Order, counter-order, disorder
—Helmuth von Moltke
Military orders can range from general orders for an entire army to special orders for a particular unit or an individual soldier. There are written orders and verbal orders, orders followed and orders ignored, orders drafted, orders contemplated, and orders never considered. December 12 would be a day remembered for orders issued and orders not issued and much second-guessing about both.
With the pontoon bridges finally completed in the gathering darkness on December 11, Burnside decided not to risk pushing too many soldiers into the already crowded streets or onto the plain below the town. On the following day, then, he would still be positioning troops and not issuing orders for an attack.1 Burnside had worked on his plans well into the night of December 11, but he was nevertheless up at 4:00 A.M. the next morning. He spent most of the day at the Phillips House conferring with generals and drafting instructions. Sumner was directed to move his men across the river according to his own best judgment. Despite advancing years, Sumner remained aggressive and watched the crossing closely, apparently longing to join the troops.2
At the foggy sunrise on December 12, Brig. Gen. William H. French’s division (Second Corps) began crossing the uppermost bridge. An ominous hint of what lay ahead came in the taunt of a Confederate prisoner headed in the opposite direction on the bridge: “Never mind, Yanks, you chaps will ketch hell over there.” Paying it little mind, French’s men hurried through the streets to join Howard’s regiments near the outskirts of town and suffered a few casualties from desultory Rebel artillery fire during the day.3
In three columns Hancock’s division began crossing the second of the upper bridges around 8:00 A.M. Marching four abreast, they too took some casualties from Confederate shells. The appearance of a professional embalmer handing out business cards to members of the Irish Brigade as they stepped off the abutment hardly improved anyone’s mood. The men’s curses rang in the ears of this ghoulish entrepreneur as the division swung into line along Water Street to move up in support of Howard and French. Noticing a few dead Confederates, some of Hancock’s troops marveled at how the bodies still looked so eerily fresh and natural. It would be a sad Christmas in Mississippi, a Pennsylvania officer commented. Even worse was the much clearer sight of the formidable Rebel defensive positions. A New Hampshire recruit predicted that when the order came to advance, they would move forward “knowing full well that death is there with open arms bidding them welcome.” Not everybody was so glum. A captain in the Irish Brigade still believed that “certain victory waited this army” and said later he would have treated anyone who doubted this proposition with “scorn and contempt.”4
Three divisions of the Ninth Corps crossed the middle bridge a bit later and fanned out into the lower sections of Fredericksburg. The endless ribbons of bluecoats moving toward the riverbank impressed those still waiting on the Falmouth side. This great host appeared as an irresistible juggernaut that would sweep the Rebels away. Yet neither this daunting spectacle nor the martial music nor the officers’ speeches inspired some soldiers as much as more tangible stimulants. Troops of Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis’s division were issued whiskey rations just before they reached the bridges. Because some of them would not touch liquor, the more avid tipplers quaffed more than their share and soon were, a Massachusetts lieutenant reported, “pretty well corned.” One unsteady fellow nearly staggered into the Rappahannock as his regiment neared the pontoons.5
Given the difficulties of the preceding day and the crossing, the Federals had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to celebrate the successful occupation of Fredericksburg. Confederate artillery fire again erupted as the Ninth Corps crossed the middle bridge and occupied the lower part of town. A Michigan volunteer in Brig. Gen. William W. Burns’s division had his head blown off, and one regiment apparently panicked when an exploding shell sent three men sprawling in the mud. Huddled along the riverbank to escape the fire, many new recruits got their first taste of real war. Their loud, laughing bravado hardly concealed their nervousness, one officer perceptively noted.6
To the south, as a brigade band jauntily played “Dixie,” Franklin’s infantry and some artillery moved across the bridges. By early afternoon two divisions were posted on either side of Deep Run, with one held in reserve. Oddly, Confederate artillery did not immediately open on these troops as they reached open ground toward the Richmond Stage Road. Nonetheless, intermittent fire during the afternoon and early evening kept many soldiers hugging the muddy ground. Col. Alfred T. A. Torbert reported that his brigade stationed near Deep Run was shelled “without effect,” but that opinion depended on one’s perspective. A solid shot came close to taking one colonel’s head off, and even though many shells fell short, a dozen or so dead and seriously wounded men littered the ground.7
