We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.
—General Nathanael Greene
For the Army of the Potomac, December 13 could not end soon enough. In the early afternoon, with several hours of daylight left, Burnside had plenty more troops to funnel into the deathtrap on the outskirts of Fredericksburg. While many of his generals realized the impossibility of the situation, Burnside continued to function in both a physical and mental fog. As with many genuinely modest individuals, Burnside’s apparent indecisiveness at times cloaked a stubborn doggedness. Unfortunately that stubbornness now overruled his good judgment. At Antietam McClellan had refused to press his attacks; Burnside would not make that mistake. Instead he would keep fruitlessly pounding away at the Confederate line. Unable to think calmly, he refused to modify his tactics and kept insisting that Marye’s Heights must be taken. Reports from the field or the advice of subordinates now carried little weight, especially if such advice came from Joe Hooker.1
Hooker had been in a foul mood since midmorning after he learned that Birney’s and Sickles’s divisions had been detached from the Third Corps to support Franklin. He would have “nothing to act with” when the time came to support Sumner’s attack, he complained to Burnside. Furthermore, he did not want Franklin to command his men. Rebuffed, the general became sullen and uncooperative. Burnside’s secretary described him as “ungentle-manly and unpatriotic” throughout the day.2
Matters came to a head when Burnside ordered Hooker to reinforce Sumner. According to Hooker’s later testimony, this was a fool’s errand because a prisoner that morning had told several generals, including Burnside and Sumner, that the Confederates were just hoping the Federals would be reckless enough to attack along the Telegraph Road. Whether or not this was true, Hooker lacked faith in his mission and commander. After consulting with French, Hancock, Willcox, and Couch and personally reconnoitering the ground, Hooker sent an aide back to Burnside requesting the orders be canceled. Not only were many of the troops demoralized, he thought, but the Confederate positions were impregnable. The aide soon returned reporting Burnside’s insistence that the attack proceed, but Hooker galloped back to the Phillips House to protest in person. Fretting about the waste of precious time, Burnside testily repeated the order. Hooker reportedly strode through the rooms roundly cursing, his words and tone bordering on insubordination.3
Under orders from Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield (commanding the Fifth Corps), Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin’s division had begun crossing the river, with the first regiments deploying in the streets around 2:00 P.M. Others in the chain of command such as Griffin, a capable soldier and opinionated member of the McClellan clique, shared the doubts of Hooker and other ranking generals. While bringing artillery into position and noticing some infantry pass by, he reportedly snarled, “There goes one of my brigades to hell, and the other two will soon follow.”4
That was exactly where they were headed. At 3:30 P.M. Butterfield ordered Griffin to support Sturgis. This fresh division, relief for Ferrero’s battered men, soon fell victim to a fatal misapprehension. Somehow Butterfield got the idea that some of Couch’s men had carried the heights and that Sturgis’s troops were no longer receiving return fire. Butterfield passed the word along to Hooker. One dispatch reported Butterfield sending in Griffin—his “right bower”—but any euchre player would have recognized that even this powerful card could take but one trick, and at this point the hand (and likely the game) was lost.5
Moving toward Sturgis’s men, who lay on the rising ground southeast of the stone wall, Col. Joseph A. Barnes’s brigade marched along the railroad, crossed the railroad cut, and entered a storm of artillery shells and then the deadly rifle fire. In the noise and confusion, first one regiment and then another appeared to “lead” the brigade forward. The whirring of shells might temporarily clear the mind, one officer observed, and even spur a spirited charge. But the fresh troops fared no better than their predecessors. Running into a board fence, some soldiers tried to knock it to pieces with their clubbed muskets. Once past this obstacle, the men might get off three or four rounds before their lines “became completely riddled and disorganized.” To make matters worse, the 18th Massachusetts drifted to the right and became separated from the rest of the brigade. Three times scattered groups of men inched forward but never very far. Some soldiers supposedly passed 50 yards beyond the farthest point reached by Sturgis’s troops, though they soon fell back toward the fence or flopped to the ground. A lieutenant in the 18th Massachusetts claimed that only 47 men (of an original 300) reached the assault’s high-water mark. Conscientious officers broke under the strain. “Colonel [Joseph] Hayes threw his arms about me and almost cried at this wicked murder,” another young officer told his father. “It is no satisfaction to me that I led brave men to useless death.”6
