread and complete. In a letter to his brother, William Barnard of the 20^th Michigan reported the citizens of Fredericksburg “left everything they had and every house is completely shot through & through & everything in the houses entirely destroyed by the troops.”^[68]

Lee took full advantage of the lull to concentrate his scattered forces and beef up defenses on both ends of his five mile long line. “Our boys got some axes and as the locality was heavy of timbers, we soon built some fine breastworks of logs,” wrote one of Barksdale’s Mississippian’s who had assumed their position in the main Confederate line behind the city.^[69] Other than desultory outbursts of artillery, and scattered flare ups between skirmishers, there was little fighting that day. One well directed Rebel cannon ball landed in the midst of the band of the 12^th New Hampshire as it was playing Yankee Doodle while crossing one of the pontoon bridges.^[70]

On Saturday December 13^th the Left Grand Division sent to attack the Confederate right flank met with temporary success. After fighting all day, and temporarily gaining their intended target, they were begrudgingly driven back by Rebel reinforcements. Emboldened by the apparent early success, and to keep Lee from reinforcing his right, Burnside ordered the troops concentrated in Fredericksburg to march out and attack the entrenched Rebel position on the heights in rear of the city.^[71] The battle turned into the most humiliating defeat in the history of the Army of the Potomac.

Burnside’s self-analysis proved correct as thousands of his troops were slaughtered and left piled in frozen heaps on the frigid plain in front of a series of fortifications which ran along the base of a of a semi-circular group of hills behind the city collectively known as Marye’s Heights. These fortifications included a 500 to 600 yard long stone wall which ran beside a sunken road that paralleled the foot of these hills.^[72]

In order to get to those heights, Union Soldiers had to march out of the City and cross a sandy river bottom created by an ancient change in course of the Rappahannock. Running the length of this depression, about 300 yards outside the city, lay a fifteen foot wide by five foot deep millrace which branched off the Rappahannock Canal north of town and emptied into Hazel Run south of it.^[73] At one time, it was used to turn the water wheels of several mills. Members of the 82^nd New York had been able to close the sluice gates to this drainage ditch, as many of the soldiers called it, but it still contained water throughout its length.^[74] There were three avenues coming out of the city upon which the Union soldiers could march. Each crossed the millrace on separate bridges.

The Rebels had taken up the planks from two of the bridges causing a bottleneck as the Bluecoats crossed single file on the stringers that remained.^[75] Rather than wait to cross under a deadly artillery fire, many of the soldiers jumped into the muddy millrace and slogged or slushed across to the other side. Once over, there was a twenty-five foot rise of ground that shielded the Yanks from the eyes of the Rebels and gave them an opportunity to form their lines.^[76]

Hemmed in by the Canal on their right and Hazel Run on their left, the hapless warriors were funneled together into a broad plain that became a killing field for the Confederates who were enraged at the Bluecoats for looting and sacking the smoldering city which they had blown to pieces the day before. As the morning fog lifted, Union troops could be seen moving about town in masses as they formed ranks in order to march out onto the battlefield. Longstreet became suspicious of an attack and ordered his batteries to fire on them just as their first units began to spill out of town. “The Federal troops swarmed out of the city like bees out of a hive” boasted the Rebel General.^[77]

At the end of the day, Confederate artillery was as destructive to the old city as the Federal bombardment had been on the first day. While forming ranks in town, in order to move into position, many casualties were incurred. “The Rebels shelled the town very hard, and it was pretty dangerous passing through the streets, as balls and shells struck on every side, some of the shells bursting over our heads,” noted Pvt. Howard Helman of the 131^st Pennsylvania.^[78] One regiment alone reported seventeen men killed and twenty-six wounded.

As soon as they left the cover of town, Union soldiers became fully exposed to the deadly cannon fire raining down on them from the surrounding hills. “The whizzing, bursting shells made one’s hair stand on end,” and “made a noise above the roar of Niagara,” recorded Lt. Josiah Favill of the 57^th New York.^[79] Men began falling in groups on all sides of the roads and into the icy waters of the millrace. “The shells fell thick and fast, exploding with deafening roar right in our midst,” wrote Lt. William Landon of the 14^th Indiana whose regiment was in the first wave of attackers. “Shattered, torn and bleeding, our column still pushed on-gained the open ground-drew up in line of battle, and with bayonets fixed, rushed forward to the charge.”^[80]

According to Capt. Charles Henry Banes of the Philadelphia Brigade: “Before reaching the canal, we were exposed to a cross fire of artillery; men were struck down lacerated by the bursting shells, while the posts and fences along the road were torn to pieces and fragments sent flying into the air.”^[81] One shell knocked over eighteen men in the 88^th New York killing four of them and mutilating several others.^[82] While another shell burst amidst the 1^st Michigan “killing or maiming some sixteen of its soldiers, whose startled shrieks could be heard above the din and roar of battle.”^[83]

Confederate artillery, from 800 yards away, began plowing their formations with telling effect. “Screeching like demons in the air, solid shot, shrapnel and shells…” fell all around them. Rebel gunners had marked their range and the earth seemed to shake and tremble, according to one of the attackers.^[84] Two heavy guns on Lee’s Hill fired thirty pound projectiles that one Yankee soldier claimed were the size of flour barrels. As soon as they marched out of town, green troops in one regiment were shocked and awed when a shell decapitated one of their comrades spewing upon them jets of his blood and brains.^[85]

While waiting his turn to advance, Charles Fuller of the 61^st New York was greeted by the sight of a soldier whose body had been blown apart. “A shell had gone through his body, and in its passage had set fire to his clothing, and there his corpse lay slowly cooking.”^[86]

Under the protection of the bluff, the various divisions were deployed by brigade with one on the right, one in the center and one on the left. Each brigade formed into lines of battle. At the signal, they rushed up the embankment and charged over a wide field, with many inequalities of surface, towards the stone wall some 400 to 600 yards distant. Successive lines were ordered to keep 200 yard intervals.

Over the deadly plain, which they were charging, was a brick house with outbuildings and a wooden fence or two on one of the approaches and a cluster of cottages, hog pens and gardens on another. Along with a brick tannery and a millwright shop, these structures became rallying points for many of the disorganized Federals and provided positions from which they returned fire.^[87] In front of those buildings lay a wide but shallow depression some 100 yards from the stone wall which shielded the men who lay flat in it. This slight declivity became the water mark of the Union advance and was referred to by many of the soldiers as the dead line.^[88]

As the Union soldiers emerged from the bluff, they were again exposed to the full fire and cross fire of Confederate artillery. From surrounding hills, Rebel batteries plowed at their flanks with grape and solid shot while those directly in front swept their formations with giant shotgun blasts of grape shot and canister. “Two fences were in front of our regiment. Over these we had to climb-the huge shells exploding over and around us. We could see the first line of the Rebel fortifications in all their strength, still a half mile in advance, we were not in reach of them yet, and men were falling fast,” wrote an Indiana Lieutenant.^[89]

The Gilbrater Brigade, as they were known, continued their charge to within about 300 yards of the Confederate line where the air was filled with minie balls, while grape and canister rattled and crashed through their thin ranks. Here the column paused and opened fire until sundown.

“The very air was lurid with the flashes of guns, and rent with the long shriek of solid shot and shell…” claimed Pvt. Eugene Cory of the 4^th New York.^[90] The charge was an upward incline into an amphitheater of hills crowned with Rebel artillery. The further they advanced, the more tightly together they were squeezed into the semi-circular range of hills and the more vulnerable became their flanks. With each step, the slope became steeper. Adding to their discomfiture, the frozen ground beneath them had thawed into slushy mud which caked and pulled at the smooth soles of their leather brogans.^[91]

When within 400 yards of the wall, like a sudden explosion of terrible thunder, Rebel infantry, concentrated four ranks deep in a sunken road behind the stone wall, rose up and began ripping apart the gallant Federals with a barrage of withering volley fire. The air around them rattled and pealed with the terrible fury of heaven’s most violent storms. Other Rebels added their fire from the rifle pits dotting the hillside behind the wall.

“The line of the enemy could be traced by the fringe of blue smoke that quickly appeared along the base of the hills” recorded an officer in the 116^th Pennsylvania.^[92] Another officer, William Lusk in the 79^th New York watching from across the river, reported jetting curls of smoke, “followed by the sharp crack of the rifle and the angry humming of the conical balls,” which disrupted their lines causing stragglers to run for their lives while their regiments fell back “with torn colors and broken ranks.” The terrible stone wall was “alive with death.”^[93]

The blinding flash of muzzle fire struck them like bolts of lightning. With drooped shoulders and lowered heads the valiant Federal soldiers bent themselves into the murderous fire as if they were charging against a strong gale of wind.^[94] It seemed as though they were rushing into the very jaws of hell. Rebel artillery could not sufficiently depress the muzzles of their guns as the Yankees neared the wall. As a result, they refocused their attention on the next blue wave emerging from the bluff or forming in the city streets. All the while, Rebel infantry maintained the intensity of its continuous and destructive fire.^[95]

Behind the wall, on the Rebel side, an Irishman in 24^th Georgia reported: “A column, stronger and heavier than the first, was seen to advance. Flash after flash was seen upon the opposite river bank. Shell after shell fell around us, which were responded to from the heights in our rear…Soon leaden hail commenced pouring from the clouds of smoke before us. The Colonel (Robert McMillian) passed along the lines surveying the movements of the enemy, when suddenly, at his command, the brigade rose and sent a volley into the ranks of the foe, which carried ruin in its way. Again and again was the assault renewed, and again and again was it repulsed, with tremendous slaughter.” ^[96]

Under this blistering hurricane of deadly missiles, men reeled, wavered and fell by the dozens as their lines stumbled, staggered and swayed like ribbons in the wind. No human flesh could have withstood such a scorching fusillade.^[97] “The whole line was enveloped in a cloud of sulphurous smoke, almost hiding the regiments from each other and through which crimson flames from muskets and cannon darted fiery tongues,” related a sergeant in the 19^th Massachusetts.^[98]

The first wave of Yanks, lumbering over and through fences while driving the Rebel skirmishers before them, made it only as far as the swale in front of the stone wall, where the bravest dropped to the ground and returned fire while the faint of heart turned and ran the gauntlet back to the safety of the bluff. Wounded in the charge, Gen. Nathan Kimball claimed that a full quarter of his troops had fallen in that short span of time. (Kimball commanded the Gibraltar Brigade which, ironically was charging the Gibraltar of Marye’s Heights)^[99]

Even though the Confederate infantry and artillery continued raining down upon them their deadly ordnance with astounding volume and veracity, as soon as the next Union brigade could perfect its alignments, they rushed out from the bluff and through the remnants of the 6,000 men that had preceded them. Passing over the prostrate troops hugging the ground, crashing volleys of the Rebel musketry bled them to a halt and drove them back into the swale. There they were crowded together with hundreds of other men both dead and alive. Not yet satisfied with the butcher’s bill, Burnside ordered in brigade after brigade of Union Gen. Edwin Sumner’s Grand Division.^[100]

Supporting a battery on a distant rise, Sgt. William Taylor in the 100^th Pennsylvania witnessed the various assaults. “From where we lay we could see the murder of our fellow soldiers…how our hearts beat as we saw them sometimes almost at them; but a fresh burst of flame from others yet concealed would soon drive them back, only to be rallied and brought up again.”^[101]

During the long afternoon, hoping to get a better angle on the Rebel position, some of the brigades sidled to the left and others to the right but it was to no avail.^[102] The Chaplain of the 14^th Connecticut recorded: “Down went Colonel Perkins, the leader, down went Major Clark, Captain Carpenter and Lieutenant Hawley. Captain Gibbons and Lieutenants Stanley and Comes went down with mortal wounds and Lieutenant Canfield was killed outright.^[103]

Desperate for cover of any kind, other men in the same regiment tried to conceal themselves behind a four inch fence post. Unfortunately, a shell fragment, “tore off most of the face” of one of them and permanently blinded the other. In the 61^st New York, Lt. Col. Nelson Miles was shot in the neck “letting out a liberal quantity of fresh bright blood.”^[104] Leading from the front, emboldened officers and their color bearers were the first to be shot down by the savage fire.