Once the Sixth Corps was across the river, Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds’s First Corps tramped over the bridges and into position by late afternoon. Officers again remarked on the general absence of Confederate artillery fire, but Lee would hardly unmask his guns, especially with Jackson’s men still on the march. By the standards of Civil War battlefields, this was ideal ground for maneuvering, but positioning nearly 60,000 troops between the river and the Richmond Stage Road became increasingly difficult. According to soldiers in Meade’s division, the movement of the bluecoats over the bridges had been slow, “something like molasses out of a jug.”8
Gibbon’s division fell into line behind the Richmond Stage Road to the Sixth Corps’ immediate left; Meade held the ground between Gibbon’s left and the river; behind him, Brig. Gen. Abner Doubleday’s division stood in reserve. Although Gibbon and Meade had faced some Confederate fire, Doubleday’s men attracted more attention perhaps because the fog had lifted by the time they came off the bridges. Few of the shells had much effect other than to goad inexperienced troops into some long-range picket shooting, a waste of ammunition unlikely to harm any Rebels, a member of the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters condescendingly sniffed.9
But fate remained as fickle as ever. During the crossing several soldiers had tossed their playing cards onto the bridges or into the water. After all, the Lord would hardly bless an army bent on gambling, and provoking divine wrath on the eve of a great battle seemed foolhardy. As if to punctuate this thought, a solid shot from a Whitworth gun struck a knapsack and threw a deck of cards into the air. “Deal me a hand!” yelled some nearby soldiers.10 From the common soldier’s viewpoint, such portents loomed large and outweighed troop positions, officers’ orders, or even the enemy’s formidable defenses. By this time new uncertainties and fears had crowded out more hopeful thoughts.
* * *
An army plagued with doubts showed signs of cracking under the strain of impending combat. A general breakdown occurred almost as soon as the soldiers entered Fredericksburg. The aggressive foraging in northern Virginia had set the stage for a loosening of restraints in protecting enemy property. Frustrated veterans, hungry soldiers, and terrified boys on the eve of their first fight took out their frustrations on a now defenseless town. The businesses and homes of the city provided easy prey for enlisted men and likely a fair number of officers, too.
Beginning on the night of December 11 and intensifying into the following day, soldiers looted with an awesome, frightening alacrity and thoroughness. Second Corps troops broke into the Bank of Virginia and reportedly hauled away haversacks filled with banknotes. No business escaped the looters. Entering drugstores, they smashed bottles on the floors. In jewelry stores men stole as many watches as they could carry away (likely for later resale to the fellows back in camp) or donned cheap pins and brooches. Silver and jewels dating from Washington’s day disappeared from the local Masonic lodge. The idea of holy ground or sacred objects had become for the time being irrelevant. The Episcopal church lost a four-piece communion set (it was returned after the war); a Connecticut volunteer caught one man carrying off a pulpit Bible.11
During this saturnalia of destruction, soldiers drew little distinction between public buildings and private dwellings. Compared to this reckless, unrestrained thievery, traditional foraging seemed like harmless fun. However much some Federals may have longed to have McClellan back, his punctilious attitude about protecting Rebel property was long gone. Officers commandeered private homes for their headquarters.12
Virtually any vacant dwelling became fair game for marauding troops. “The soldiers have free license for today and are happy in ransacking the houses of the wealthy for articles of value,” a member of the provost guard told his parents. The men might pause over unusual books, paintings, or other artifacts, but they almost always hauled off more practical items such as food, clothing, musical instruments, and toys.13
