Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town

The First Battle

When, at Mayre’s Heights and Hamilton’s Crossing, war claimed her sacrifice

Following the shelling of Fredericksburg, on December 11th, the Union army began to cross on pontoons. On the 12th of December, under cover of the guns and of fog, almost the whole Union army crossed on three pontoons, one near the foot of Hawk street, another just above the car bridge, and one at Deep Run. On the morning of December 13th, General Burnside’s army was drawn up in a line of battle from opposite Falmouth to Deep Run. It was, say they who saw the vast army with artillery and cavalry advanced, banners flying and the bayonets of their infantry hosts gleaming as the fog lifted, one of the most imposing sights of the war.

General Burnside actually had in line and fought during the day, according to his report, 100,000 effective men.

General Lee had 57,000 effectives, ranged along the hills from Taylor, past Snowden, past Marye’s Heights, past Hazel Run and on to Hamilton’s Crossing.

There were preliminary skirminishes of cavalry, light artillery and infantry. The enemy tried to “feel” General Lee’s lines.

Then, about 10 o’clock, they advanced against the hills near Hamilton’s Crossing, where Jackson’s Corps was posted, in a terrific charge across a broad plateau between the river and the hills to within a quarter of a mile of the Confederate position, where they broke under terrific artillery and musketry fire. At one o’clock 55,000 men, the whole of Franklin’s and Hooker’s Grand Divisions advanced again in the mightiest single charge of the Civil War. Stuart and Pelham (he earned that day from Lee the title of “The Gallant Pelham”) raked them with light artillery, but nevertheless they forced a wedge through Jackson’s lines and had won the day, until Jackson’s reserves, thrown into the breach, drove them out and threw back the whole line. As dusk came on, Stuart and Pelham counter charged, advancing their guns almost to the Bowling Green road, and Jackson prepared to charge and “drive them into the river,” but was stopped by the heavy Union guns on Stafford hills.

At Hamilton’s Crossing

During the fiercest part of the battle, “Stonewall” Jackson was on the hill just on the Fredericksburg side of Hamilton’s Crossing where Walker’s artillery was posted, but toward evening, fired with his hope of driving the Union forces across the river, he rode rapidly from place to place, sending out frequent orders. One of these he gave to an aide.

“Captain, go through there and if you and your horse come out alive, tell Stuart I am going to advance my whole line at sunset.” It was this charge, mentioned above, which failed.

Late that night, rising from the blankets which he shared with a Chaplain, Jackson wrote some orders. While he was doing this, an orderly came and standing at the tent flap, said, “General Gregg is dying, General, and sent me to say to you that he wrote you a letter recently in which he used expressions he is sorry for. He says he meant no disrespect by that letter and was only doing what he thought was his duty. He hopes you will forgive him.”

Without hesitation, Jackson, who was deeply stirred, answered, “Tell General Gregg I will be with him directly.”

He rode through the woods back to where the brave Georgian was dying, and day was about to break when he came back to his troops.

General Maxey Gregg, of Georgia, was killed in action here, as were a number of other gallant officers.

Jackson held the right of the Confederate lines all day with 26,000 men against 55,000. His losses were about 3,415, while Hooker and Franklin lost 4,447. Meanwhile, against Marye’s Heights, the left center of the line, almost two miles away, General Burnside sent again and again terrific infantry charges.

The Charge at Marye’s Heights

The hills just back of Fredericksburg are fronted by an upward sloping plane, and at the foot of that part of the hills called Marye’s Heights is a stone wall and the “Sunken Road” – as fatal here for Burnside as was the Sunken Road at Waterloo for Napoleon. On Marye’s Heights was the Washington Artillery, and a number of guns – a veritable fortress, ready, as General Pegram said, “to sweep the plans in front as close as a fine-tooth comb.” At the foot of the heights behind the stone wall were Cobb’s Georgians, Kershaw’s South Carolinians, and Ransom’s and Cobb’s North Carolinas – nine thousand riflemen, six deep, firing over the front lines’ shoulders, so that, so one officer wrote “they literally sent bullets in sheets.”