Conspicuous bravery, however, was not necessarily the rule in a brigade with apparently few textbook soldiers. Members of the 118th Pennsylvania, the famous “Corn Exchange” regiment, lingered over some tobacco found on the wharf. Even officers stopped to snatch up souvenirs from looted buildings.7 Several men laughed nervously as a “colored servant” was thrown into the air by an exploding shell. Remembering their recent bloody encounter with some of Lee’s retreating forces after Antietam, the troops forming on the streets showed “some hesitancy and unsteadiness,” according to the regimental historian. Yet they finally joined the advance, uneasily eyed wounded soldiers huddled near the brick kiln, and stumbled through the fences. It seemed to one company officer that each man was on his own, and even the progress made to this point had at best been halting. “This is awful,” one soldier cried as he saw the regiment’s major hit in the arm. Disorganized and demoralized, some men buried their faces in the mud, barely attempting to fire toward the stone wall. Others scurried back to the brick kiln as some officers either drifted toward town or tried to find their men.8
Barnes’s troops, like many others, had seen badly wounded men streaming to the rear well before they had left the sheltering streets. Members of the 22nd Massachusetts stood aghast as they watched a soldier running toward them, blood spurting from his throat, until he fell near one of the bridges. No one stopped to succor him. The Massachusetts regiment had already come across several dead men from Nagle’s badly mauled 12th Rhode Island, but now they had to confront the horrors firsthand. As one dauntless fellow tried to lead them forward, a shell spattered his brains over his comrades. The poor sufferer “was gasping in that peculiar, almost indescribable way that a mortally wounded man has,” wrote one soldier, “I shall never forget the pleading expression, speechless yet imploring.”
Blinded by flying dirt and gravel, the Bay Staters reached the limits of endurance. With sweat rolling down their faces, a few soldiers yelled, cursed, and fired, but most hit the ground. Aside from the pervading smell of death, Massachusetts men soon sniffed other pungent odors. In their haste to hit the ground, they had reached an area used as a sink by other troops. But few dared to move when the bullets buzzed about like bees, brushing clothes, hitting flesh, wounding, and killing. The unhurt and wounded alike lay in the mud trying to catch their breath, likely cursing the generals who had sent them into this little corner of hell.9
Yet it could have been much worse because Griffin’s men were advancing just as some shifting of Confederate infantry and artillery reduced Rebel rates of fire. Pickett’s troops had been idle all day; but around 2:00 P.M. Longstreet had ordered two of the Virginian’s brigades to reinforce Ransom and McLaws, and several regiments came into position about the time of Barnes’s advance.10 On Marye’s Heights the Washington Artillery had been hotly engaged ever since the first late-morning assaults. An occasional Federal artillery round would tear into their redoubts, and stray rifle fire from Yankee infantry also proved pesky. One corporal dropped dead when a bullet entered his spine; several other wounded gunners were quickly replaced. When they were nearly out of ammunition, Alexander brought up nine guns to relieve them, but the crews and horses attracted considerable fire. Even worse, the entire column briefly ground to a halt when the lead gun overturned on a narrow road. Seeing Confederate batteries being withdrawn, the Yankees began to cheer, contributing to the false impression that their attacks were succeeding. The respite, however, was limited because other Confederate batteries to the left and right continued to pour in enfilading fire.11
Sumner and Hooker swung some of their artillery into action and for a time made a fight of it with Alexander’s fresh gunners. On the left Griffin placed the 5th Battery (E), Massachusetts Light Artillery, between the brick-yard and the poorhouse. The New Englanders drew Rebel fire but, even with their guns badly recoiling in the mud, sent more than 100 rounds toward the Confederate lines.12 Just as Barnes’s men began advancing, two of Sumner’s batteries came into position to the left of Hanover Street beyond the mill-race. “I would rather lose my guns than my men,” General Couch shouted when his artillery chief cautioned against this move. Capt. John G. Hazard’s Rhode Islanders were only 150 yards from the stone wall and got off a few well-aimed shots, disabling at least one Rebel gun, but within no more than thirty minutes, fifteen horses and sixteen men (including Hazard and two other officers) were out of action. A New York battery unlimbered to the left and rear, relatively sheltered from enemy fire.13 Regardless of a commander’s skill, the Federal artillery in the Fredericksburg streets and on the plain beyond inflicted little damage on the well-protected Confederates.