Simple foraging ran a distinct second to wanton destruction, however, a task that some regiments performed with manic efficiency. Observers and participants alike vividly described the carnival of destruction. The more elaborate the furnishings, the more thorough the vandalism. Keys of an ornate piano were fingered briefly and then suddenly smashed with axes. A small piece was slashed from a large Brussels carpet for use as a saddle blanket. Vases and statues were hurled into expensive mirrors, and cut-glass goblets were thrown through plate-glass windows. Vintage wine was spilled onto the ground. Soldiers even dumped out plain flour in their utter contempt for Confederates and their property, though relatively well-provisioned Yankees hardly had to worry about preserving what had become scarce commodities in the beleaguered Southland. Soldiers also invaded the deepest recesses of their enemies’ private lives by slashing family portraits or ripping open beds with bayonets or rifling diaries and letters. To leave an unmistakable message, some men scrawled “damned Rebels” or what one termed “ribald verses on the walls.”14
The looting turned many houses into veritable shambles. Once-gracious parlors were “strewn with . . . dirt and filth,” noted an observant Hoosier, “and even ladies’ clothing thrown in confusion or torn to pieces.” Rare books lay tattered and torn on the floors of despoiled libraries. Piles of miscellaneous trash littered the corners of various rooms. Some members of the 19th Massachusetts, who had done such hard fighting the day before, filled their canteens with molasses and poured the goo all over one house.15
The Federals had turned Fredericksburg into a chaotic world where the functions of various private and public spaces seemed oddly if not obscenely confused. While the interiors of many homes became great trash heaps, expensive furniture was strewn in the streets. Looters lounged about on stuffed sofas or chairs, ate off fine china, drank from gold and silver cups, or even pounded on pianos al fresco. Men hauled out featherbeds to sleep under the heavens. The destruction spilled onto the streets. Furniture was smashed—one mahogany bureau was used for kindling—and old books became stepping-stones for muddy boots. All manner of household goods lay on sidewalks or in the streets. To the men of one New Hampshire regiment it seemed a “mighty whirlwind” had swept through Fredericksburg.16
The town became a bizarre mixture of the anomalous and the unexpected. Amidst the Rebel bodies still lying about and all the debris, soldiers also noticed dead cats and dogs that had been killed during the bombardment. Sometimes the indoor sights were downright macabre. In a house in the lower part of town a New Yorker enjoyed his evening meal of roasted chicken and jelly, his tin cup of scalding coffee resting on a dead Confederate. In the streets men reclined on expensive furniture while cooking up messes of slapjacks. For a while it must have seemed that the Army of the Potomac was holding a giant pancake supper. Men eagerly filled their haversacks with flour and soon had the frying pans sizzling. In their hungry haste to relieve the monotony of hardtack and salt pork, members of the 48th Pennsylvania cooked up what turned out to be rather hard “Johnny Cakes” and then discovered that their “flour” was actually plaster of Paris. Amassa Kimball of the 15th Massachusetts, enjoying some honey with his meal, suddenly jumped up and shouted, “Jerusalem! I’m bit.” He had left several beehives too close to the fire. In an instant his comrades were shedding their socks, pants, and even drawers.17
For many soldiers grabbing food seemed much more practical than hauling off valuable household goods that might easily be lost or have to be abandoned. A full belly was its own reward. “We are obliged to the secesh for potatoes & fresh meat for dinner,” a young Minnesotan lightly remarked in his diary. Even in the poorer sections of town the soldiers scrounged poultry, pork, and corn. Unusual treats—molasses, fish, sugar, tomatoes, cream, peaches, candy, preserves, ham, and pickles—merited appreciative comments in letters and diaries. Many years later a sergeant in Hancock’s division recalled the delicious taste of pilfered lard spread over crackers.18
After stuffing themselves the men longed for a smoke or chaw, but like coffee in the Army of Northern Virginia, tobacco in the Army of the Potomac had often been a scarce item. Near the middle pontoon bridge, however, soldiers found scuttled tobacco and began hauling precious boxes up with ropes and iron hooks. A few impatiently dove into the icy water determined to retrieve their share.19