Against this impregnable place, Burnside launched charge after charge, and never did men go more bravely and certainly to death. This was simultaneous with the fighting at Hamilton’s Crossing.

Meagher’s Irish Brigade went first across the plain. Detouring from Hanover street and George street, they formed line of battle on the lowest ground, and with cedar branches waving in their hats, bravely green in memory of “the ould sod” they swept forward until the rifles behind the wall and the cannon on the hill decimated their ranks; and yet again they formed and charged, until over the whole plain lay the dead, with green cedar boughs waving idly in their hats. The Irish Brigade was practically exterminated, and three more charges by larger bodies failed, although one Northern officer fell within twenty-five yards of the wall. The day ended in the utter defeat of the Union Army, which withdrew into Fredericksburg at night.

In front of the wall 8,217 Union soldiers were killed or wounded, and in the “Sunken Road” the Confederates lost 1,962.

The total Union loss in the whole battle of Fredericksburg was 12,664 and the Confederates’ loss 5,377.

General J. R. Cook, of the Confederate Army, was killed almost at the spot where Cobb fell. General C. F. Jackson and General Bayard, of the Union Army, were killed, the latter dying in the Bernard House, “Mansfield,” where Franklin had his headquarters.

The Death of General Cobb

General T. R. R. Cobb, the gallant commander of the Georgians, fell mortally wounded at the stone wall, and tradition has said that he was killed by a shell fired from the lawn of his mother’s home, a dramatic story that is refuted by evidence that he was killed by a sharpshooter in a house at the left and in front of the “Sunken Road.”

But the brilliant Georgian, who aided in formulating the Confederate Constitution, was killed within sight of the house, where, more than forty years before, the elder Cobb met, and in which he married, she who was to be the General’s mother. Journeying late in 1819 North to attend Congress, Senator John Forsythe, who was born in Fredericksburg, and Senator Cobb, Sr., were guests of Thomas R. Rootes, Esq., at Federal Hill, a great house that sits at the edge of the town, overlooking the little valley and Marye’s Heights, and there began a romance that led to marriage of Miss Rootes and Senator Cobb, in the mansion, in 1820. From the spot where he stood when he died, had not the smoke of a terrific battle screened it, their son, the Georgian General, could have clearly seen the windows of the room in which his parents were married.

General Cobb died in the yard of a small house, just at the edge of the “Sunken Road,” ministered to in his last moments, as was many another man who drank the last bitter cup that day, by an angel of mercy and a woman of dauntless courage, Mrs. Martha Stevens.

Her house was in the center of the fire, yet she refused to leave it, and there between the lines, with the charges rolling up to her yard fence and tons of lead shrieking about her, Mrs. Stevens stayed all day, giving the wounded drink, and bandaging their wounds until every sheet and piece of clothing in the house had been used to bind a soldier’s hurts. At times the fire of Northern troops was concentrated on her house so that General Lee, frowning, turned to those about him and said: “I wish those people would let Mrs. Stevens alone.”

Nothing in the war was finer than the spirit of this woman, who stayed between the lines in and about her house, through the planks of which now and then a bullet splintered its way, miraculously living in a hail of missiles where, it seemed, nothing else could live.

Lee Spares Old “Chatham”

During the battle at Fredericksburg, General Lee stood on “Lee’s Hill,” an eminence near Hazel Run, and between Marye’s Heights and Hamilton’s crossing. Looking across the Rappahannock he could see “Chatham,” the great winged brick house where General Burnside had headquarters, and where, under the wide spreading oaks, General Lee had won his bride, the pretty Mary Custis. The fine old place was now the property of Major Lacy, who rode up to Lee and said: “General there are a group of Yankee officers on my porch. I do not want my house spared. I ask permission to give orders to shell it.” General Lee, smiling, said: “Major, I do not want to shell your fine old house. Besides, it has tender memories for me. I courted my bride under its trees.”