Yet to many soldiers these tactical details hardly mattered. Like many battles, this one had assumed a life of its own. Pious men might perceive the divine hand at work, and even without teleological explanations, it seemed that the course of the fight had passed beyond human control. Still more Union troops were now crowding onto the field. Just as Griffin’s first brigade advanced, Brig. Gen. Amiel Whipple (whose Third Corps division had crossed the river that morning to support Howard’s division) sent Col. Samuel S. Carroll’s small brigade to relieve Sturgis. The regiments swung around to Griffin’s left, into and mercifully out of the deadly railroad cut. Pressing uphill, these troops managed to gain ground but at horrific cost. Even when the men, bayonets fixed, moved at the double-quick, Confederate artillery rounds tore holes in the formations, and once the bluecoats were within range of the stone wall, Rebel infantry stopped them cold. “As to firing my gun,” a member of the 110th Pennsylvania told his sister, “I got wounded before we were allowed to fire.” Even so, some men exhibited extraordinary bravery. One captain fell early in the charge, shot through the lungs, but still he urged his comrades forward. He even asked that his wife be told that he had died “defending the rights, liberties, and Flag” of his “bleeding country.”14
Many others would soon have that privilege. By 4:30 P.M., with daylight fading on one of the year’s shortest days, with Barnes’s brigade already used up, and with Carroll’s brigade blown apart, Griffin received orders to assault the Confederate line. Col. Jacob B. Sweitzer’s brigade of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan troops drew this hopeless assignment. The men advanced under enfilading artillery fire and apparently passed beyond most of Barnes’s regiments, but they were forced to take shelter in the swale already packed with men from the previous assaults. Troops on the ground and stragglers stumbling toward the rear hardly encouraged the new arrivals. But some of Sweitzer’s men fired away at the Confederate lines, only dimly seen in the gathering dusk. Amidst the smoke, noise, and general chaos, orders became confused (or were defied or simply could not be heard), and companies got turned around.
Like other Union attacks, this one extracted a high price. In the 32nd Massachusetts one of every ten men was either killed or wounded within ten minutes. A member of the 14th New York saw men fall on both sides and remained convinced years later that a fervent prayer the night before the battle had led God to spare his life. How else could he explain why some survived without a scratch when so many others were hit? Disorganization added to the bloody toll. Casualties climbed higher as panicky officers first ordered men to lie down, then to move forward, and then to come back. “Words cannot tell,” a badly shaken Michigan volunteer scrawled in his diary that evening as he tried to sleep among the dead and dying.15
Attacking by brigades for much of the day had chewed up entire divisions. The dead were piled up in front of the stone wall, and hundreds of wounded men lay in the fields, ditches, or buildings. Survivors hung on hoping for relief or simply nightfall.16 Unfortunately Griffin would send in his last brigade right after sunset. Could he have believed that throwing one more brigade into this swirling, bleeding mass would somehow break the Confederate line? This last effort would only round out the division’s killed and wounded at the 1,000 mark.
A bugle call signaled Col. Thomas B. W. Stockton’s men to join the fray, but two New York regiments failed to hear it. The troops were supposed to cross the millrace and move toward the swale, though this maneuver had no discernible purpose. One problem was that these men had already witnessed several futile assaults and had taken casualties of their own while waiting in the lower end of Fredericksburg near the railroad. Not surprisingly, an officer in the 20th Maine muttered, “God help us now,” as the movement began and his men were struck by Rebel artillery rounds. Despite gardens, fences, ditches, and sardonic shouts from survivors of earlier assaults, some of Stockton’s soldiers managed to reach the front and fired ineffectively toward the stone wall. Mercifully, the spreading darkness reduced the casualties, though with so many fragmented regiments scattered about, some of the losses must have come from friendly fire.17
Soldiers later confessed that they never expected to get off the field alive. A member of the 44th New York claimed, in proverbial fashion, that he would happily have given his right arm to escape with his life. In fact, two of his comrades lost their left arms, and others in the regiment sacrificed legs as well.18 Even in accounts written years later, the sheer desperation and hopelessness of these final attacks appeared obvious. Neither officers nor enlisted men had much faith in what they were doing; it seemed as if they moved forward because the generals could not figure out anything else to do. Many boys entering combat for the first time aged rapidly in only a few minutes.
None suffered more than Brig. Gen. Andrew Atkinson Humphreys’s division of recently recruited Pennsylvanians. These 4,500 troops had not yet “seen the elephant,” and so many eagerly anticipated their first fight. Still crediting hazy reports that Couch’s men were gaining ground (likely based on the sudden withdrawal of the Washington Artillery), Butterfield ordered Humphreys forward at about the same time Griffin moved to support Sturgis. The crest must be carried, Burnside kept insisting, and now much of Hooker’s command was engaged or about to be.19 Humphreys’s men would take roughly the same route as French’s and Hancock’s. In the gloaming, artillery support meant little; Confederate gunners waited on hills that were now barely visible.