The discovery of alcohol in various homes and businesses brought even more smiles to campaign-weary faces. A Pennsylvanian in the Second Corps remembered the “congenial” warmth produced by his first-ever taste of whiskey. Emptying barrels of drugstore liquor into canteens and dumping or smashing bottles, the soldiers both struck a blow against the Rebels and looked to their own comfort. Adding to whiskey rations already issued to several regiments shortly before they crossed the bridges, some soldiers got roaring drunk. “Ah, General, let us sing and dance to-night; we will fight the better for it tomorrow,” several carousers shouted at the pious and temperate O. O. Howard. The unconscious forms of unrestrained tipplers soon mingled with other debris on the streets. One scene was especially rich: a group of intoxicated Massachusetts soldiers, carrying a hapless goose and a black bottle (contents unidentified), chased a frightened pig and sang “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” as they staggered along Caroline Street and nearly ran into Confederate pickets.20
Drunkenness and the release from strict discipline it produced combined to spawn a kind of street theater. Twirling parasols and strolling through the streets in hoop skirts, wearing calico or silk dresses, bonnets stuck awkwardly on their heads, Burnside’s brawny Yankees burlesqued the ideal of the “southern lady.” Members of the street-fighting 19th Massachusetts must have especially enjoyed sauntering about aping the conventions of polite society: “Good evening, Mrs. Smith” and “How do you do this evening, Miss Jones?” After expropriating the extensive wardrobe of one Fredericksburg matron, a freshly recruited New York regiment held their own fashion show until their colonel dispersed them with a few blistering oaths, several no doubt ridiculing their supposed lack of manhood.21
Dress-wearing revelers played music on stolen fiddles and pianos to accompany the frolicking of “quadrilles and contra dances.” Some of the dirtiest fellows in one regiment wore the “choicest silks,” while their “partners” were attired with “long tail coats and plug hats.” Exaggerated manners mocked the social affectations of southern aristocrats. “Between sets the ladies would sit on the curb-stones and the gentlemen would do the honors.” Consumed by laughter, the cotillion’s chronicler admitted he could not “do justice to the scene.” In other parts of the city, men cavorted atop pianos. The merrymaking and drunken high jinks reached a culmination when members of the 20th Massachusetts hauled out an eighteenth-century family coach and hitched it to a mule. One man wearing the “mask of a negro” drove along Caroline Street while two of his comrades dressed as Confederate belles sat in the back seat “scattering smiles and kisses to an applauding crowd.”22 Great fun here, and no little emotional release, but inventive mockery also lay at the heart of such bizarre performances. What better way to puncture the pretensions of southern honor and humiliate those notorious “secesh females” than by having common soldiers cavort in women’s clothes stolen from the wardrobes of Fredericksburg’s leading families?
Amidst the vandalism and carnival, some men began picking up souvenirs. Appropriately enough, an officer in the Harvard Regiment grabbed editions of Plutarch and Byron along with a few children’s books. Others preferred fancy silver goods. Many soldiers settled for small, insignificant items such as a glass ball, a crocheted baby’s sock, and even a small piece of cloth scooped from the river. Almost anything might serve as a memento worth shipping home.23
Preserving and mailing what a Connecticut volunteer dubbed a “keep-sake from rebeldom” could be difficult, though a surgeon in Hancock’s division managed to send an entire box of “trophies” received from a patient. Soldiers who crossed the river later or were stationed in poorer parts of town often found slim pickings. Others refused to be encumbered with impedimenta right before going into battle, and of course many desirable items simply could not be carried off. A report of one man shipping a sewing machine home to his wife seemed implausible.24
Whether looting or destroying, the Yankees went about their work with frightful thoroughness, as if exacting Old Testament vengeance against their foes. “Our soldiery completely sacked . . . near every house,” a Pennsylvanian proudly and matter-of-factly informed his hometown newspaper. A New Yorker admitted spending most of December 12 carrying off “every thing of value.” Yet long lists of items smashed or pilfered hardly recaptured the atmosphere of a military horde unleashed on a nearly deserted town. “Ludicrous” and “disgraceful,” one artillery lieutenant called scenes he had witnessed: “Everything that they could not eat or wear they destroyed in pure wantonness.” A Massachusetts recruit noted, with considerable surprise, that some houses contained furnishings rivaling those of his native Boston. Much of Fredericksburg appeared gutted, mute witness to how relentlessly marauding troops had tried to destroy everything in their path.25 Even if the soldiers’ accounts exaggerated the damage, they also spoke volumes about changing attitudes on the nature of the war.