“As I started to lead the Company up, I could hear the rifle balls and the grape whistling by my head, and could see them cutting up the dirt on all sides, and at my very feet,” wrote Capt. Thomas Tobey of the 7^th Rhode Island. “A man might as well hope to go through a hailstorm untouched as to get to that ridge unhurt.”^[105] The Lt. Col of that regiment was struck in the chest by a projectile which spattered the regiments colonel “from head to foot with his blood and pieces of his lung.”^[106]

In the 19^th Massachusetts, within minutes, two color bearers fell as did their commander and then his replacement. Other men grabbed the flag but they too became targets for the Rebel marksmen. Down went the color bearers again reported Capt. John G. B. Adams of the 19^th Massachusetts. At which point, “Lt. Newcomb grasped one, a color corporal another. Newcomb fell, shot through both legs, and as he went down he handed the color to me. Next fell the color corporal, and the flag he held was grasped by Sgt. Merrill, who was soon wounded. Another seized the color, but he was shot immediately, and as it fell from his hands,” Adams grabbed that one as well. In that regiment, nine of the eleven men that carried the colors that day were killed outright.^[107] In that regiment 104 out of 300 men were killed or wounded.^[108]

Charging up the steep embankments of an unfinished railroad cut on the left of the Union line, portions of Union General Samuel Sturgis’ Brigade encountered a wooden fence that temporarily halted their advance. “In crossing fences and ditches and passing buildings, the companies became somewhat separated from each other,” related Edward Lord of the 9^th New Hampshire. It was there that several of that regiments color guard were killed or wounded. In that regiment only 350 men out of 600 were accounted for after the battle.^[109]

“At every impediment whether fence, ditch or ridge where the progress of the line of battle had been delayed, was a line of dead and wounded. None would believe men could bleed so much except as it was seen,” claimed William Hopkins of the 7^th Rhode Island. To him it was as though “Barrels of blood had apparently been poured on the ground along those places.”^[110] The Rhode Islanders in that regiment lost 200 out of 550 men.

Bunching together as one end of their line swarmed around the brick house on another part of the field, the 5^th New Hampshire encountered yet another wooden fence, portions of which were still standing, about five feet high with three horizontal rows of boards. Along its base the dead lay in windrows.^[111]

“It was here so many of our men were killed and wounded,” related a corporal in the regiment who briefly bore the colors. “Our color bearers were shot down in trying to get over this fence; no sooner would the colors fall than someone would take them, only to be shot down in turn.”^[112] At length, the flag was thrown over the fence to a man on the other side.^[113] The wounded Col. of the regiment reported: “On all sides, men fell like grass before the scythe.” Six men carrying the flags in his regiment were shot down along with the majority of the officers.

“The brave major was shot dead. Captain Murray was pierced through the brain and dropped instantly. The brave, the gallant Captain Perry was shot mortally with the national colors in his hands.” In this regiment alone, 180 of 249 officers and men were killed or wounded.^[114] Except for one man, the entire color guard of the 155^th Pennsylvania was killed.^[115]

Great crimson swaths were cut through the Union ranks as if mowed down by a rolling ball of butcher blades. The din and roar of battle was deafening. Describing the scene as a slaughter pen, a member of the 9^th New Hampshire noted in his diary that the plain was “thickly strewed with dead and dying, the bursting of shell in our very midst, cannon balls tearing up the earth around us, the air filled with the hissing and screeching of the unseen missiles of death, bullets striking the ground all around us and throwing up mud and gravel in our faces, the shouts of the officers, the yells of the wounded, the gaps made in our ranks at every step, and that, too, when rushing at the top of our speed, the frightful looking corpses which strewed the ground still reeking with blood-all was hideous, frightful, hellish…”^[116] In other words, complete pandemonium had broken out. Within one hour almost 3,000 Union soldiers had been either killed or wounded but the madness continued.

“The Irish Brigade carried the U.S. Musket 1842, a smoothbore .69 caliber weapon which they loaded with buck and ball, a cartridge consisting of one .69 caliber ball, accompanied by two or three smaller balls, which essentially turned this musket into a shotgun, a devastating weapon at close range. The problem being they had to be up close to their target in to be effective. In order to close the distance as quickly as possible, they double timed it towards the wall. Copious amounts of gunpowder smoke, which encompassed that portion of the battlefield, helped mask their approach until within fifty yards of the wall where they were blown to pieces by the full fire of the alert Confederates behind the wall and driven back to the dead-line swale.^[117]

It was one of the boldest charges of the day but the brigade lost 542 men – almost half its numbers. The 69^th New York lost all sixteen of its commissioned officers present, and 112 of the 173 men in the ranks.^[118] Men in the Union Irish Brigade were charging other Sons of Erin on the Rebel side posted behind the stone wall fighting in Gen. Thomas R. Cobb’s Georgia Brigade who cheered their countrymen for their bravery.

As fearful as the losses of the Irish brigade were, they did not compare to those of Gen. John C. Caldwell’s Brigade which lost a staggering 952 men in a matter of a few short minutes. Of the 5,500 men in that division, 2,000 were killed or wounded. The division that followed lost 1,200 in about the same short span of time.^[119] Of the roughly 40,000 Union troops involved in the various attacks on Marye’s Heights, not a single man of them made it to the wall.^[120]

“We had no cover at all, but kept receiving reinforcements, until night, when I should think we were eighteen or twenty deep,” recorded Lt. Albert Pope of the 35^th Massachusetts.^[121] Lying in the swale with hundreds of other men from several other regiments, firing at the Rebels all the time, those regiments in the front would crawl back a few yards as their ammunition was depleted to allow those in the rear to crawl forward and replace them.^[122]

As the day progressed, the dead and wounded became an obstacle for the troops who continued charging from the bluff and a railroad cut south of town. “Wounded men fall upon wounded; the dead upon the mangled…occasionally the shell of cannon ball that comes into their midst, sends arms, hands, legs and clothing into the air; on the front line there is no safety,” wrote Pvt. William Kepler of the 4^th Ohio. Kepler was in the first Union line of skirmishers to start the battle and had lain on the ground, as a witness.^[123]

Many of the wounded, especially along the dead-line at the swale, were unavoidably trampled as successive units stormed through them. The troops lying there, who were not wounded, plead with their comrades to go no further. Those who were wounded cried out for help but none could be provided.^[124]

Fresh waves were forced to hesitate, under the galling fire of the Rebels, in order to pick their way through the prostrate bodies which caused their formations to become broken. As a result, the piles of dead and wounded grew even higher. An Englishman claiming to be fighting for the 18^th Mississippi recorded: “Again and again were the enemy re-formed, and advance succeeded advance, as the next regiments rushed over heaps of slain, to be themselves torn in an instant into mangled and bleeding shreds.”^[125] Men were spattered with gore and injured from pieces of other bodies flying about them which had become ballistic.

All during this time, Federal artillery from across the river blasted away at the Confederate guns on Marye’s Heights. Many of their shells fell short or their fuses were mistimed and exploded early killing and wounding scores of their own men. Gen. Darius Couch wrote: “I sent word several times to our artillery on the right of Falmouth that they were firing into us and were tearing our men to pieces.”^[126]

Inflicting and receiving gruesome casualties, those Yankee batteries that had made it across the river and the millrace, though greatly exposed, found positions across the plain from which to fire. Many of them were wrecked and broken apart adding more dead bodies and debris to the battlefield. One battery was abandoned before it scarcely had time to unlimber after every horse and rider in it was shot down.^[127] Another tried to fire from atop the bluff beyond the mill race but lost 16 men and 15 horses within fifteen minutes.^[128] “Man after man was shot away, until in some instances they were too weak-handed to keep the pieces from following their own recoil down the slope, confusing our ranks and bruising the men.”^[129]

Other Union batteries fired on the Confederate guns from more sheltered positions within the town but the Rebel artillery on Marye’s Heights, running short of ammunition, ignored the brutal pounding and focused all their fire on the onrushing Union infantry. One Confederate cannon was moved outside its embrasures to get a better angle on the hundreds of blue clad men crowded together flat on the ground below the bluff.

In a letter to his father, Lt Edgar Burpee of the 19^th Maine wrote: “They could but depress their gun enough to hit us and out the “buggers” came out of their earthwork and commence to shovel away and then they could not bring their piece to bear correctly and they run their gun out of the work on the top of the hill and in plain sight of us, commenced a rapid fire which sent the shells into our brigade nearly ever lick.”^[130] Seeing one of the cannon balls come right towards him he claimed: “I tell you, I would have sold my skin for a five cent piece when that whizzing, ragged thing made for me. But before I had time to think twice, it struck about 15 or 20 feet in front of me on a line with the cannon & sent the dirt about like grain from a seed planter (or sower).”

“Of all the thousands of men huddled there, every eye was fixed on that gun,” recorded a member of the 34^th New York in the same Brigade. With great anxiety, the helpless Yanks watched the Confederate gunners prime and fire its first shot. “It comes like the shriek of an incarnate demon; it plowed its way into our ranks, burying us all in dirt. Another and another followed in rapid succession, each one bringing death and destruction into our ranks” Union gunners soon redirected their fire to the exposed Confederate cannon and killed or wounded every man in its crew and disabled the gun and its carriage.^[131]

The Union soldiers in Sturgis’ Brigade settled into a hollow near enough to the south end of the stone wall that the Confederate guns on top of the heights could not be depressed enough to drive them out. From this position they were able “load and fire deliberately” and “pick off the gunners on the hill,” recorded a member of the 48^th Pennsylvania.^[132] So many Confederate gunners on Marye’s Heights were killed or disabled by the sheer volume of fire from the Union infantry and artillery that they were soon forced to call on their own infantry to assist them.^[133]

During the day, the swell in front of the stone wall became so over-crowded with soldiers that they began pushing their dead comrades out front to make more room.^[134] “The situation was critical,” recorded Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain of the 20^th Maine. “We took warrant of supreme necessity. We laid up a breastwork of dead bodies, to cover our exposed flank. Behind this we managed to live through the day.”^[135]

Providing a morbid barricade from the relentless fusillade of Rebel bullets, the dead bodies were grotesquely piled upon each other and contorted in every conceivable manner and riddled beyond recognition by Rebel bullets. In this position, lying prostrate on the ground, a gruesome form of insulation for the living was obtained. However, if a man lifted his head to return fire, as many did, he would instantly draw a hail of Rebel minie balls.