An often sickly topographical engineer, Humphreys was nevertheless a dashing commander. To his troops he epitomized coolness in the heat of battle. After riding with a column of men out Hanover Street, he sat calmly issuing orders with a cigar planted firmly in his mouth. In the twilight he inspected the millrace and even approached the swale that sheltered survivors. Apparently convinced that his brave boys could take the heights, Humphreys enthusiastically prepared to send them into the fight.20
Unfortunately Humphreys’s flare for the dramatic overrode his judgment. Even worse, so did his romantic, outmoded notions of warfare. “I led the charge and bared my head,” he bragged to his wife, “raising my right arm to heaven, the setting sun shining full upon my face gave me an aspect of an inspired being.” He even admitted being “egotistical” but then continued in the same vein: “I felt gloriously, and as the storm of bullets whistled around me . . . the excitement grew more glorious still.” To a friend he later wrote of feeling “more like a god than a man.” His sentiments were gratifying, except that he led what a Harper’s Weekly artist later dubbed the “forlorn hope.” Even the weakest young men would not be left guarding knapsacks this time; instead they would advance into a nightmare.21
Just as these Pennsylvanians were forming in the streets for the third time that afternoon, Couch urgently requested their assistance. Humphreys rode out with Col. Peter H. Allabach’s brigade. In the smoke and fading light the troops could not see far ahead, but after crossing the millrace, they gathered under the protection of the bluff. At this point hoping that one rapid thrust would cleave the Rebel lines, Humphreys ordered a bayonet charge—officers in front. With regiments aligned two abreast, Allabach inspected his lines trying to make sure the men’s guns were not loaded. Meanwhile Humphreys announced in a mock heroic tone more suitable for the drawing room than the battlefield, “Gentlemen, I shall lead this charge. I presume, of course you will wish to ride with me?”22
After advancing 200 yards under artillery fire, Allabach’s lead regiments halted in confusion when they stumbled onto remnants of Howard’s division lying on the ground. Most of the Pennsylvanians quickly joined these troops, and some began firing contrary to orders. Survivors recalled the terrific noise, and a corporal admitted that “the thought of momentary death rushed upon us as the work of carnage began, and it required every exertion to hush the unbidden fears of my mind.” Even official reports and regimental histories, which usually present an orderly view of battle, could not help but reflect the chaotic moments of sheer terror. Humphreys and other officers wanted the Second Corps troops withdrawn, but they could barely get their own soldiers to stop popping away into the falling darkness.23
“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.” This simple but not quite accurate statement from a private in the 131st Pennsylvania ignored the most unexpected problem Humphreys’s men encountered: the survivors of earlier attacks sprawled on the ground in front of them. Such obstacles can impede, and these obstacles were not inert. Pockets of demoralized soldiers from Howard’s, French’s, and Hancock’s divisions warned of certain death and by grabbing at trousers, shirts, canteens, or haversacks tried to stop the Pennsylvanians from charging toward that damned stone wall.24
Humphreys’s men should have heeded these cries because Porter Alexander’s guns had the range of any regiments that dared creep beyond the swale. From behind the stone wall the Georgians and Carolinians kept up a steady fire as men in the rear ranks loaded and passed guns to the front. Although Griffin’s and Humphreys’s nearly simultaneous assaults put Long-street’s troops under more pressure than at any other time that day, the lines held. A member of the 2nd South Carolina recaptured the scene: “At every advance we waited... until they got near us, when on knees or in stooping posture we would rise, and fire with terrible effect—stoop, reload, and fire again.... There could be but one result.”25
Not yet realizing the hopelessness of the situation, Humphreys tried to force Allabach’s frightened men to their feet for a grand bayonet charge. This required some prodigious swearing, especially when Confederate fire cut down his favorite horse (he would soon lose a second mount). To some observers Humphreys seemed perfectly calm as he shouted for the boys to give the Rebels “cold steel” because “that’s what the rascals want.”26
The attack itself—a weak charge and a feeble second effort that made little headway—belied such melodramatic descriptions. Regiments overlapped and divided, with companies scattering in different directions. “There was very little for any officer to do,” a captain in the 131st Pennsylvania admitted. “The men did everything.” Rebel artillery and infantry seemed to concentrate on Allabach’s poor men, knocking staff officers from their horses, striking color guards, and mowing down hundreds of soldiers. Reverting to a cliché, albeit apt, Humphreys reported, “The stone wall was a sheet of flame.” After being engaged fifteen minutes, a corporal in the 133rd Pennsylvania, lying in six inches of mud, felt perfectly calm and kept firing. Other men, however, “skedaddled,” and regimental commanders reported several cases of “cowardice.” Or was it simply good sense? Remnants of companies and regiments fell back in confusion, making it impossible for officers to hold positions beyond the swale.27
Even the failure of Allabach’s charge did not end the attack. With Hooker praising the Pennsylvanians’ gallantry, and with Butterfield and Burnside insisting the heights be carried, Humphreys brought up his remaining brigade. Col. Erastus B. Tyler, a onetime fur dealer from Ohio who had risen quickly to brigade command, would lead his regiments two abreast over roughly the same ground covered by Allabach. Under command to advance with bayonets fixed and not to fire unless ordered, these soldiers also had to pass over Second Corps troops. With officers twelve paces to the front, a bugle sounded the charge. But Tyler’s men, despite some display of enthusiasm, soon ran into a familiar obstacle: men lying on the ground crying out that the Pennsylvanians were heading toward certain death. A few officers even brandished swords to halt the advance. Tyler’s first two regiments stepped over these troops but soon came under fire from the rear.28
Compared to fire from the front, this was a minor problem because Confederates behind the stone wall shot down scores of Pennsylvanians. What little impetus the attack had now disappeared. The formations came apart. The 126th Pennsylvania maneuvered past the Stratton House, a two-story brick Greek Revival structure that had already become a collection point for survivors from the previous assaults, but fences impeded further progress. Confused by the thick smoke and near-darkness, the Federals fired several volleys and fell back behind the swale.