Many bluecoats relished the devastation. Their justifications fell into three broad categories: enjoyment, retaliation, and the nature of war. “We lived high,” appeared often in diaries and letters. Even after the carnage on December 13, a New Hampshire volunteer confessed, “we kinded of hated to leave the city for I tell you we had a good time there.” After the battle a few soldiers emphasized the pleasures rather than the horrors of their recent experience. They could still almost taste (or at least describe) the pilfered food, and perhaps for some these memories helped blot out darker recollections.26
The stout resistance of Barksdale’s men and the scattered Confederate artillery fire also offered a convenient excuse for sacking the town. As a member of Burnside’s headquarters guard put it, “The cursed Rebels brought it all on themselves by their own maddened folly.” For those soldiers from godly homes whose families worried about the effects of army life on their moral character, a spirit of righteous vengeance might cover the proverbial multitude of sins. “Men who at home were modest and unassuming now seemed to be possessed with an insatiate desire to destroy everything in sight,” one artillery officer noticed. An undeniable callousness held sway among men who continued to loot even while under fire and then joked about it.27
For folks back home who might question whether the bombardment and sack could be justified, Pvt. Roland E. Bowen had a terse response: “Mother you know but very little about War.” Yet some civilians as well as many soldiers were by this time adjusting their beliefs about the character of war. The romantic ideals of the antebellum decades had not disappeared, but they were eroding, especially in the armies. Inured to violence and death, men developed a hardy toughness simply to survive. Bowen had watched hogs chewing on a Confederate corpse but was “too busy stealing to drive them away.” “Such is War,” he shrugged. This attitude could justify nearly anything, though even the extensive damage did not satisfy the more blood-thirsty. “I wish that we had burnt the whole of it [Fredericksburg] over their heads,” a Connecticut volunteer informed his father.28
Such strong statements—not to mention the wrecked town—graphically illustrated how quickly discipline could break down and how easily “civilized” men turned into a mob. But not everyone admitted it. Despite overwhelming evidence, some Federals maintained at the time and years later that no wanton destruction occurred in Fredericksburg. General Couch made the preposterous claim that Federals had not damaged much property. Other officers writing to their families also minimized the pillaging, as did some northern newspapers. For years afterward soldiers either tried to draw fine distinctions between occasional looting and willful vandalism or claimed that stragglers and shirkers had been largely responsible.29
This is not to say that all (or even most) enlisted men looted or that all (or even most) officers looked the other way. In one house owned by a staunch Rebel who happened to be the brother-in-law of their commander, Brig. Gen. Alfred Sully, some Minnesotans safeguarded valuable portraits painted by the general’s father, famous artist Thomas Sully. Homes used as officers’ quarters suffered little damage; a few houses even received guards. During the heavy fighting on December 13 scattered cavalry and provost guards prevented looting. Provost General Patrick fumed over the breakdown in discipline and lashed out with his riding crop at one fellow caught carrying off a great load of carpeting and bedding. He sent one hapless group of officers with “Mantle Ornaments hanging at their saddles” back to Hooker’s headquarters, though it is doubtful that Fighting Joe cared.30
A fair numbers of soldiers, who could hardly believe that the fortunes of war respected neither gender nor age, were appalled at what they had witnessed. For men who had grown up husbanding their resources and property, watching the wanton destruction of valuables and ordinary household items was almost more than they could stand. Children’s toys scattered about in the wreckage especially unnerved family men. Others were distressed when looters cleaned their guns with ladies’ silken gowns. Surgeons and even chaplains had reportedly joined the vandals. One volunteer believed the sack of Fredericksburg had been “done in a manner worthy of the Gothic of the Goths or the hungrish of the Huns.”31
One Regular was especially disgusted that the pillaging had been carried out by the Army of the Potomac: “I am ashamed to be considered an officer belonging to it.” Men shuddered to think that such wholesale devastation might be repeated elsewhere. Some soldiers naturally claimed that neither they nor their regiment had joined in the vandalism.32 Perhaps guilty consciences masked the truth, but especially in the more sober aftermath of a great battle, men had a chance to ponder their behavior. Some did not like what they had discovered about their comrades or themselves.
Victims of the bombardment and sack neither philosophized nor analyzed the Federals’ conduct; instead they inventoried their property. Estimates for household goods damaged or stolen ranged from a few to several thousand dollars per household. Citizens itemized missing furniture, crockery, silverware, clothing, sheets, books, and food. Nearly anything had been fair game. Emilie Caldwell had lost paintings, carpeting, wineglasses, sauce tureens, and a dressing gown; her list went on for two full pages. By contrast Lucy Southard counted up ordinary household items, including “every piece of clothing my [five] children had except what they had on.” Several people claimed to have lost nearly everything. “I can tell you much better what they left, than what they destroyed,” one man observed ruefully. Reports of the destruction plunged those civilians who had fled before the bombardment into even greater despair.33