Terrified men who tried to retreat back to the safety of the bluff met with the same fate as those brave souls storming out from it.^[136]Pvt. Benjamin Borton of the 24^th New Jersey “saw a shell explode, close to the heels of a large man fleeing for his life,” that was “blown clear from the ground, falling in a heap, frightfully mangled.” In a letter to his brother, Capt. William Candler, aide de camp to Joe Hooker, wrote: “We were thrown into a perfect trap, and the only wonder is that the enemy allowed us to escape at all.”^[137] Many of the men lying on the field felt “as much at the mercy of General Lee as a captive mouse between the paws of a playful cat.”^[138] What had begun as a battle had turned into a butchery.^[139]

Watching the scene unfold, from his perch in the court house steeple across the river, Gen. Darius Couch reported “that the whole plain was covered with men, prostrate and dropping, the live men running here and there and in front closing upon each other, and the wounded coming back. The commands seemed to be mixed up.”^[140] In all his years as a soldier, he had never seen fighting nearly approaching that much chaos and destruction and neither had Rebel Gen. James Longstreet.^[141]

Horror, fear and terror reigned supreme among the demoralized Union troops which eventually turned to anger. Capt. William Nagle of the 88^th New York, a member of the Irish Brigade, was disgusted. Writing to his father the next day he penned: “Oh! What a terrible day. The destruction of life has been fearful, and nothing gained” and that “Irish blood and Irish bones cover that terrible field to-day…We are slaughtered like sheep, and no result but defeat.”^[142] Another Union soldier described it as a “march into the jaws of death with no hope of success.”

In a letter to his mother after the battle, William Lusk, an officer in the 79^th New York wrote: “Alas, my poor country! It has strong limbs to march, and meet a foe, stout arms to strike heavy blows, brave hearts to dare—but the brains, the brains—have we no brains to use the arms and limbs and eager hearts with cunning?”^[143] A Color Sergeant in the 14^th New York the 14^th New York lamented: “Never in the history of The Army of the Potomac was there such a pitiless, useless, hopeless slaughter. Never did men fight better, or die, alas, more fruitlessly than those thrown against these heights and stone walls…”In a letter to his brother, a frustrated Pvt. Charles Phelps of the 4^th Michigan lamented: “The Union may go to hell if I get out alright, and that is the general feeling among the men.”^[144] A new recruit in the 9^th Massachusetts cried out: t’s awful ! awful ! awful ! Just think of it ! To come to a place like this ! See these brave men all killed ! killed ! “All round us, dead ! dead ! dead ! If I get out of this with a whole skin I’ll never, never, never go into another battle ! This is my first ! With the help of God it will be my last.‘^[145]

From his position just over the crest of Marye’s Heights, Rebel gunner Lt. William Miller Owen, of the Washington Artillery wrote: “How beautifully they came on! Their bright bayonets glistening in the sunlight made the line look like a huge serpent of blue and steel. The very force of their onset leveled the broad fences bounding the small fields and gardens that interspersed the plain. We could see our shells bursting in their ranks, making great gaps; but on they came, as though they would go straight through and over us.”^[146]

According to Owen, the red breaches of the Zouaves made the most inviting target. As more and more Yankee Brigades were fed into the maelstrom, Lee expressed concern for the safety of his Rebels behind the stone wall but was assured by Longstreet that “if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line.”^[147]

As the ammunition of the Southerners behind the wall became depleted, Rebel reinforcements, positioned behind Marye’s Hill, swarmed over its crest and down into the sunken road taking casualties all the way.^[148] Crowded together into one long mass, without organization, those Rebels in the rear began reloading the rifles of those in the front and passing them forward; thus creating a continuous and solid sheet of leaden hail. One Confederate soldier reported firing so many times that the recoil of his rifle caused him to become black and blue from his right shoulder to his right hip.^[149]

“One lone Union soldier got within thirty yards of the Confederate lines and fell dead,” related Pvt. John Day Smith of the 19^th Maine who chalked up the disaster as “a sacrifice to Burnside’s incompetency.”^[150] According to Smith, “The dead bodies of a few others were found after the battle from fifty to a hundred yards distant from the Confederate fortifications.” Rebel Gen. Lafayette McLaws reported: “The body of one man, believed to be an officer, was found within about 30 yards of the stone wall…Other single bodies were scattered at increased distances until the main mass of the dead lay thickly strewn over the ground at something over 100 yards off.”^[151]

As their lines melted away, under the torrent of deadly fire, the unfaltering courage and gallantry of the men in Blue did not go unnoticed by men in Gray. Calling it a brilliant assault, Confederate Gen. George Pickett, who later in the war would lead a charge even more deadly, claimed his “heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their death.” For a moment “we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines.”^[152]

It is incredible that the destruction of human beings could be accomplished with such machine like order and system. From the summit of Telegraph Hill (later renamed Lee’s Hill) Gen. Lee had witnessed the success on both ends of his line and confessed: “It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.”^[153] The Army of the Potomac displayed a willingness and determination that it had not yet exhibited previously during the war.

Gunpowder smoke encompassed portions of the field worsening the misery by fogging fields of vision.^[154] Many prostrated soldiers fired indiscriminately into the haze in front of them, hitting their own men in some instances.^[155] With fire in front, rear and side, and shells plowing their ranks and exploding overhead, chaos seemed to reign supreme for many of the pitiful soldiers.^[156] Despite pleadings and remonstrations from their fallen comrades, the bravest Bluecoats continued pressing forward but ultimately were driven back to the dead line by the fire of the Rebels.^[157]

The pinned down Union soldiers had left their haversacks piled in the city prior to the fight. Most had expended all their ammunition as well as that which they had taken from the dead and wounded. Many of them had also emptied the contents of their canteens therefore had nothing to eat or drink and were too exposed to even answer the calls of nature.^[158] Other than their bayonets, there were no picks or shovels or other implements for making entrenchments. As the sun lingered in the sky, it seemed to those beleaguered troops who had been lying there as if it would never set.

Late in the day, as their limber chests emptied, Rebel artillery on Marye’s Heights was replaced by Longstreet’s reserve batteries.^[159] As they rotated out, under a galling fire from the Yankees, Burnside received an erroneous report that interpreted the ensuing lull as a Confederate withdrawal. Under this false assumption, with Sumner’s command almost exhausted, Gen. Joe Hooker was ordered to feed his divisions into the Confederate grinder as support.

After witnessing Couch’s failed attacks during the early afternoon, Hooker balked at the idea and sent an aide to Burnside’s headquarters to protest however Burnside insisted. Still hesitant, Hooker decided to cross back over the river himself and plead his case to Burnside in person.^[160] In his absence, Hookers 5^th Corps Commander, Daniel Butterfield, received an inaccurate report from Couch that that he had almost succeeded in carrying the heights and a request from 9^th Corps commander Orlando Wilcox to assist one of his divisions commanded by Samuel Sturgis in a renewed attempt. Therefore, Butterfield ordered Charles Griffins Division to support Sturgis who had attacked to the left of Couch.^[161]

Sturgis had been guarding the bridge head below town and as he pulled his men out for the attack Griffin marched his Division across the pontoon bridge, up through the lower part of Fredericksburg, filed to the right and crossed through the brick making zone which consisted of several brick yards and kilns and formed in front of them.^[162] Under a constant fire of the Rebel artillery, he extended his right to a point under the protection of millrace bluff and his left across the unfinished railroad cut and the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad.

The attack began around mid-afternoon with Griffin’s First Brigade in front followed about an hour later by the Second Brigade and the Third Brigade was halted in front of the railroad cut in support. ^[163]Under fire and amidst great disorder, as the Brigade passed one of the larger brick kilns which “had enticed the wounded within its reach to crawl to it for cover, and their mangled, bleeding forms lay strewn everywhere, closely packed together.”^[164]

In his diary that day, Major E. W. Everson of the 18^th Massachusetts, a member of the First Brigade wrote: “There was one piece of the enemy’s artillery stationed on a hill at our right oblique which had range of the railroad cut we crossed and did us considerable damage.” Continuing their advance, they charged up the cut until reaching the same wooden fence that the troops in Sturgis’ Division had encountered before them. “The bullets were coming through this fence as thick as hailstones from some quarter, and we lost many men killed here, but got through, with our lines in tolerably good order, and charged near up the base of the hill, when it became impossible to go a foot farther.”^[165]

Some of the boards had been torn off down to the one nearest the ground but those to their left still remained. Therefore portions of the line were forced to finish pulling down this fence. Under a heavy fire, “The men heroically seized and tore them all away, some climbing over. Thinned out, exhausted, with energies taxed to their limit, in the face of such fearful odds, instinctively the line halted. According to John L. Smith of the 118^th Pennsylvania, “The fatality that had followed the delay in their removal was marked by the bodies of the dead lying there, one upon another.”^[166] Beyond the fence they reached the dead line swale and fell to the ground firing at the Rebels until their ammunition was expended.

After an hour, as their ammunition ran low, the Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel J. B. Sweitzer, was ordered to advance, supported on their left by a brigade of Whipple’s division, commanded by Colonel Carroll.”^[167] In letter to his brother, Maj. John Randolph of the 4^th Michigan wrote: “As Col. Sweitzer rode to our front, and saw the energy and determination that was depicted on the countenances of his brave command, he took off his cap and waving it high above his head, in his clear and distinct voice, gave the command, “2^nd Brigade, forward — double quick — march.”

Lt. William Robinson Company H wrote to father: “And we followed him and took the Rail Road. He was shot in the leg and had 1 horse killed, one of his aids was killed, another wounded slightly in three different places, and the other had his horse shot under him.^[168] “With a cheer, we started — the brigade commander taking the lead. As we reached the crest of the hill, the leaden and iron hail was awful, and many a brave man fell. But quickly closing up our broken ranks, we marched into that terrible fire, and in a few minutes reached the little mound (of) earth — fell behind it upon our faces — to escape the terrible fire we were exposed to.”^[169]

“Over the bodies of headless, armless, legless, disfigured men we pass. To the right and to the left are the lifeless forms of the slain.” Within minutes, the Brigade clears the smoke of battle and reaches the railroad cut where they come under the full fire of Confederate artillery from their left and infantry in front. “Instead of attempting the passage of the ditch, we lie down and refuse to make a further useless effort” noted the Color Sergeant of the Regiment.^[170]

Next to go in was the Third Brigade. Charging towards the south end of the wall, at the bend in the Telegraph Road, Capt. Amos Judson of the 83^rd Pennsylvania remembered: “Down, into the railroad cut, we went tumbling, and, then clambering up the other side,” they charged “over the bodies of the slain for a quarter of a mile.”^[171] Passing over and through the dead and wounded without stopping, Eugene Nash in the 44^th New York wrote: “The wounded and dying sank together upon the blood-soaked field. The broken ranks automatically closed and still advanced only to be broken again and again.”^[172]

Confederate artillery fire resounded in its destructiveness. Lt. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20^th Maine noted: “The artillery fire wreaked havoc. Crushed bodies, (and) severed limbs, were everywhere.” Yet, led by their intrepid Commander Col. Adelbert Ames (future reconstruction era governor of Mississippi), on they rushed “up slopes slippery with blood, miry with repeated unavailing tread.” According to Pvt. Theodore Gerrish of the same regiment, “This was our first baptism of fire that our regiment ever received, but with the inspiration derived from such a man as Colonel Ames, it was a very easy thing to face danger and death.”^[173]

Charging over the dead and dying troops that had preceded them, under the same galling fire, the Mainers at last “reached the final crest, before that all commanding, countermanding stone wall.”^[174] And like their predecessors, after leaving 923 dead or wounded men scattered upon the field, they wound up hugging the ground in the swale in front of the stone wall where they would remain all that night.^[175] “The utter impossibility of taking the rebel position was manifest to every man in the regiment” recorded Gerrish, “but we blazed away at the enemy, and they at us.”^[176]

Later in the afternoon, Butterfield learned that Couch was actually falling back and ordered Andrew A. Humphreys Division to reinforce him on the north end of the line in order to provide more support on Griffins right. As Humphrey was moving into position, Hooker returned and, having been put in command of all the forces in Fredericksburg, ordered all the artillery available in the city to concentrate its fire on a single point in the stone wall. It was his intention to blast an opening through which his troops could charge. The Federal batteries concentrated their fire on a single point in the wall and pounded away until sunset but could not breach it.