For a time it seemed like nearly everyone had been hit. A second lieutenant in the 126th Pennsylvania saw men dropping on all sides with their “groans and shouts commingling with the roar and whistle of shell, the crack of musketry & whiz of bullets.” Confessing he had no idea what to do, one young officer faced the ultimate terror: “I do honestly believe some of the bullets were not more than one inch from my face. I was expecting to fall every minute.” A sergeant in the 134th Pennsylvania described a “withering fire” with bullets shaking a small tree “as if by a wind.” At times Yankee rounds wreaked havoc in their own ranks. A group of men from Company K, 129th Pennsylvania, would jump up and fire every time they saw a Rebel cannon flash in the dusk. Officers’ shouts of “cease firing” came too late, and some poor wounded Federal, likely stranded during an earlier assault, crawled back toward the lines.29
Humphreys’s men had been engaged at least fifteen minutes, perhaps a half-hour, and maybe over an hour under artillery fire, long enough at any rate to pile up more than 1,000 casualties. Company officers had fallen at an appalling rate. Every regiment had noble young men killed or wounded, fine fellows remembered for their devotion to duty and good cheer, men with worried families back home, men who had predicted they would be among the first to be hit. For the survivors, the loss of beloved comrades gave human meaning to stark numbers. The division’s official list of casualties filled more than fifteen closely written pages.30
It is hard to believe, but even this “forlorn hope” would not be the last assault on the Confederate lines that day. Around 5:00 P.M. Willcox had ordered Brig. Gen. George W. Getty’s division to advance toward the left of the stone wall to relieve pressure on the Union right. Getty had been in the army since the 1840s, but more than half his troops had not yet engaged in battle. They had already witnessed considerable carnage, including several men ripped apart by shells, while spending the morning and early afternoon in the lower part of Fredericksburg along the railroad near the gas works. “I saw on either side death in its most horrid form,” a member of the 9th New York mused. “And I asked myself, Where is Civilization? Where is Christianity? And was consoled by the belief that man was never made to be perfect in this blackguard world.” Many other soldiers had observed the hopeless attacks and become demoralized, yet when the time came, many would go forward, however reluctantly. Shortly after he received orders to advance, Getty sent Col. Rush C. Hawkins’s brigade forward into the darkness.31
Mercifully, Confederate gunners could no longer see the Yankees heading in their direction. After crossing the tracks, Hawkins’s troops halted briefly at the railroad cut. “It looked like certain death,” one Federal later scrawled in his diary. Misunderstanding his orders, Hawkins sent the 9th New York off to support a battery.32 The remaining regiments proceeded up the slope toward the remnants of other brigades. Once close enough for the Confederates to target them in the twilight, they came under fire from their left and front. Stray shots from the rear forced men to the ground, where they fired halfheartedly toward the stone wall for about fifteen minutes. Suddenly a man in the 25th New Jersey screamed that they would all be taken prisoner, and the companies on the left broke for the rear; some apparently trampled members of the 89th New York in the process. Many enlisted men took this as the signal to crawl back to the millrace. Regimental officers naturally claimed that other regiments had shown the white feather, but in truth, maneuvering, much less attacking, was impossible. Darkness and slippery footing (in part caused by blood and gore that covered the field) foreclosed any success.33
The ordeal of the 13th New Hampshire, a newly recruited regiment that had arrived from Washington just days before, epitomized this final phase of the engagement. As the day had worn on, some men wondered about even getting into the fight, and one lieutenant had remarked about the setting sun: “I wish I could get up there and kick that thing down.” But he eventually had to bring his men into column and march toward the noise. Hit by artillery fire before they reached the railroad embankment (some soldiers claimed there was more danger from errant Federal shells than from enemy rounds), the men marveled at the gun flashes from both sides eerily intruding on twilight’s usual calm. Even as they were receiving some last patriotic admonitions at the railroad, a few soldiers were nervously firing over the heads of other Federals lying on the ground up ahead.