Profound sadness often alternated with intense anger. In one widely circulated anecdote a Federal general solicitously offered a woman safe passage across the Rappahannock. Indignantly spurning the suggestion, she claimed to have “no more business beyond that river than a Yankee has in heaven.” An equally feisty matron cheered on a group of Confederate artillerymen, “Give it to the d—d rascals, boys.” Even respectable ladies might be excused for using strong language, but bravado could hardly conceal the growing realization that life would not get back to normal any time soon. Another sad fact, as a few civilians conceded, was that earlier Confederate occupations of Fredericksburg had also taken a toll, and now the Yankees had cleaned almost everyone out.34
Confederate soldiers, already sympathetic to the refugees, grew livid over the sack of Fredericksburg. “A monument to the barbarity of the abolitionists,” fumed a young staff officer. Only “savages” would have destroyed the local YMCA library, one of Barksdale’s men raged. Bitterness overflowed in words such as “Goths,” “Vandals,” and “scoundrels.”35
These latest outrages reconfirmed stock Confederate images of Federal malevolence. Gruesome tales of civilian suffering immediately became staples of unofficial propaganda. Reporters and soldiers writing to the newspapers offered stock yarns of brave young women breathing patriotic fire against the cruel Yankees. Besides printing long lists of items destroyed, the press harped on the sightings of bluecoats accoutered in women’s pilfered clothing. The Federals now seemed capable of the most heinous crimes, even stealing Bibles. Letter writers only hinted at even darker offenses, letting their readers’ imaginations fill in the details. The Yankees had even desecrated the churches, claimed a member of the 7th South Carolina under the pseudonym “Stuart.” They had “covered the walls with ribaldry and vulgarisms too obscene to be repeated.” In a Georgia newspaper “Tivoli” reported that “all sorts of insulting and filthy deeds were performed in conspicuous places where they could not help but meet the eye and disgust the senses.”36
Spirited editorials drew inflammatory conclusions. The pillage of Fredericksburg was the “most infamous crime ever perpetrated upon this continent,” declared the usually temperate Richmond Daily Dispatch. The Federal army, showing its true character, had become little better than a “barbarous horde of Bedouin Arabs.” The typical Yankee, the editor continued, was “a compound of cant, cunning, treachery, avarice, cruelty, and cowardice, mingled in such nice proportions that it is hard to tell which predominate.” The semiofficial voice of the Davis administration, the Richmond Daily Enquirer, claimed that the “councils of Hell” summoning up “the worst spirits of the damned” could hardly have done more damage to helpless Fredericksburg than the “Union restoring Yankees.” Even reasonably sophisticated readers came to believe the Federals capable of nearly any imaginable outrage.37
At the time it was easy to believe that the devastation of Fredericksburg had pushed the war to a new level of destructiveness and cruelty. Even some of the Federals conceded that a fearful precedent had been set. The meaning of noncombatant appeared to be in flux. However much they might condemn their enemies’ wanton disregard for civilian lives and property, Confederates must also have wondered if this war would any longer be fought solely between the contending armies.
* * *
Those armies, however, now stood on the brink of combat. In the late afternoon of December 12, Burnside, still working to complete his battle plans, rode out with Franklin, Reynolds, and Smith to examine his lines south of Fredericksburg and get some sense of Confederate troop positions.38 Franklin and the other generals proposed having the First and Sixth Corps launch a massive assault against Lee’s right flank; they also pressed Burnside to bring two Third Corps divisions across to protect the bridges. This plan would have required considerable shifting of forces during the evening and into the night, and for the moment Burnside would not endorse it. He left Franklin and the others with a promise to issue orders later and, after visiting other generals, returned to his own headquarters around midnight.39
Burnside’s own thinking is difficult to reconstruct, but he must have realized that any element of surprise had been lost. More importantly, Lee had received precious time to summon Jackson’s Division. He would be able to muster some 80,000 men against the Federals’ 120,000. Despite the delays, however, Burnside still evidently hoped to seize part of the recently constructed military road at some point near Hamilton’s Crossing, thus forcing the Confederates to abandon their defensive line. Unfortunately most of his top commanders were beginning to have serious doubts. Perhaps Burnside lacked the tenacity and strength of character necessary to push forward a battle plan in the face of obstacles and diversions.
Whether Lee had yet taken Burnside’s measure is uncertain, but he seemed quietly confident as he reconnoitered the Confederates lines. To one anonymous observer the neatly dressed, sturdily erect Confederate chieftain appeared quite “calm and composed.” His December 12 dispatches to the War Department matter-of-factly reported the crossing of enemy troops and then went on to other things, including suggestions on the transfer of forces along the Carolina coast.40 His sangfroid was contagious. Longstreet shuffled brigades around, and McLaws, thoroughly familiar with the ground to his front, extended his lines below Marye’s Heights. “We waited for the enemy with perfect calmness and with confidence in our ability to repel them,” he later wrote. On the left of the Confederate line a lieutenant in Anderson’s Division deemed the Rebel position unassailable: “It would be like murder to kill them [advancing Federals] in such a place.”41
In several ways, however, the strength of the Confederate left could be a decidedly mixed blessing. After all, these formidable positions could just as easily deter as incite an attack. The real weakness of the Rebel defenses, as Lee and his generals recognized, was on the right toward Hamilton’s Crossing. As the Federals tramped across the pontoons on the morning of December 12, Lee ordered up A. P. Hill from near the Yerby House to occupy the area being vacated by Hood between Deep Run and Hamilton’s Crossing. Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro, commanding Stonewall’s old division, would advance from Guiney Station in support of Hill.