With the sun starting to set, Hooker ordered Humphreys troops, who had crossed the millrace and formed under the protection of the bluff beyond to advance. Humphreys’ two Pennsylvania Brigades, most of them nine-month militiamen, had not seen battle before and “eager for the fray.”^[177] Humphreys himself had little combat experience but inspired his men with his personal bravery. At about this same time Rebel Gen. Joseph Kershaw, now commanding the Confederate forces behind the stone wall, reinforced Cobb’s Georgians by jumbling them up with his veteran South Carolina Brigade who were also eager to have their turn at the Yankees.

“We went up the hill in splendid style, on a double quick, with a loud cheer, and were soon engaged,” recorded a private in the 131^st Pennsylvania.^[178] The colonel of the brigade, Peter Allebach, pretty well summed it up for all his green Bucktails. “The thought of momentary death rushed upon me and it required every exertion to hush the unbidden fear of my mind, he wrote as “Sulfurous smoke and flame stabbed at the dwindling attackers, leaving the field covered with dead and wounded.” It was just more than flesh and bone could withstand. “We could go no further as the carnage was too fearful.”^[179]

The Confederates allowed them to approach to within 50 yards of their line when they rose up five ranks deep and delivered a “withering fire and the batteries on the hill vomited double charges of canister. The first line melted but the second came steadily on over the dead and dying of the former charges,” reported a Confederate soldier behind the stone wall.^[180] “The men behaved very well under fire, and not until the brigade in front gave way and ran over our men was there any wavering in our line.”^[181]

A correspondent for the 126^th Pennsylvania was observing Humphreys attack from a perch across the river. “Just as the sun was lowering behind the distant hills, the gleam of thousands of bayonets, and the double quick of the men became visible. It was a gallant but desperate charge on a line of battle.”^[182] Humphreys reported that the troops that had preceded him were still lying on the ground, both dead and wounded and those still firing at the Rebels, “proved a serious obstacle to my success,” he reported.^[183] Pennsylvania historian Samuel P. Bates recorded: “they began to move over the living mass, when suddenly the prostrate men cried out, ‘don’t go there, It is certain death,’ and rising began to impede the progress of the column, and by protestations of every nature implored the men not to go forward.”^[184]

Rather than continuing their charge, many of the green troops took heed and dropped to the ground just as Rebels opened a blistering fire on them. Panicking, others wildly returned fire while still others ran to the rear, thus losing all momentum of the charge. Amid the chaos, Humphreys was seen riding frantically to and fro on his third mount waving his sword over his head. During the charge, two other horses had been shot out from under him.

Five of his seven staff officers had been knocked off their horses and the other two were on foot yet still they managed to organize portions of the untested troops and lead them back over and through the prostrated troops that littered their avenue of attack. “It lasted but a minute, when, in spite of all our efforts, the column turned and began to retire slowly,” Humphreys reported.^[185] Suffering more than 1,000 casualties in the span of fifteen minutes, the frustrated general retired his command to the ravine where they would remain during that night.^[186]

Testifying before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a caustic Joe Hooker scoffed: “Finding that I had lost as many men as my orders required me to lose, I suspended the attack.”^[187] Being in command of the field, As Hooker’s attack stalled, he ordered out the reserves of the Ninth Corps, which had gathered south of town. In a last ditch effort to relieve Griffin’s Division, Rush Hawkins’s Brigade was sent rushing over the railroad cut and up the valley of Hazel Run towards the south end of the stone wall position in support of Sturgis and Griffin.

Advancing farther to the left than any other troops, portions of the brigade became mired in a large muddy slough which effectively broke up the formation of Hawkins’s two left most regiments and greatly retarded their progress. While extricating themselves from the bog, slipping, sliding and falling all over each other, the right two regiments advanced farther drawing the full fury of the Rebel fusillade as it ripped and tore through their ranks.

According to Lt. Millett Thompson of the 13^th New Hampshire, “The flashes of fire on all sides from musket, cannon and shell are as thousands upon thousands, constant, innumerable, and the roaring indescribably terrific.”^[188] By this time, the sun had fairly set and the sky dusked, and like the fourteen other brigades that had gone before them, they too met with disaster. It would be the last attack of the day.^[189]

In the twilight, rifles flashed and glinted down the whole line as the trace of cannon balls streaked brightly red across the sky like a comet, sizzling and burning after leaving their barrels like blister of lighting. William Lusk of the 79^th waxed to his mother: “Forked tongues of flame such as old artists paint issuing from the mouths of the serpents to whom is given the tormenting of the damned, flashed in the night with a brilliant effect…”^[190] Yet another wrote: “Sheets of flame flashed along the lines a mile in length, cleaving the twilight with wedges of light, that leapt forward and sprang back like the flying shuttles of a loom.” ^[191]

With each flash, the landscape lit up a like a hellish world on fire. “We are in the midst of a magnificent exhibition of fireworks, their flashes of flame ranging from the bright spark of a rebel explosive bullet, to the instant glare of a locomotive headlight, as the cannon discharge and the shell burst, the blaze and roaring about the same on every hand and front and rear.”^[192] Finally, as darkness set in, the gun and cannon fire slackened on both sides and then, at last, ceased. In the silence, the men in blue knew that their blood had been uselessly shed and nothing had been gained.

Burnside was faulted for attacking piecemeal by brigades. It was a turkey shoot for the entrenched Confederates. Longstreet admired the Yankee troops for their tenacity and bravery, but condemned their general for his stupidity. “A series of braver, more desperate charges than those hurled against the troops in the sunken road was never known, and the piles and cross-piles of dead marked a field such as I never saw before or since,” he wrote.^[193] His artillery chief, E. Porter Alexander, had so much firepower concentrated on the narrow Yankee front that he claimed “a chicken could not live on that field when we opened on it.”^[194]

Suffering just over 5,300 casualties while inflicting more than 12,500, the lopsided victory was Lee’s most easily won and by far his least costly. Two thirds of the Union casualties were incurred before the stone wall position. The fighting was so intense that four generals were killed or wounded on each side. As incredible as those losses were, with that number of men, attacking over that distance, formed in mass, shoulder to shoulder, constantly closing ranks; against that heavily a concentrated fire of both infantry and artillery, it is even more remarkable that Union casualties weren’t even greater.^[195]One Rebel artillerist blamed it on the poor quality of their ammunition.

More amazingly, Lee did it with a quarter of his army for only 20,000 of his men could be crowded into the narrow front in which Burnside’s right wing was forced to attack.^[196] It was the greatest embarrassment to the Lincoln administration to date. Fredericksburg cast a shadowy doubt, within the army, and throughout the nation as well, over his ability to properly manage the war. The National press crucified the President claiming him as too weak for the occasion. The governor of Pennsylvania described the battle to the President as “a butchery,” claiming that the results drove Lincoln into “a state of nervous excitement bordering on insanity.”^[197] Lincoln was quoted as replying: “If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it.”^[198] His political stock had reached its nadir.

The veterans in Burnside’s army, from the lowest ranking private to the highest ranking generals, had all experienced defeat at the hand of Lee’s Rebels. However, nothing compared to the slaughter at the base of Marye’s Heights. One Confederate officer claimed he could have “walked considerable distances in front of this wall, stepping only on dead men.”^[199] The entire plain was tinted blue by the uniforms of the dead and wounded Yankees.

“What a bloody, one sided battle this was,” exclaimed a soldier in the Pennsylvania. “It was simply murder, and the whole army is mad about it. We are no fools! We can see when we have a chance; here we had none,” ^[200] George Fox in the 6^th New Jersey lamented: “Someone is to blame here for our defeat for anyone could see that we could not whip the rebels here.”^[201] The feeling of dejection was widespread among the men in the ranks. “This thing of laying out here in the cold and exposing ourselves is not very nice…when a person has no hopes of gaining anything by it,” wrote Pvt. James W. Gormley of the 100^th Pennsylvania. “We are going to get whipped all the time and…the southerners are going to get their confederacy.”^[202]

A Yankee Colonel informed his dad: “It was a miserably wicked, shameful affair or disaster,” claiming Burnside or Lincoln should have been condemned.^[203] The Union army was badly whipped and every man involved knew so – except for Burnside. “When he announced his unfitness for the position thrust upon him, he so completely gauged his own abilities, that no one has been able since to improve upon his statement,” quipped Massachusetts artilleryman Warren Lee Goss.^[204]

At long last darkness fell and “its lengthening shadows were gratefully hailed as a relief from the terrors of a day of suffering and death,” wrote a soldier in the 118^th Pennsylvania.^[205] “Shortly after we had ceased firing, the cries of the wounded in front began to assail our ears. They had lain upon the field all day, and now their agonizing cries for help broke mournfully upon the stillness of the night,” wrote another participant.^[206] During the night of December 13^th, temperatures again dropped below freezing. It was a night of gloom and depression for the Union troops lying on the field.

Dreading the fire of the Rebels, which they feared would erupt again, many of the ill-fated men resorted to extreme measures and piled up the frozen bodies of their dead comrades to serve as a morbid fortification. The situation was the same on both ends of Lee’s line. From one flank to the other, the sufferings of the wounded Federal could be heard. In a letter to his father, Col. J. Frederick Pierson of the 1^st New York wrote that all through the night “the groans and cries of the wounded resounded on the air.”^[207] Another soldier related: “Hundreds died, crying and pleading for mercy or begging for water or, in many cases, death.”^[208]

A Sergeant in the 17^th Maine found their wailings heartrending. “We listened to the poor sufferers, crying out in their agony, ‘Oh! God ! help me, help me;’ ‘carry me off;’ ‘give me a drop of water;’ ‘water;’ ‘oh! kill me.’”^[209] Not being able to lift a hand to aid the wounded made it worse than any previous battle. It was a different kind of horror than the demoralized army had ever experienced.