Slowed by mud after they had crossed the tracks and soon entangled with the 25th New Jersey, the Granite Staters slogged through marshy ground near Hazel Run and perhaps got to within twenty yards of the stone wall before they were hit by what Col. Aaron F. Stevens called the “startling crash” of Rebel shot, shell, and bullets. One lucky fellow knocked down by an exploding shell found himself pinned in the mud by two comrades; he wiggled out from underneath only to discover that both were dead and their blood had soaked his uniform. Men threw themselves down and fired a few shots, but they could not hold this dangerous position. Some later blamed the New Jersey troops for botching the assault, though officers could no longer drive anyone forward at this point. Some clearheaded soldiers openly asked what fool had ordered them into this hell. Later a proud captain reported that every man in his company had acquitted himself well before having to retreat. Another fellow came much closer to the truth: “If it had been in the day time so that they could see our position, they would have killed about every one of us.”34 He was right.
The casualties among Hawkins’s men were about half those for the most heavily engaged brigades of Sturgis, Griffin, or Humphreys. Proportionally the division losses were even lower because Col. Edward Harland’s brigade, positioned on a ridge near the railroad, was not sent forward. A Connecticut private welcomed the sunset that ended the mad assaults and kept his regiment out of the fight. Yet even though these soldiers had been spared the ordeal before the stone wall, they wanted folks back home to know how they had marched along dangerous streets, come under artillery fire, and suffered casualties.35
These green troops had lived to tell their tales because darkness had finally ended the slaughter—almost. Around 4:00 P.M. Butterfield had assigned Brig. Gen. George Sykes’s division to form a defensive line along the millrace between Hanover Street and the Plank Road. After Humphreys’s assault failed and in part because Hooker feared a Confederate counterattack, Sykes sent Lt. Col. Robert C. Buchanan’s and Maj. George L. Andrews’s brigades to cover the Pennsylvanians’ withdrawal. Buchanan received orders to “take the enemy batteries in front at the point of the bayonet,” but these were soon countermanded. With unintended irony, two regiments occupied the city cemetery. By 6:30 P.M. Sykes’s brigades stood behind the mill-race astride Hanover Street, where they came under Confederate artillery fire. Later in the evening they advanced to relieve Howard’s men. Hooker claimed that this move came at Burnside’s insistence and led to more casualties. The soldiers, however, could hardly tell where they were (some believed they had actually charged Rebel batteries), and they spent an uncomfortable night in the mud.36
“Our men only eighty paces from the crest and holding on like hell,” Sturgis telegraphed back to Burnside’s headquarters at nightfall. Indeed, hanging on was about all the Federals could do. Exhausted, scared, hungry, thirsty, and wounded, the troops had reached the limits of endurance. It mattered not where they were—near the stone wall, along the canal ditch, or back in town. All feared that in just a few hours the battle would start anew. Survivors could barely comprehend what had happened. With tears flowing down his cheeks, General French rode through Fredericksburg searching for his boys. “Adjutant, where is my division?” he implored. “Tell me where my men are. My God, I am without a command.” While brazen thieves continued looting buildings, artillery and ammunition wagons jammed the streets. Reassembling regiments was nearly impossible. When roll was called in the 129th Pennsylvania, a wounded corporal declared himself present except “for a little of piece of me.” At this point reports of who had been killed or wounded were sketchy and unreliable. Usually talkative soldiers fell silent, except for a few mumbled words about a fallen comrade. Others prayed quietly. Most buildings, of course, had been commandeered for hospitals or officers’ quarters, so enlisted men remained outdoors. Men lay on the curbstones or pavement, trying to sleep, trying to forget.37
Desperate for rest after the day’s horrors, the men could perhaps have handled the cold (temperatures dropped into the forties after sundown) had it not been for the unearthly cries of the wounded still lying on the field. For troops close to the front, the noise was unnerving. The incessant groaning and wailing, increasing steadily in volume, was more chilling than the night air. “Piercing and horrible,” declared a lieutenant in Sykes’s division. “More than humanity can bear,” added one of Birney’s men. Some fellows shouted out their regiments in hopes that a comrade would rescue them from this dreadful night. Still more pitiable were the variety of the sounds: screams, prayers, pleas for water, curses, moans, and sighs—an atonal hymn of horror sung in various regional and ethnic accents. The agony of soldiers who had been hit engulfed those who had survived the day unscathed. The cries of such desperate men offered no solace to the badly wounded. Some simply begged to die. “My God! My God!” one poor fellow called over and over until finally his voice grew weaker and at last faded out.38