Having arisen at 4:00 A.M., Jackson later joined Lee and Stuart in checking out the ground. About noon, at Lee’s request, Jackson ordered Early, still at Skinker’s Neck, and D. H. Hill, then guarding the river near Port Royal, to rejoin the rest of the corps. Jackson told D. H. Hill that he expected the real attack to fall on the right, and the prospect excited him. Watching the troops moving into line, Old Jack began to whistle—a rarity for that straitlaced commander and likely a sign of eagerness for combat. He seemed impatient and repeatedly dispatched couriers to check on the progress of Early and D. H. Hill. Guards placed along the approaches to Fredericksburg enforced Draconian orders against straggling. Surgeons would examine men claiming illness, and shirkers would be given a cavalry escort to the “first major-general whose command was going into the fight, to place them in [the] front and most exposed portion of his command.” Although a few soldiers deserted and more than 500 men would be sent in under guard over the next two days, one of Jackson’s staff officers attested that many soldiers were spoiling for a fight, convinced they could “trounce Mr. Lincoln’s people well.”42
Jackson’s troops advancing toward Hamilton’s Crossing were not necessarily looking forward to doing battle, however. A. P. Hill’s men noticed surgeons scouting locations for field hospitals. To one of Hood’s soldiers these arriving troops resembled a funeral procession. A lieutenant in Early’s division tramping along in the cold and dark was saddened about heading into a slaughter pen with so many men unprepared to meet their maker. Thoughts of blood and death naturally oppressed many Rebels, but just as on the other side, putting up a brave front remained important. Pointing to women and children still leaving Fredericksburg, a member of Brig. Gen. James H. Lane’s brigade shouted, “Look at that fellows. If that will not make a Southern man fight, what will?”43
Uncertainty about whether the rest of Stonewall’s brigades would arrive in time caused some anxious moments. Early’s division had to travel some fifteen miles, and because the orders were not received until late afternoon, the men would still be marching after midnight.44 The orders for D. H. Hill arrived near sundown; his troops would have to travel roughly twenty miles over poor roads. “The march that night was one of the hardest I ever saw,” a Tar Heel captain informed his father. The roads were “jammed with wagon trains & artillery some mired down, broken & capsized.” Men trudged along cursing, stumbling into stragglers, losing their regiments, and then doublequicking to catch up. Many outfits did not reach their camps (a few miles from Hamilton’s Crossing) until 3:00 A.M. on December 13. At best, soldiers caught an hour or two of sleep in the woods. A member of the Richmond Howitzers found the experience surreal: “Here an army ill-fed, ill-clothed, and worse paid, is rushing with a sort of frenzied delight towards . . . a terrible battle-field.” But his amazement reflected the remarkable fact that morale in the Army of Northern Virginia remained high regardless of shortages and exposure. These men would fight, and eagerly at that.45 Yet Lee and Jackson were still operating with an extremely thin margin of error. As Franklin and other Federal generals clearly recognized, the Confederate right presented a tempting target, but Burnside had not struck quickly enough.