Firing at regular intervals during the night, Rebel marksmen kept the Yanks hugging the ground and removal from the battlefield in the darkness that night proved hazardous. Every flicker of light or the slightest sound drew a volley of Rebel bullets. According to a captain in the 72^nd Pennsylvania, “torches were impossible, as the moment they appeared the enemy fired at the bearer.” To assist the stretcher bearers searching for them in the darkness, “these poor fellows were told by their comrades to groan continually until they were found and carried off the field.”^[210]

Pvt. William McCarter of the 116^th Pennsylvania was hit four times during the charge of the Irish Brigade but, due to his proximity to the Rebel line, could not be removed after dark. According to McCarter, every few minutes “volleys were directed at the ground and places over which Federal troops might advance to surprise them in the darkness.” However, being one of the lucky ones, he had managed to crawl to safety. To illustrate the intensity of the Rebel fire, once the bullet was removed from his right shoulder, McCarter’s blanket was unrolled and thirty-two spent Rebel bullets fell out on the floor.^[211]

In the same Brigade, Capt. D. P. Conyngham wrote: “Thousands lay along that hillside, and in the valleys, whose oozing wounds were frozen, and whose cold limbs were stiffened, for they had no blankets; they had flung them away going into the fight.”^[212]An Englishman fighting for the Confederates wrote: “There those frightful masses lay huddled together, the dying with the dead; some jerking in the last throes of death, others gasping for water, writhing with agony, laughing deliriously, cursing demoniacally in all the tongues of Europe.”

Though a veteran of many battles, he thought this one was the “most horrible and lamentable curse that God could permit His people to inflict on each other!” Hour after hour, the night air was filled with the cries of the wounded. As the night wore on, their cries slowly faded to an ominous moan and then, after a few more hours, there was a gruesome silence as the wounded men succumbed to the freezing temperatures.^[213]

After caring for their own wounded, wearied as they were, some of the Southerners became sympathetic to the wailings of their fallen enemies and brought many of them into their ranks. Witnessing the attacks from his position in the Texas Brigade, Confederate Corp. Valerius Giles, ventured out in the early morning hours, before dawn, to discover a gruesome sight. “They lay in heaps, crossed and piled and in every imaginable position, all cold, rigid and stiffly frozen.”^[214] Another Confederate reported: “One could not move a dozen yards without stumbling against some voiceless, inanimate carcass, or slipping in pools of blood or scattered entrails.”^[215]

Taking advantage of the darkness, many of the ragged Rebels, seeking better cold weather clothing, slipped over the wall and stripped the bodies of the dead Yankees nearest them. In a letter to his mother after the battle, Rebel Lt. Richard Lewis told her: “The Yankees are very well clad, being provided with sufficient warm clothing for the winter.” He then proudly boasted that if they could meet them “a few more times on such fields as this we will be very well provided for.”^[216]

A correspondent for the Richmond Dispatch reported: “Muskets and rifles were in profusion, overcoats, shoes, canteens, and oil-cloths were in abundance.” Martha Stevens, a civilian living in a house at the base of Marye’s Heights, claimed the dead Federals between the lines had changed color overnight. Lee’s most acclaimed biographer recorded: “They no longer were blue, but naked and discolored.”^[217]

That night, after a conference with his Corp Commanders, a despondent and desperate Ambrose Burnside proposed to personally lead his old 9^th Corps into battle the next morning with a grand bayonet charge.^[218] His officers, to a man, were shocked and plead with him to abandon any idea of another attack. Unlike the overly cautious McClellan who one soldier claimed “did not know when to order his army forward into the works of the enemy…Burnside did not know when to call them back from inevitable disaster.”^[219] After lengthy and determined persuasion, which lasted throughout the night, Burnside finally agreed to at least postpone the attack.^[220]

It was a great relief to the soldiers in the 9^th Corps that had been quietly moving into position during the night.^[221] “We had the order to fall in and we obeyed, but with sullen, sober looks, for we knew that the whole army could not carry such formidable fortifications. It was like driving cattle to the slaughter pen,” reported a soldier in the 36^th Massachusetts.^[222]

On the morning of Dec. 14^th, as the chilling and penetrating fog lifted, “we began to take note, through the misty veil, of the wreck of men and horses cumbering the ground about us,” related Col. John Ames of the 11^th New York Regulars. “Almost an army lay about us and scattered back over the plain toward the town.” He could hardly differentiate between the badly wounded and the dead. How ghastly he thought it would be “to die, groveling on the ground or fallen in the mire.”^[223]

An officer in the 129^th Pennsylvania was shocked at the carnage of the previous day’s battle. “The dead lay all around us, in every conceivable position, the groans of the wounded and dying filled the air— one poor fellow, who had a terrible wound in the side, begged to be shot so as to put him out of his misery—another young soldier was talking incoherently of his mother and his home, whilst another still was uttering fearful imprecations.”^[224]

In a letter home, Pvt. of the 12^th New Jersey related: “For two days the dead and wounded lay stretched on the frozen ground between the lines of the combatants,” claiming; “No more horrible picture of war can be imagined than that of the writhing and dying soldiers vainly begging for the help which could not be given them.” ^[225]

Thousands of wounded men remained pinned down between the contending lines. Those that had fallen far enough from the sight or sound of the Rebels had been fortunate enough to have been removed during the previous night but hundreds remained trapped. “As soon as the fog rose the enemy continued the tactics of the preceding day, firing at every man that gave the least chance for a shot,” wrote Charles Bane. “During the morning, these dead bodies were repeatedly struck, the enemy supposing them to be videttes.”^[226] The Union troops had been ordered “not return the fire or bring on an engagement,” and “to keep down and screen themselves as much as possible.”^[227]

“The Rebs…fired on us several times while we were out on the front after the wounded,” wrote Cpl. Charles Church of the 3^rd Michigan Ambulance Corps. “They wounded one of our stretcher bearers and drove the rest into a ditch.”^[228]The injured soldiers closest to the Rebel position would have to endure their misery another day for they could not be reached without provoking a torrent of gunfire.

Down river on the Rebel right, Stonewall Jackson had acknowledged a flag of truce on his line and “both sides, under the white flag, went down into the valley between the lines and assisted those who were able to move or be removed.”^[229] The Rebels under Longstreet wondered why “no similar request was made in reference to the wounded at Marye’s Hill.”^[230] As a consequence, the wounded Federal’s trapped there were forced to suffer another day and many of them perished.

As morning dawned, and it became light enough, a sharp skirmish fire erupted between the Rebels behind the wall and the fresh Union replacements that had quietly crept into position the night before. Many of these replacements found positions from which to return fire in the houses and cottages dotting the battlefield or behind the few remaining wooden fences. Others fired from behind the dead bodies of their frozen comrades which had been piled up during the night or small mounds of earth they had managed to loosen with their bayonets and push up in front of them. Still others found safety behind the bloated carcasses of the dead horses. However most of them remained hunkered down in the mud and mire.

“The enemy riddled every moving thing in sight: horses tied to the wheels of a broken gun-carriage behind us; pigs that incautiously came grunting from across the road; even chickens were brought down with an accuracy of aim that told of a fatally short range,” exaggerated Col. John Ames. “We had suffered it as we lay on the ground, inactive, without the excitement and dash of battle, and without the chance to reply.”

Though his brigade had been spared from the horror of the first day’s assaults, Ames reported losing 150 men while they lay prostrated on the field that second day. Nothing demoralizes an army more than to be pinned down by the fire of their enemy and not be able to return it – not even defeat.^[231]

“We were within yards of their rifle pits and couldn’t move an inch for fear of being shot,” wrote Lt. William James Fisher in the 10^th United States Regulars who lay prostrate on the ground all during that day.^[232] “Any man rising up or even elevating his arm was shot,” reported the 5^th Corps Medical Director in a letter to his sister. He told her, that during the day, 200 men in that Corps “were killed and wounded while lying in this position with scarcely a chance to shoot back.” In his opinion, “This is the kind of endurance that tries the soldier.”^[233]

One Union soldier claimed, by that time, the dead bodies had “swollen to twice their natural size,” and that “here lay one without a head, there one without legs, yonder a head and legs without a trunk…with fragments of shell sticking in oozing brain, with bullet holes all over the puffed limbs.”^[234] Brains, body parts and viscera lay scattered all over the battlefield. Many were mangled beyond recognition and their bodies were so mashed about that their remains resembled that of a burst watermelon.

By this time, the contest had turned into a trial of human endurance for the begrimed soldiers, caked in gunpowder, mud, sweat, blood and tears. Lee’s military pride forbade him from ceasing the fire of his men until Burnside could overcome his own pride and formally request a flag of truce. Later in the day, however, in spite of the stubborn pride of their leaders, an unspoken cease fire was agreed upon by the soldiers on both sides of the front line. At that point friend and foe alike felt free to move about and chat and barter with each other.

The day before we recrossed the Rappahannock, there wasn’t any fighting in the part of the field where I was; and our skirmishers, and theirs got up a treaty of peace among themselves; each side agreeing not to fire on the other unless obliged to do so” wrote Dwight Emerson of the 10^th Massachusetts. “They had a fine time, and appeared to be great friends, for such enemies. It did look odd enough, to see the same men, who the day before were doing their best to kill each other talking together, and swapping whiskey and tobacco, for coffee and salt, and such like.”^[235]

When darkness again fell, Union soldiers began the removal of the wounded that had lain on the field and started the grisly task of burying their dead.The night of December 14^th was bitterly cold. At short intervals the dreary darkness was ignited by dancing lights of the Aurora Borealis which radiated brightly in the blackened skies. It was an incredible lightshow for the soldiers that had seen it before and an incredulous display of heavenly wonderment for those who had not. One group of Confederates, who had braved the fire of the Yankees for two days, became so frightened by the sudden bright lights that they deserted.

A reporter for the Richmond Dispatch described it as “tinging the heavens blood red, as it were with the blood of those martyrs who had offered their lives as a sacrifice to their native land.”^[236] According to Milo Grow in the 51^st Ga., stationed behind the stone wall in Semme’s Brigade that day, “There was a brilliant exhibition of Aurora Borealis soon after dark last night. For half an hour it shows very brilliantly reaching to the mid heavens in colors of yellow and red.”^[237]

Providing illumination for the men in his burial detail, Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain of the 20^th Maine described it as “Fiery lances of gold – all pointing and beckoning upward.” Then, as an appropriate epitaph, he waxed: “Who would die a nobler death, or dream of more glorious burial?”^[238] On the Rebel side there was a joyous celebration. “Of course we enthusiastic young fellows felt that the Heavens were hanging out banners and streamers and setting off fireworks in honor of our victory,” recorded a Rebel gunner who was busy at work repairing and improving his gun emplacement.^[239] Another Confederate artilleryman testified that “a brilliant aurora illuminated the night and much facilitated the work upon the entrenchments…”^[240] As strong as the Confederate position was on December 13^th , it would be greatly improved by the morning of December 14^th and impregnable by the morning of the 15^th.

Hearing the Rebels busily working during the night with picks and shovels, Yankee officers on the front line began to fear Lee was preparing a counter attack for the next morning. To confirm their suspicions, several scouts crawled out nearer the front to listen and observe. Not only were their suspicions confirmed, but they also learned Confederate artillery was being moved around their flank to a position which would enfilade the safe haven between the bluff and mill race.^[241] For the rest of the night, the Federals busied themselves with preparing their own lines of entrenchments along the bluff and on the outskirts of town. However, Lee was no fool. He fully realized that his troops would have to cross the same millrace and face very similar artillery fire from the Federal guns across the river.