In all this saturnalia of blood, it is a relief to find something in lighter vein, and in this case it is furnished by two Irishmen, Meagher and Mitchell. This little incident takes us back some years to “Ould Ireland.” Here three young Irishmen, Charles Francis Meagher, John Boyle O’Reily and John Mitchell, known respectively, as the Irish Orater, Poet and Patriot, fired by love for Free Ireland and Home Rule, earned exile for themselves and left Ireland hurriedly. O’Reily settled in Boston and became a well-known poet and a champion of the North. Meagher settled in New York, and at the outbreak of the War organized the Irish Brigade, of which he was made Brigadier-General. Mitchell settled in Richmond, where he became the editor of the Richmond Enquirer, and, as a spectator, stood on Marye’s Heights during the battle and witnessed the desperate charges and bloody repulses of his old friend, Meagher; and as he watched he unburdened his soul. His refrain varied between exultation at the sight of a fine fight and execration, in picturesque and satisfying language, of the “renegade Irishman,” his one-time friend, who would fight against the very principle, the advocacy of which had brought them exile from Ireland.

Mitchell’s grandson was John Purroy Mitchell, mayor of New York City, who died in the Aviation service during the late war.

The Good Samaritan

There was another soul at the Battle of Fredericksburg whose spirit of mercy to the suffering was stronger than the dread of death, and in the Chapel of the Prince of Peace at Gettysburg, is a tablet to him, Dick Kirkland – the “Angel of Marye’s Heights” – a gracious memorial placed by the Federal survivors of that fight.

Dick Kirkland, a Southern soldier, who all day long had fought behind the Stone Wall, laid aside all animosity when night fell and the bitter cries arose in the chill air from the wounded and dying on the plain. The pitiful calls for “water, water” so moved the young South Carolinian that he asked his commanding officer to be allowed to relieve the sufferers. His request was at first refused, but when he begged, permission was given, and taking as many full canteens as he could carry, he went out among the pitiful forms dotting the field, while the shells and rifle fire still made it most dangerous, administering to the enemy. He was a good Samaritan and unafraid, who is affectionately remembered by a grateful foe. Kirkland was more merciful to the wounded Federals than was their commander, for it was forty-eight hours before General Burnside could swallow his pride and acknowledge defeat by applying for a truce. In the interval, during forty-eight hours of winter weather while the wounded lay unsheltered, chill winds sweeping over them, the wailing and the agonized crying slowly died out. Every wounded man who could not crawl or walk died, and when the truce came more than four thousand bodies were piled in front of the “Sunken Road.”

At night of December 13th, Burnside was utterly defeated and after quietly facing the Southern forces all day on the 14th, he was practically forced to abandon his battle plans by the protests of his Generals, who practically refused to charge again, and moved his army across the river at night.

A Critique of the Armies

In the whole action at Fredericksburg, General Lee used but 57,000 men, while official reports state that the Northern forces “in the fight” numbered 100,000. As bearing on this (and most assuredly with no intention to belittle the gallant men of the Federal Army, who fought so bravely) the condition of Burnside’s Army, due to the policy of his government and to Major-General Hooker’s insubordination, is to be considered. An estimate of this army by the New York Times shows to what pass vacillation had brought it. The Times said after Fredericksburg:

“Sad, sad it is to look at this superb Army of the Potomac – the match of which no conqueror ever led – this incomparable army, fit to perform the mission the country has imposed upon it – paralyzed, petrified, put under a blight and a spell. You see men who tell you that they have been in a dozen battles and have been licked and chased every time – they would like to chase once to see how it “feels.” This begins to tell on them. Their splendid qualities, their patience, faith, hope and courage, are gradually oozing out. Certainly never were a graver, gloomier, more sober, sombre, serious and unmusical body of men than the Army of the Potomac at the present time.”

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