* * *
On the night of December 12, Rebels and Yankees speculated about these matters, worried about tomorrow, or tried not to think about it. After an unusually warm day the temperature fell into the thirties after sundown. One Confederate considered it a typical Virginia evening for that time of year: “enough frost in the atmosphere to make a glowing fire agreeable; enough to freeze the top crust of mud in the roads,” though Kershaw later reported that with no fires permitted, one picket froze to death. Soldiers told stale camp jokes and laughed uproariously to cover their nervousness. Each man, however, had to find his own way to calm prebattle jitters. Alcohol might help, but even for officers whiskey was hard to come by. Stonewall Jackson wrapped himself in an overcoat and sat quietly reading his Bible.46
As for the Yankees, many of them had spent the day sacking the town, and the vandalism continued well into the evening. Consequently the Union forces experienced a much wider range of comfort and discomfort on the eve of battle. At one extreme Franklin and the staff officers from the First and Sixth Corps luxuriated at Mannsfield, a two-story Georgian house owned by wealthy slaveholder Arthur Bernard, whom General Reynolds had ordered arrested and shipped off to Aquia Landing. The house had fine paintings, a spacious library, and a well-furnished drawing room with a warm coal fire and nicely lit candelabras. “I for once thanked my stars that I was a staff officer,” admitted Col. Charles Wainwright, chief of artillery for the First Corps.47
On the crowded streets of Fredericksburg few soldiers enjoyed such sumptuous accommodations. With fires generally forbidden, many men had only cold rations for supper. Amateur musicians continued to pound out tunes on pianos that had been dragged outdoors. Regimental bands occasionally chimed in with “Hail Columbia” or “The Star-Spangled Banner.”48
The chilly night air penetrated to the bone as fog again lay heavily on the town. A Rhode Island corporal, praying the new day would come soon, recalled kicking the ground to keep the blood circulating in his toes. The unfortunates on picket duty crawled back to their bivouacs stiff from the dampness. Morning would find blankets frozen to the ground. A few horrified fellows discovered in dawn’s light that they had slept among dead Rebels.49 But whether in featherbeds or a hayloft; stretched out on a mattress, cornstalks, a brush heap, or fence boards; or lying in a gutter, many of the bone-tired men finally fell asleep. Some were even comfortable. Despite the mud and frost, a member of the Irish Brigade “slept as sound i think as ever i slept in my life.” One hopeful Pennsylvanian was determined to dream of “onward to Richmond.”50
Thinking kept many others awake. For soldiers going into their first fight, vague notions of combat derived from textbook accounts, romantic tales, and perhaps boyhood dreams of heroism had been at least partially dispelled by disillusioned veterans. Yet a striking contrast remained between soldiers eager for the fray and those who would go forward compelled only by absolute necessity.51 Even inexperienced troops glancing toward the Confederate positions knew the next day’s battle would be bloody. What would it cost to storm the Rebel batteries so menacingly visible on the high ground or the more concealed positions near Hamilton’s Crossing? One Hoosier dreaded “rushing” toward a “slaughter pen”; a nameless private sardonically remarked to a Cincinnati reporter that the Johnnies had not minded the Federals getting into Fredericksburg but getting out would be an entirely different matter. If the Confederates still seemed unsure about their enemies’ intentions, the Union forces remained equally uncertain and considerably more fearful about what lay ahead. Perhaps Lee had lured Burnside’s troops across the Rappahannock and now planned to destroy them.52
Such general forebodings, however, gave way to a focused concern for the particular individual’s fate. Getting “hit” was something most soldiers thought of on the eve of battle. Some would even dream about suffering a horrible wound. As a Connecticut volunteer mused, many men would die the next day, but the nagging question remained, “Will it be me?” Perhaps God would spare his life, and he could hope and trust that he might be permitted to return home someday. Yet he concluded his diary entry, “It may be the last time I shall write and if so will he who finds it please send this last token to my uncle.” Some soldiers claimed to have premonitions about not surviving the morrow and instructed comrades about sending their effects to the home folks. After one doctor in the 55th New York repeatedly declared, “I am a dead man,” an exasperated colonel ordered him to a hospital in the rear.53
As always, there were thoughts of home—thoughts that might not only calm nerves but also give the troops something to fight for. A fastidious New Jersey colonel told his wife what to do should he be wounded or killed, including details on the recovery and burial of his body. With such matters arranged, he could steel himself for the big fight. Other soldiers simply put up a brave front for their families. “You must not worry about me, Libbie,” one of Howard’s men advised his wife. “For you know I have been, as you say, lucky, thus far and I feel I shall continue to be.” Whether this sounded cheerful or fatalistic was uncertain, but other soldiers sought more solid reassurance. One devout volunteer whose parents were reportedly notorious swearers and drinkers gathered much of his company together for prayer. He was prepared to die and hoped that each comrade was ready to meet his maker.54
While his soldiers settled down for the night, General Burnside continued to prepare orders for the next day. At last he would carry out his attack, and maybe then he could escape the relentless political pressure or even prove to the McClellan faction his fitness for command. That those orders would consign many men to their deaths—a thought that had certainly crossed the minds of the soldiers in their chilly bivouacs—simply meant that those godly souls praying for the Almighty’s protection had better do so even more fervently.