That night, Burnside finally put aside his pride and asked for and received a temporary truce to bury his dead. There were so many wounded they could not all be removed during the night so both sides agreed that, in the morning after sunrise, the Yankees could place a red flag on the portions of the battlefield where they were collecting the wounded to let the Rebels know where not to fire. Even though the night was “spent in burying the dead and removing the wounded,” after the sun rose, the adjutant of the 3^rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, looking on from across the river, noted in his regimental journal that, the battleground of yesterday remained “covered with the dead and wounded,” and that “almost on every elevated piece of ground in the neighborhood one can see a red flag floating to the breeze, showing where the wounded may seek some relief.”^[242]

As incredible as it may seem, one Union soldier claimed the Rebels brought some of the wounded Federals they had gathered to the neutral ground so they could be safely transported back across the river. During the American Civil War, after the fury of a day’s battle, it was not uncommon for the men of both armies to become engaged in such friendly conversation. Of course there was also the customary exchange of Rebel tobacco for Yankee coffee.

After a personal reconnaissance of the battlefield on December 15^th, and a full day of interviews with his front line officers, Burnside finally came to his senses and concluded to pull his badly beaten and greatly demoralized army back across the river. Luckily for the Federals, late that afternoon the skies became overcast and, as darkness fell, the wind “moaned dismally, as if in requiem for our dead still scattered on the plain,” recounted Union artillerist Warren Goss.^[243]

That night, a hard storm of rain and sleet blew in from the west obscuring the Rebels’ vision and drowning out the sounds of an army in retreat. According to Orville Thomson of the 7^th Indiana, the night was “black as a stack of black cats; raining in torrents, and a stiff gale roaring upon us from over the hills to the enemy’s rear.”^[244] Pvt. John Ryan of the 28^th Massachusetts related: “Everything was done in great caution, so as not to make much noise…A battery or wagons crossing a pontoon bridge makes a very loud noise but in this instance some pieces of bagging were tied on the artillery wheels.”^[245]

Soldiers were ordered to remove their tin cups from their belts to keep them from rattling.^[246] One soldier reported: “Nothing could be heard but the deep heavy baying of a bloodhound as if he too, were set upon our track. That misguided quadruped might have been an advance scout, but the peril was immeasurably less than as though the enemy had loosed his much more dangerous dogs of war.”

As an extra precaution, pine boughs, straw and sod were piled on the cross planking of the bridges to help muffle the sounds. The hushed retreat was aided by the howling wind at their backs and the blackness of the overcast night which made it dark as Erebus. “During the passage of our troops to the rear the people of Fredericksburg came out from their hiding places and assailed them with bitter and abusive taunts,” recalled Capt. Nash of the 44^th New York whose regiment was acting as rear guard at one of the bridges.^[247]

Miraculously, Burnside managed to get his troops back over the river without the Rebels hearing or seeing them. Had the Rebels been able to detect the retreat, the Union army could have been broken up at their pontoon bridges but, to Lee’s utter amazement and greatest frustration, when the sun rose the next morning and the fog lifted, the blue birds had flown.

1. Ida Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, vol. III, p-133.; Lincoln to McClellan, Oct. 13, 1862, found in “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,” ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 5, pp. 460-61.( prior to this date Lincoln had sentMcClellan several messages expressing his frustration and paid him a personal visit at his headquarters on Oct. 1,1862. McClellan finally crossed the Potomac on the Nov. 1, 1862 and had a golden opportunity of marching in

   between Lee’s divided wings. Lincoln’s personal Secretary Nicholas Hay reported that Lincoln stated if

   McClellan allowed Lee to cross the Blue Ridge and reunite his divided wings that there would be a change in

   generals. Four days later, Lee did that very thing by placing his army between Richmond and The Army of the

   Potomac.) ↑

2. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/slaughter ↑
3. James M. McPherson, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander In Chief, p-45. ↑
4. Ronald H.Bailey., and the Editors of Time-Life Books. The Bloodiest Day: The Battle of Antietam, p-15. ↑
5. Philip Leigh ,Lee’s Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies,p-138; On September 13, Corporal Barton W.Mitchell of the 27th Indiana Volunteers, part of the Union XII Corps, discovered an envelope with three cigarswrapped in a piece of paper lying in the grass at a campground that Confederate General A. P. Hill had justvacated. It turned out to be a copy of Lee’s Special Order 191 detailing his army’s movements and overall

   campaign plans. With this information in his possession, McClellan boasted: “Here is a paper with which, if I

   cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.” ↑

6. General Order 182 Relieving Major General George B. McClellan of Command of the Army of the Potomac,11/5/1862.; General Catharinus P. Buckingham letter to the Chicago Tribune Sept. 4th, 1875 found in Comte DeParis, History of the Civil War in America, vol. II, p-555.; Perry Jamieson & Bradford Wineman, The Maryland and Fredericksburg Campaigns1862-1863, pp. 37-38. ↑
7. General Order, No. 84, Nov. 14, 1862.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fredericksburg ↑
8. Burnside testimony, Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, part 1, pp. 644-46; ↑
9. Charles S. McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall & Winter Campaign, Containing a Detailed Description of the Battle of Fredericksburg By A Private Soldier,” p-27 ↑
10. James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, v. III, p-79. ↑
11. Darius Couch, “Sumner’s Right Grand Division, B&L, v. III, pp. 106-07. ↑
12. Ibid., Longstreet, B&L, v. III, p-72.; Ibid., McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall & Winter Campaign, p-29 ↑
13. Ibid., Burnside testimony, Joint Committee, pp. 650-52. ↑
14. Joseph R. Orwig, History of the 131^st Pennsylvania, p-99. ↑
15. Ira Spaulding report, O.R. ser. 31, pp. 175-76; “The Operations on Thursday; The Fight Viewed by an EyeWitness,” New York Herald, Dec. 15, 1862, p-1, col. 3&4. ↑
16. Ibid., McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall & Winter Campaign, p-33. ↑
17. E. P. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative, p-291. ↑
18. James Dinkins, “Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade At Fredericksburg,” Confederate Veteran, vol. XXXIV, pp. 257-58. ↑
19. Woodbury report, O.R., ser 31, p-171. ↑
20. “The Terrific Bombardment of Friday,” Chicago Daily Tribute, December 16, 1862, Vol. 10, p-1, col. 3. ↑
21. William Little Davis letter to S. W. Smythe, Dec. 16, 1862, Catalog #z727f, Mississippi Department of Archivesand History. Special Collections Section. ↑
22. Anonymous letter, Richmond Times Dispatch, January 2, 1863 ↑
23. Albert Wymer Henley Diary, Dec. 11, 1862, Copy in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park,Fredericksburg, VA. ↑
24. Lafayette McLaws, “The Confederate Left at Fredericksburg,” B&L, III, p-87. ↑
25. Ibid., Longstreet, B&L, v. III, p. 75. ↑
26. Robert Stiles, Four Years Under Marse Robert, p-133. ↑
27. William Miller Owen, In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, p-180. ↑
28. Ibid., Woodbury report, O.R., ser 31, p-171. Woodberry reported the Rebels firing from a loop-holed block-house, thick walled cellars and a rifle-pit behind a stone wall some 200 feet long. ↑
29. Thomas Fry Tobey letter to brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Thomas FryTobey papers, Yale University, Letterbook, folder 16,call no. WA MSS S-1354. ↑
30. Ibid., William Davis letter to Smythe, Dec. 16, 1862, MDAH Special Collections. ↑
31. St. Clair Mulholland, The Story of the 116^th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War Of The Rebellion, p-33. ↑
32. J. A. Noxon,” The Battle of Fredericksburg,” The Military Engineer, (March-April 1933,) vol. XXV, No. 140, p-153. ↑
33. Lafayette McLaws, “The Confederate Left at Fredericksburg,” B&L, III, p-87. ↑
34. James Dinkins, “Barksdales Mississippi Brigade at Fredericksburg,” Southern Historical Society Papers vol. 36, pp.20-21.; George A. Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1661–1865,p-198. ↑
35. “The Capture of Fredericksburg” New York Herald, Dec. 13, 1862, p-1, col.3. ↑
36. E. P. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative, p-291. ↑
37. Fire in the Streets, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, found online @:https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/fire-in-the-streets.htm?ms=emailbb241024 ↑
38. McLaws report, Dec. 30, 1862,O.R., ser. 31, p-578., E. P. Alexander, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Southern Historical Society Papers, v. 10, pp. 390-91. ↑
39. Edgar A.Burpee letter to father, Dec 15, 1862. Found online @:https://sparedshared23.com/2023/12/23/i-would-have-sold-my-skin-for-a-five-cent-piece-edgar-a-burpee-19th-maine-infantry-at-battle-of-fredericksburg/↑
40. O. O. Howard report, O.R. ser. 31, p-265.; Ibid.; John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment, p-52.; George Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment…, p-198. ↑
41. Ibid., Fire in the Streets, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. ↑
42. John Ames, “In Front of the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg.” Battles and Leaders, v. III, p-123. ↑
43. Third Annual Report of the State Historian of the State of New York, 1897, “Appendix ‘D,’ The Eighty–NinthInfantry at Fredericksburg,” p-50. ↑
44. George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, with artillery on December 25, 1776, was unopposed. ↑
45. Found online @: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/slaughter ↑
46. Ibid., Woodbury report, O.R., ser. 31, p-171.; Anderson Report, O.R., v. 21, p-609.; Ibid., E. P. Alexander, SHSP, v.10, pp. 391.; 89^th New York website http://www.rootsweb.com/~nybroome/br89his.htm ↑
47. “THE OPERATIONS OF THURSDAY.; Full Particulars from Our Special Correspondent.” New York Times, Dec. 13,1862. p-1. ↑
48. Ibid., Fire in the Streets, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. ↑
49. “The Bombardment of Fredericksburg-Bridge Building-Daring of the Engineers-Fredericksburg After theCannonade,” found in: Belmont Chronicle, St. Clairsville Ohio, Dec 25, 1862, col. 5. ↑
50. Ibid., New York Herald, Dec. 15, 1862, p-1, col. 4. In the Dec 13, 1862, New York Times it was reported as a“Large British Flag captured from the British Consul.” ↑
51. G. O. Weymouth, “The Crossing of the Rappahannock by the 19th Massachusetts,” B&L, p-121. ↑
52. Lamar Fontaine, “My Life and Lectures” 1980, p-149. ↑
53. Ibid., George Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment… p-201. (Bruce and others mistakenly claimed this to be the firstInstance of urban warfare in the war. The first instance actually occurred at the second battle of Corinth twomonths earlier on Oct. 4, 1862) ↑
54. Ibid., “The Capture of Fredericksburg” New York Herald, Dec. 13, 1862, p-1, col.3. ↑
55. Ibid., George Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment… p-201. ↑
56. A.W. Greeley, Reminiscences of Adventure and Service, pp. 84-85. ↑
57. James Dinkins, “Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade at Fredericksburg,” SHSP, vol. 36, p-20. ↑
58. William P. Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, 1862-1865, p-41. ↑
59. St. Clair Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War Of The Rebellion, p-34. ↑
60. Henry Ropes Letter to John Codman Ropes Dec. 18, 1862, contained in the Manuscripts of the Boston PublicLibrary. ↑
61. Ibid., Edgar A.Burpee, Letter to father Dec. 15, 1862. ↑
62. Robert Stiles, Address at the Dedication of the Monument to the Confederate Dead, pp.18-19.;also in Four Years Under Marse Robert, p-130.; Longstreet O.R., ser. 31, p-571.; Lane Brandon letter to Josiah G. Abbott, April 20,1866, courtesy of Robert Garth Scott (author of “Fallen Leaves” ) and Thomas Rice. ↑
63. Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Ambrose E.Burnside to Henry W. Halleck, Friday, Dec 19, 1862. Telegram concerning military affairs. 1862.Manuscript/Mixed Material Div., Library of Congress ↑
64. Marvel, William. The Battle of Fredericksburg Civil War Series. (Eastern National, 2007), p-17. ↑
65. Burnside O.R., ser. 31, p-66.; Burnside Dec. 13, 1862, found in: Joseph R. Orwig, History of the 131stPennsylvania, p-105. ↑
66. Oliver W. Norton, letter to sister, Dec. 20, 1862, Army Letters, 1861 1865: Being Extracts from Private Letters to Relatives and Friends from a Soldier in the Field during the Late Civil War…etc., p-129. ↑
67. Charles Henry Howe letter to parents, Dec. 18, 1863, found online @ https://charleyhowe.home.blog/ ↑
68. William A. Barnard letter to brother, Dec. 17, 1862, State Archives of Michigan, Michigan Historical Center,Lansing. ↑
69. Ibid., Little letter to Smythe, Dec. 16, 1862, MDAH Special Collections. ↑
70. Ibid., Thomas Fry Tobey letter to brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Yale University.; Ibid., Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, 1862-1865, p-40. ↑
71. Ibid., Burnside testimony, Joint Committee, part 1, pp. 649-52; ↑
72. Sumner and Hooker testimony, Dec. 19&20 1862, Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, vol.I, pp. 658 & 670. ↑
73. Edward W. Spangler, My Little War Experience with Historical Sketches and Memorabilia.; Ibid., Alexander, Military Memoirs, p-291. ↑
74. Col. Edward E. Cross Journal, found in: William Child, A History of the Fifth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers…, p-153.; History of the First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry 1861-1864, p-249. ↑
75. Ibid., Couch, “Sumner’s Right Grand Division, B&L, v. III, p-111.; Hancock O.R., ser. 31, p-227. ↑
76. Ibid., Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment…, p-45.; Ibid., History of the First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry 1861-1864, p-252. ↑
77. Ibid., Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” B&L, v. III, p-79. ↑
78. Howard Helman Diary, Dec. 15, 1862, found in: “A Young Soldier in the Army of the Potomac,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 87, No.2 (Apr.1963) p-154 ↑
79. Josiah Marshall Favill, The Diary of a Young Officer, p-211. ↑
80. Lt. William Landon letter to Greene, Dec. 19, 1862, “The Fourteenth Indiana Regiment, Peninsular Campaign toChancellorsville,” Indiana Magazine of History, 33, no. 3 (September 1937), p-339. ↑
81. Charles Henry Banes, History of the Philadelphia Brigade: Sixty-Ninth, Seventy-First, Seventy-Second, and One Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers, p-141. ↑
82. Ibid., Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment…, p-45. ↑
83. John L. Smith, History of the 118^th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, p-127. ↑
84. Benjamin Borton, On the Parallels Or Chapters of Inner History…, p-67 ↑
85. Ibid. Spangler, My Little War Experience, p-65.; ↑
86. Charles A. Fuller, Personal Recollections of the War of 1861…, p.-79. ↑
87. Ibid., Couch, “Sumner’s Right Grand Division, B&L, v. III, p-111.; George Noyes, The Bivouac and the Battlefield; or Campaign Sketches in Virginia and Maryland, pp. 304-05. ↑
88. Benjamin Borton, Awhile in the Blue; or Memories of War Days, p-42. Eugene Arus Nash, A History of the Forty- fourth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 1861-1865, p-116. ↑
89. Ibid., William Landon letter to Greene, Dec. 19, 1862, “The Fourteenth Indiana Regiment, Peninsular Campaignto Chancellorsville,” Indiana Magazine of History, 33, no. 3 (September 1937), p-339 ↑
90. Eugene A. Cory, “Recollections of Fredericksburg”, found in: Personal Narratives of Events in the War of the Rebellion, Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society, Third Series-No. 4, p-24. ↑
91. William Marvel, National Park Civil War Series, The Battle of Fredericksburg. Found onlinehttp://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/15/sec10.htm ↑
92. Ibid., Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment…, p-47. ↑
93. William Thompson forkedto Mother, Dec. 16, 1862, in War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p-246. ↑
94. Ibid., Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment…, p-48. ↑
95. Morehead report, O. R., ser.31, p-280. ↑
96. “A Gallant Irishman at Fredericksburg,” found in: Richmond Whig, Dec. 26, 1862. ↑
97. Ibid., Eugene Cory, p-25. ↑
98. History of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Infantry 1861-1865 by Committee, p-182. ↑
99. Kimball report, O.R., ser. 31, p-290. ↑
100. William Lusk to Mother, Dec. 16, 1862, found in: War letters of William Thompson Lusk, p-248 ↑
101. William Taylor letter to wife, Dec. 17, 1862, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library,College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. ↑
102. Ibid., Couch B&L p-112-13.; J. A. Nixon, “ The Battle of Fredericksburg,” The Military Engineer, vol. XXV, No. 140,p-154. ↑
103. Charles D. Page, Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Infantry,” p-86. ↑
104. Ibid., Fuller, Personal Recollections of the War of 1861…, p.-81 ↑
105. Thomas Fry Tobey letter to brother, Dec. 20, 1862, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Thomas FryTobey papers Yale University, Letterbook, folder 16,call no. WA MSS S-1354. ↑
106. Ibid., Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, 1862-1865, p-44. ↑
107. Ibid., John G. B. Adams Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment, p-53. ↑
108. History of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Infantry 1861-1865, by Committee, p-181. ↑
109. Edward O. Lord, History of the Ninth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion, pp. 197& 232. ↑
110. William P. Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, 1862-1865, pp. 45-47. ↑
111. Ibid., John L. Smith, History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, p-129. ↑
112. Corporal Grove letter, found in: William Child, A History of the Fifth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers…, p-158. ↑
113. Ibid. Capt. John R. McCrillis account, found in: William Child, A History of the Fifth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers…, p-154. ↑
114. Ibid., Edward E. Cross Journal, Child, A History of the Fifth Regiment New Hampshire, pp. 154-58. ↑
115. Col. Edward Allen O. R., found in, Under the Maltese Cross, Antietam to Appomattox ….Campaigns 155^th Pennsylvania Regiment, p-99. ↑
116. Ibid., Lord, History of the Ninth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers…, p-226. ↑
117. 88th Brigade Commemorates The Battle of Fredericksburg by SPC Edward Shevlin, found online:https://dmna.ny.gov/news/?id=1491571301. ↑
118. Joseph G.Bilby, “Sorrow Hangs as a Shroud: The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg.” Military Images, vol. 17, no. 4,1996, pp. 12–15. ↑
119. Couch report, O.R., ser. 31, p-224 ↑
120. Ibid., Owen, In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery, p-195. ↑
121. Albert Pope diary, Dec. 13, 1862,The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, NY,Gilder Lerman Collection # GLC06266.01 ↑
122. History of the Thirty-Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, 1862-1865, p-87. ↑
123. William Kepler, History of the Three Months’ and Three Years’ Service from April 16th, 1861, to June 22d, 1864, of the Fourth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the War for the Union, p-97. ↑
124. D. P. Conyngham, The Irish Brigade and its Campaigns: With Some Account of the Corcoran Legion, and Sketches of the Principal Officers.p-168 ↑