The anguish smelted war’s fierce hatred and touched chords of humanity. For the Confederates behind the stone wall or on Marye’s Heights or in the woods behind the railroad, their erstwhile enemies now appeared as simply helpless sufferers. Even crusty veterans winced at the screams of pain, further proof (if such were needed) that the supposed glories of war hardly measure up to the fearful sacrifice. Defying orders, a few Rebel soldiers brought water to wounded Federals. “I can shoot them [the Yankees] as deliberately and eagerly as ever I did any game,” a Georgia lieutenant explained, “but I can not pass a wounded man without doing what I can for him.” Slaughtering enemies while acknowledging their humanity created a painful ambivalence. The psychological hardening—natural enough for soldiers surrounded by death—remained incomplete. This was especially true because Confederates had witnessed so much Yankee bravery that day, whether in the woods on the right or in front of the murderous stone wall on the left.39
Once the sun went down, bluecoats crept onto the field to aid their fallen comrades. Flickering lights bobbed and blinked across the killing ground as small groups, including surgeons, ventured out with lanterns. In the darkness they searched for regiments by feeling for numbers on caps or calling for men from particular outfits. But then some poor wretch would cry out, “Take me. Oh, take me.” A New Jersey private in the Sixth Corps stumbled across men without heads or arms or legs. Unable to stand the sights or sounds, he gave up being a Good Samaritan and slunk back to camp.40
The wounded could hear ambulance wagons passing or the muffled conversations of rescue parties. One fellow with blood oozing from a shattered leg knew he could be saved: “Do for heaven’s sake carry me in.” In desperation and growing colder, he offered $50 and finally $100 to anyone who would help. Some Massachusetts troops, who found him dead the next morning, noted the look of “savage helplessness about the eyes” along with the clenched teeth in his “half-closed mouth.” Other men gave up the struggle for life more readily. Some begged other soldiers not to touch them, to let them die, or even to finish them off with a bullet. A lieutenant with a mangled arm and leg lay on the field for several hours before finally blowing his brains out with a revolver. Yet ambulance teams and less organized groups brought many of the wounded—often carried on boards, doors, and shutters—into town and even across the river throughout the night.41
Despite a serious shoulder wound, Private McCarter of the Irish Brigade struggled back to safety on his own. Dizzy from loss of blood, he had hugged the ground for several hours but toward dusk tried to time his movements for the intervals between Confederate volleys. Though hit in the foot along the way, he crawled downhill and finally collapsed on a rubber blanket, his body wracked by fever and overwhelmed by thirst. A friend from his own company brought water and helped McCarter into an ambulance. When the ambulance got stuck in the mud, the driver furiously beat the horses until vehicle and passengers went careening over rocks and stumps. Two men died en route, but the party finally reached a house in town filled with other wounded men. Shaking with chills, McCarter entered the library and flopped down on the floor. But his pain and the groans of seven other wounded men in the room made sleep impossible.42
McCarter had arrived at a makeshift field hospital. Churches, public buildings, and private homes overflowed with wounded men, and more lay on porches or in yards. Throughout the night blood-covered surgeons with coats off and sleeves rolled up performed emergency amputations; more elaborate procedures would have to wait for daylight. The Baptist church had eight large operating tables; in several private homes surgeons did their cutting on dining room tables. Working by candlelight (with blankets covering windows to avoid drawing fire) was both tricky and dangerous. Because ether was too flammable, surgeons used chloroform, which in any case took effect more quickly—a necessity given the sheer numbers of wounded. During the early evening stray Confederate shots occasionally interrupted the surgeons’ frantic labors.43
After working for six hours, a young Massachusetts soldier decided he never wanted to see a hospital again. One surgeon noted perceptively that those trying to save the wounded at least were too busy to ponder the day’s horrors. Sometimes, however, a sense of futility overwhelmed the most dedicated doctors. Even as they worked, the ceaseless, haunting cries of other wounded men penetrated the walls. The sufferers with nowhere else to rest lay on floors slick with water, mud, and blood. Little could be done for many of them, one surgeon confessed, and he quit at midnight, exhausted.44