125. Battlefields of the South: From Bull Run to Fredericksburg…By and English Combatant, vol. 2, p. 388 ↑
126. Couch, Century Magazine, found in: E. P. Alexander, Mititary Memoirs of a Confederate, p-309. ↑
127. Ibid., John L. Smith, History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, p-136. ↑
128. Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt O. R., Ser. 31, p-185. ↑
129. William H. Armstrong, Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole generals: As Seen From The ranks During A Campaign in The Army of the Potomac, p- 238. ↑
130. Edgar A.Burpee letter to father, Dec 15, 1862. ↑
131. L. N. Chapin, A Brief History of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, N. Y. S. V….etc., p-82. ↑
132. Oliver Christian Bosbyshell, The 48th in the War. Being A Narrative of the Campaigns Of The 48th Regiment, Infantry, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, During the War Of The Rebellion. P-98. ↑
133. Lee report, O.R. ser. 31, p-554.; Ibid., Miller, In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery, p-190.; ↑
134. Ibid., Couch, “Sumner’s Right Grand Division,” B&L, vol. III, p-116. ↑
135. Joshua L. Chamberlain, “My Story of Fredericksburg,” Cosmopolitan Magazine, Vol. 54, (1913), p-153. ↑
136. Eugene Arus Nash, A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War, 1861-1865 p- 116. ↑
137. William Candler letter to brother, Dec. 12, 1862, William Latham Candler Papers, Ms1997-007, SpecialCollections, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. ↑
138. Ibid., Borton, On the Parallels, pp. 78&92. ↑
139. Regimental Association, Under the Maltese Cross, Antietam to Appomattox, p-102. ↑
140. Ibid., Couch, “Sumner’s Right Grand Division, B&L, vol. III, P-113. ↑
141. Ibid., James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” B&L, vol. III, p-82. ↑
142. Nagle letter to Father, Dec, 14, 1862, found in the Irish American Dec. 27, 1862 ↑
143. William Thompson Lusk to Elizabeth Freeman Adams Lusk, December 16, 1862, in War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, pp. 244–245. ↑
144. Charles W. Phelps letter to brother, Dec. 20, 1862 found online 2 https://4thmichigan.wordpress.com/ ↑
145. Daniel George Macnamara, The history of the Ninth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Second Brigade, First Division, Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, June, 1861-June, 1864, p-260. ↑
146. Ibid., William Owen Miller, In Camp and Battle,p-186.; also William Owen Miller, B&L, III, p-98. ↑
147. Ibid., James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” B&L, vol. III, p-81 ↑
148. Ibid., Alexander, Military Memoirs, p-306.; Ibid., Owen, Life and Camp…, p-188. ↑
149. Chris Mackowski and Kristopher White, “Blundering Underlings Betrayed Burnside at Fredericksburg,” foundonline: https://www.historynet.com/burnside-was-betrayed-by-blundering-underlings-at-fredericksburg/ ↑
150. John Day Smith, The History of the Nineteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865,” p-29. ↑
151. Ibid., McLaws report, O.R., ser. 31, p-581. ↑
152. George E. Pickett letter to wife, Dec. 14, 1862, The Heart of a Soldier: As Revealed in the Intimate Letters of Genl. George E. Pickett, p. 66; ↑
153. John Esten Cooke, A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee, p-184. ↑
154. Ibid., Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” B&L, v. 111, p-79. ↑
155. Tyler report, O.R., ser. 31, p-437.; Rowe report, O.R. Ser. 31, p-440.; Ibid., Longstreet, “The Battle of Fre-dericksburg,” B&L, v. 111, p-79. Ibid., Hopkins, The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers…p-46.: Ibid.,Amos Judson, History of the Eighty-third regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, p-58.; ↑
156. Ibid., Lusk letter,, Dec. 16, 1862, in War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, p-245. ↑
157. Humphreys report, O.R., ser. 31, p-432-33.; Tyler report, O.R., ser. 31, p-437.; Ibid., Nash, A History of the Forty- fourth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, p- 115. ↑
158. William W. Clemens letter to father, Dec. 21, 1861, www.jeffandheather.com.; Ibid., Borton, Awhile in The Blue.., p-55. ↑
159. E. P. Alexander Report, Dec. 20, 1862, O.R., Ser. 31, v. 21, p-576. ↑
160. Hooker testimony, Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, part 1, pp. 667-668. ↑
161. Butterfield to Hooker, Dec. 13, 1862, O.R., Ser. 31., p-72. ↑
162. Brickyards belonging to John L. Knight, George Aler and George Mullens: “Brick-Kilns and Clay Deposits”September 25, 2018 by Peter Glyer . https://mercersquare.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/brick-kilns-and-clay-deposits/ ↑
163. Griffin, Barnes, Sweitzer and Stockton reports, O.R., ser. 31, pp.405-412. ↑
164. John L. Smith, History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, pp. 128-29. ↑
165. Everson Diary found in, The Fifth Army Corps (Army of the Potomac) A Record of Operations During the Civil War in the United States of America, 1861-1865, by William H Powell, pp. 388-389. ↑
166. Ibid., John L. Smith, History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, pp. 128-29. ↑
167. Griffin report, O.R., ser. 31, pp.404-05.: Colonel James Barnes report, O.R., ser. 31, pp.408-09. ↑
168. Lt. William F. Robinson Company letter to father Dec. 18, 1862. “Papers, 1862 [Folder 3].” In the digitalcollection Bentley Historical Library Civil War Collections Online Bentley Historical Library. ↑
169. Major John M. Randolph Dec. 17, 1862 letter to Major R. J. Barry and subsequently published in the 5 January1863 issue of the Adrian Watchtower Newspaper, ALSO ONLINE @ https://4thmichigan.wordpress.com/ ↑
170. “War reminiscences: Seage, Henry S. (Color Sergeant, Co. E, 4th Michigan Infantry), Battle of Fredericksburg,1899 [Folder 21] In the digital collection Bentley Historical Library Civil War Collections Online. ↑
171. Ibid., Helman Diary, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 87, No.2 (Apr.1963) p-154 ↑
172. Ibid., Nash, A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, p- 115.; Kershaw O.R., ser. 31, p-589. ↑
173. Theodore Gerrish, Army Life: A Private’s Reminiscences of the Civil War, p-77. “A Mainer From Rockland:Adelbert Ames in the Civil War.” By Michael Megelsh Master’s Thesis: Liberty University, p-35. ↑
174. Joshua L. Chamberlain, “My Story of Fredericksburg,” Cosmopolitan Magazine, Vol. 54, (1913), pp. 152-153.;Adelbert Ames letter to parents, Jan. 10, 1863. Found in Chronicles from the nineteenth century; family letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames, married July 21st, 1870, compiled by Blanche Butler Ames, 1935 v.1 ↑
175. Return of casualties in the Union forces, 0.R., Ser. 31, pp.-135-136. ↑
176. Ibid., Gerrish, p-77. ↑
177. Under the Maltese Cross, Antietam to Appomattox, the Loyal Uprising in Western Pennsylvania, 1861-1865; Campaigns 155th Pennsylvania Regiment, Pittsburg, Pa., The 155th Regimental Association, 1910. p-95. ↑
178. Howard Helman Diary, Dec. 15, 1862, found in: “A Young Soldier in the Army of the Potomac,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 87, No.2 (Apr.1963) p-154 ↑
179. Michael Aubrecht Lecture, (Carnegie Library Hall) Tuesday, 10 May 2011,http://www.pinstripepress.net/PPBlog/index.blog/1426563/123rd-pa-vols-lecture/ ↑
180. Ibid. Under the Maltese Cross, p-102. ↑
181. Ibid. Howard Helman Diary, Dec. 15, 1862. ↑
182. “A description by a correspondent in the 126^th Reg’t Penn. Volunteers of their participation in the battle ofFredericksburg, Valley Spirit, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Dec. 24, 1862. ↑
183. Humphreys report, O.R., ser. 31, pp.432-33.; ↑
184. Samuel P. Bates, History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; Prepared in Compliance with Acts of the Legislature, vol 3, p. 188. ↑
185. Ibid. Humphreys report, O.R., ser. 31, pp.432-33.; ↑
186. Return of casualties in the Union forces, 0.R., Ser. 31, p-137 ↑
187. Ibid Hooker testimony, Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, part 1, p-668; ↑
188. Thompson, S. Millet, Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865: A Diary Covering Three Years and a Day, p-59. ↑
189. Ibid., E. P. Alexander, Military memoirs of a Confederate, pp. 310-11 ↑
190. Ibid., Lusk p-247. ↑
191. Ibid., Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts , p-219. ↑
192. Ibid., Thompson, S. Millet, p-61. ↑
193. Ibid., Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, p-315) ↑
194. Ibid., Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” B&L p-79. ↑
195. Maj. Kevin Smith, The Calculus of War: The Role and Use of Quantitative Decision Aids at the Tactical Level of War. P. 130; William Owen Miller of the Washington Artillery attributed it to faulty Confederate ammunition. ↑
196. Lee General Order 138, Dec. 31, 1862, Official Records, ser. 1, v. 21, p-550. ↑
197. Carl Sandberg, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, p-630 ↑
198. William K. Goolrick, Rebels Resurgent; Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville, pp. 92-93. ↑
199. Ibid., Stiles, Four Years Under Marse Robert, p-132. ↑
200. Donald C. Pfanz, Behind the Lines, “A Special Series on the Battle of Fredericksburg,” part 36.; John L. Smithletters, USAMHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection. ↑
201. George Fox letter to brother, Dec. 21, 1862, Fox Brothers Letters ,Ohio State University, Dept. of History,Columbus, OH. ↑
202. James W. Gormley letter to father, Dec. 28, 1862 found online @http://www.100thpenn.com/jamesgormleylet.htm ↑
203. John Frederick Pierson letter to Father, Dec. 22, 1863, Ramapo to Chancellorsville and Beyond, The Library ofVirginia, Richmond, VA., Acc. #40338, p-103. ↑
204. Warren Lee Goss, Recollections of a Private: A Story of the Army of the Potomac, p-125. ↑
205. Ibid., John L. Smith, History of the 118^th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, p-130 ↑
206. Ibid., Amos Judson, History of the Eighty-third regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, p-58.; Ibid., Nash, A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, p- 115.; ↑
207. J. Fred Pierson letter to father, Dec. 20,1862, found in: Ramapo to Chancellorsville and Beyond, p-102. ↑
208. Charles H. Church letter to Father, Dec. 29, 1862, Civil War Letters by Charles H. Church: Co. “G” 3rd Regt., Michigan Volunteers Written to His Parents at Williamston, Michigan, p-31. ↑
209. Edwin B. Houghton, The Campaigns of the Seventeenth Maine, p-33; ↑
210. Ibid., Banes, History of the Philadelphia Brigade, p-143. ↑
211. The Civil War Memoirs of Private William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania Infantry, ed. Kevin E. O’Brien, pp. 188-200. ↑
212. Ibid., D. P. Conyngham, The Irish Brigade and its Campaigns…, p-169 ↑
213. Battlefields of the South: From Bull Run to Fredericksburg…By and English Combatant, p-514.; ↑
214. Corp. Giles account found in: Borton Parallels, p-88. ↑
215. Ibid., Battlefields of the South: From Bull Run to Fredericksburg…p-514. ↑
216. Richard Lewis, Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, of Bratton’s Brigade, Longstreet’s Corps, C. S. A.: Letters Written by Lieut. Richard Lewis, of Walker’s Regiment, to His Mother, During the War., p-37. ↑
217. “Interesting Account of the Battle of Fredericksburg,” found in Richmond Dispatch, Dec. 22, 1862. ↑
218. Burnside Testimony, Committee on the Conduct of the War, v. 1, p-653 ↑
219. Jesse Bowman Young, What a Boy Saw in the Army, p-161. ↑
220. The Civil War Memoirs of Private William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania Infantry, ed. Kevin E. O’Brien, pp. 188-200. ↑
221. History of the Thirty-Sixth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers 1862- 1865, by Committee, p-28. ↑
222. Ibid., Charles Henry Howe letter to parents, Dec. 18, 1863, found online @ https://charleyhowe.home.blog/ ↑
223. John W. Ames, “In Front of the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg,” B&L III, p- 123. ↑
224. Francis B. Wallace, Memorial of the Patriotism of Schuylkill County in the American Slaveholder’s Rebellion, p-225. ↑
225. Edward Sylvester Ellis, The Camp Fires of general Lee from the Peninsula to Appomattox Court-House, pp. 219-220. ↑
226. Ibid., Charles Henry Banes, History of the Philadelphia Brigade, p-144. ↑
227. William H. Powell, The Fifth Army Corps (Army of the Potomac) A Record of Operations During the Civil War in the United States of America, 1861-1865, p-390. ↑
228. Charles H. Church letter to Father, Dec. 29, 1862, Civil War Letters by Charles H. Church: Co. “G” 3rd Regt., Michigan Volunteers Written to His Parents at Williamston, Michigan, p-31. ↑
229. George E. Smith, “In the Ranks at Fredericksburg,” B&L, III, p-142.; Ibid., Houghton, The Campaigns of the Seventeenth Maine, p-33. ↑
230. William Allan, The Army of Northern Virginia In 1862, p-513 ↑
231. Ibid., John W. Ames, “In Front of the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg,” B&L III, p- 123. ↑
232. William James Fisher letter to father, Dec. 17, 1862, Fisher Collection Gettysburg National Military Park ↑
233. John Moore letter to sister, Dec. 20, 1862, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, NY,Gilder Lehrman Collection #GLC04195.07. ↑
234. James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, p-574. ↑
235. Dwight Emerson Armstrong letter to sister, Dec. 21, 1862, Massachusetts Historical Society, Dwight EmersonArmstrong letters, 1861-1863. OCLC Number: 1012940072. ↑
236. “Interesting Account of the Battle of Fredericksburg,” found in Richmond Dispatch, Dec. 22, 1862; ↑
237. Found online: https://longleaf.net/wp/personal-writings/milo-grows-letters-from-the-civil-war/letters-3-fredericksburg/ ↑
238. Alice Rains Trulock, In The Hands of Providence Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War, p-100. ↑
239. Ibid., Stiles, Marse Robert, p-137. ↑
240. Ibid., E. P. Alexander, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” SHSP, vol.10, p.-461 ↑
241. Ibid., Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, p-316) ↑
242. “Third Pennsylvania Cavalry Regimental Journal,” Dec. 14, 1862, History of the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry: Sixtieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers in the American Civil War, p-159. ↑
243. Ibid., Goss, Recollections of a Private: A Story of the Army of the Potomac, pp. 133-34. ↑
244. War for the Union, p-144. ↑
245. John Ryan, Campaigning with the Irish Brigade: Pvt. John Ryan, 28th Massachusetts, p-83. ↑
246. John L. Smith, History of the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Corn Exchange Regiment…, p-137.; Ibid., Under the Maltese Cross, Antietam to Appomattox, p-107. ↑
247. Ibid., Nash, A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment, p-117.War reminiscences: Seage, Henry S. (Color Sergeant, Co. E, 4th Michigan Infantry), “Battle of Fredericksburg,”1899 [Folder 21], In the digital collection Bentley Historical Library Civil War Collections Online. ↑