Bluecoats who had somehow escaped enemy shells and bullets tried to sleep; despite the screams of the wounded, men would doze. Bodies were shoved aside or piled up to make room on the ground. Some soldiers did not discover until morning that their blankets were blood-soaked or that men who had remained quiet through the night were, in fact, dead.45
While some soldiers slept well, even sprawled out on boards and despite cold and corpses and fears of another fight the next morning, others lay awake all night. A lieutenant in Sykes’s division who had tossed his gum blanket on an “old manure heap” could not stop his mind from racing. Thoughts about the past “contrasted most disagreeably with the present.” Death almost seemed preferable to facing another day of combat. Many men simply lay on the damp ground unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about what tomorrow might bring.46
Their immediate future largely depended on Burnside and his generals. At 8:00 P.M. Butterfield gloomily reported to Hooker that everyone at Fifth Corps headquarters “seem[ed] to agree that it will be one of the most difficult of operations to carry this crest in front.” He pointed out several natural obstacles and the Confederates’ formidable defenses. Perhaps Franklin might yet force Lee to “evacuate” his defenses, but there was nothing very hopeful about this assessment. At 10:40, Butterfield sent Col. Rush Hawkins to brief Hooker and Burnside.
Earlier in the evening Burnside, along with Sumner, Hooker, and several staff officers, had dined on canned salmon, peas, and coffee at the Phillips House. At 9:00 P.M. Franklin joined the group, and a discussion of battle plans ensued. Burnside appeared oblivious to the day’s losses and deaf to advice, dramatically declaring that he would lead his old Ninth Corps the next morning in a “column of attack by regiments” against the stone wall and Marye’s Heights.
Deciding to investigate the situation himself, Burnside asked the grand division commanders to await his return. He crossed the river and met with Couch and perhaps Baldy Smith. The army commander acted energetic and cheerful but, according to Couch, also felt responsible for having led the army to a “great disaster.” Whether or not this was true, like most of his soldiers, what Burnside probably most needed was sleep.
During the commander’s absence Hawkins arrived at the Phillips House. He used a diagram to explain why the Confederate positions were impregnable. Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin grew drowsy, and one staff officer lay sprawled on a sofa; everyone fretted about Burnside’s whereabouts because he did not return until 3:00 A.M. Whether he met with Hawkins or solicited further comment from his grand division commanders is uncertain, but he did not go to bed. At 4:00 A.M. he telegraphed the president: “We hope to carry the crest today.”47
As Burnside mulled over his plans, Lee also held a council of war, fully expecting the Federals to renew their attacks the next day. Confident that any new assaults would be thrown back, Lee decided that Jackson should then counterattack against the Federal left. In light of the remarkably easy repulse of the enemy on December 13—and forgetting the temporary Federal breakthrough on the right—Lee and his generals naturally hoped to exploit their success. Chasing Burnside’s army back across the Rappahannock or even destroying it seemed possible.48
For the moment, however, it would be enough to brace for the next day’s fighting. Despite a shortage of tools, Longstreet’s men began connecting artillery positions and digging additional rifle pits. On Jackson’s front, soldiers from Gregg’s South Carolina brigade chopped down trees for crude breastworks. Throughout the night Massachusetts troops in Griffin’s division could hear the Rebels strengthening their lines. Ever the perfectionist, Porter Alexander shifted cannon about, planning to hurl incendiary shells into town should Burnside launch a night attack, and other artillerists prepared to rake ground already littered with the dead and wounded.49
Success or failure made all the difference in assessing the day’s work. “It was the prettyest battle wee ever fought,” a Georgia captain declared. If the Federals suffered through a night of gloom and fear, the Confederates noticed a beautiful moon and a restful calm. A few thoughts of home and family would be in order followed by the release of sleep. The Rebels could drift off more easily than their Yankee counterparts because they had grown even more confident of success. “Our men are in excellent spirits,” one of Pickett’s men wrote in his diary, “and expect to be victorious.”50
Across the lines too many Federals had seen the upturned faces of the dead, and most regiments had witnessed more than enough fighting already. Who could forget all those futile charges on the stone wall? Walking among the corpses in the early morning darkness, Colonel Zook, whose brigade had endured so much during Hancock’s advance, admitted that he “never felt so horribly since I was born.” Unable to sleep and deeply depressed, he hoped never to go through such a night again.51 Maybe it was better not to sleep; just wait for morning, wait for it to begin all over again.