30. United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 39–40; David Beem to his wife, January 22, 1863, Beem Papers, IHS; William W. Bennett, Narrative of the Great Revival, 243–44; Means, Waiting for Daybreak, 12–13; Weymouth, Memorial Sketch of Lieut. Edgar M. Newcomb, 111–21.
31. Sweet, Traces of War, 15–34; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 34; Samuel J. Watson, “Religion and Combat Motivation in Confederate Armies,” 41–48; Edward P. Smith, Incidents of the Christian Commission, 49–50; Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania, 53; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 39; Laderman, Sacred Remains, 98–99; German Reformed Messenger, January 7, 1863, 2. For a fine general discussion of northern soldiers coming to terms with death, see Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 138–50.
32. Holland, Pierce M. B. Young, 70; Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 177; William Rhadamanthus Montgomery, Georgia Sharpshooter, 77; OR, 582; Athens (Ga.) Southern Banner, December 17, 24, 1862; Stegeman, These Men She Gave, 78; Joseph Henry Lumpkin to his daughter, December 30, 1862, Lumpkin Papers, UG; OR, 1067–68; B&L, 3: 93–94; Confederate Soldier to “Dear Molly,” December 16–17, 1862, UDC Bound Transcripts, GDAH.
33. Slaughter, Life of Randolph Fairfax, 5–16, 34–47; Randolph Barton, Recollections, 37; James Power Smith, “With Stonewall Jackson,” 31; Minor Memoir, 136, UVa; Judith Brockenbrough McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 179; John William Jones, Christ in the Camp, 69–70. For similar themes, see Burrows, Memoirs of Lewis Minor Coleman, 3–44; Renfroe, Model Confederate Soldier, 4–16.
34. Bartol, Nation’s Hour, 3–25, 46, 53, 55, 58; John W. Ames to his mother, December 22, 1862, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Boston Daily Advertiser, December 20, 1862.
35. Richard Frederick Fuller, Chaplain Fuller, 292–93, 302–4, 310–21; Richard F. Fuller to Charles Sumner, December 15, 1862, January 19, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU; Charles Carelton Coffin, Four Years of Fighting, 150–52; Boston Evening Transcript, December 15, 1862. Funeral sermons for men with abolitionist antecedents commonly employed the antithesis between words and actions that Lincoln used so effectively in the Gettysburg Address. See Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 55–62.
36. Jack D. Welsh, Medical Histories of Union Generals, 23; Bayard, Life of Bayard, 261, 274–77, 320–23; A. J. Alexander, “Fredericksburg”; Potter, One Surgeon’s Private War, 53; December 13, 1862, Lloyd Diary, SHC; Evangelist, February 5, 1863, 2; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:279–80; McCrea, Dear Belle, 176–77; Elizabeth Blair Lee, Civil War Letters, 216; New York Tribune, December 15, 1862; Gurowski, Diary, 2:34–35; New York Herald, December 17, 1862.
37. OR, 646, 1067; Boteler, “At Fredericksburg with Stonewall,” 82; James Power Smith, “With Stonewall Jackson,” 34; McIntosh Manuscript, 11–12, SHC; Krick, “Maxcy Gregg,” 293; J. Monroe Anderson to “Dear Misses Gregg,” January 9, 1863, Gregg Papers, SCL; December 15, 1862, Hamilton Diary, FSNMP; Palmer, Address Delivered at the Funeral of General Maxcy Gregg, 3–11; Journal of the House of Representatives of South Carolina, 192–93; Charleston Daily Courier, December 15, 1862; Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1862; Francis Pickens to “Dear Miss Gregg,” December 28, 1862, Alexander Cheeves Haskell Papers, SHC. On stoic death in the Civil War era, see Saum, Popular Mood of America, 110–13; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 64–65. On the sometimes contradictory components of southern honor, see Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
38. William Calder to his mother, December 15, 1862, Calder Family Papers, SHC; D. R. E. Winn to his wife, December 18, 1862, Winn Letters, Emory; William H. Clairville to his sister, December 17, 1862, Clairville Papers, Rutgers University; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 17, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:82; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 44; E. R. Willis to his father, December 18, 1862, E. R. and McKibben Willis Letters, FSNMP; Myers, Children of Pride, 1001; DeNoon, Charlie’s Letters, 115; George M. Barnard to his father, December 16, 1862, Barnard Papers, MHS; Beidelman, Letters of George Washington Beidelman, 162.
39. William M. Sheppard to his wife, December 17, 1862, Sheppard Letter, FSNMP; A. A. Batchelder to his parents, December 16, 1862, Batchelder Letter, FSNMP; William Fermoil to his family, December 24, 1862, Fermoil Letter, FSNMP; Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, 418–19. Gerald Linderman points to a declining faith in divine protection during the course of the war, but what is perhaps more remarkable is how many soldiers and civilians held fast to this notion with sometimes only slight modifications. See Linderman, Embattled Courage, 158–59.
40. McCarthy, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life, 94; Palfrey, Antietam and Fredericksburg, 166. For useful general discussions of how little soldiers usually saw, see Keegan, Face of Battle, 46–54, 101, 128–31; Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 9–15.
41. Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 19–21; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 12; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 92–93; W. H. Burgess to David McKnight, December 20, 1862, McKnight Family Papers, UT; P. E. Fouts to his parents, February 1, 1863, Fouts Collection, NCDAH.
42. R. S. Robertson to his parents, December 13, 1862, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; Abraham Welch to his sister, December 27, 1862, Welch Letter, SHC; Holsinger, “How Does One Feel under Fire?,” 294–96; Clausewitz, On War, 85, 89, 167; William Hamilton to his mother, December 24, 1862, Hamilton Papers, LC; W. H. Andrews, Footprints of a Regiment, 97–98; Saum, Popular Mood of America, 153–54; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 62–67. Hatred could help fearful men still thinking of their families at home become killers. See Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 75–82.
43. Frederick, Story of a Regiment, 116–17; Jacob Henry Cole, Under Five Commanders, 105; Waitt, Nineteenth Massachusetts, 183; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 47; J. H. Lane, “Twenty-Eighth North Carolina Infantry,” 332–33. For the only Bible anecdote from Fredericksburg that I have found, see Kaser, Books and Libraries in Camp and Battle, 50.
44. Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 36; Asa W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth New Hampshire, 738; Reuben Schell to his father, December 17, 1862, and Benneville Schell to his father, December 28, 1862, Schell Letters, FSNMP; Treichler, “Sketch of Battle of Fredericksburg,” USAMHI; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 95; Waitt, Nineteenth Massachusetts, 173.
45. John Toffey to his brother, December 23, 1862, Toffey Papers, Rutgers University; Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 68; Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, December 26, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; John C. Anderson to his family, January 10, 1863, Anderson Letter, FSNMP; Small, Road to Richmond, 68, 71; OR, 255, 300, 412; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 110–19; Dean, Shook over Hell, 54–55, 72–75; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 17–35; Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 73–82, 95–102; Clausewitz, On War, 101. The fear might continue after the battle ended. In late December, only days after Fredericksburg, a member of the 9th New Hampshire tried to fight the Rebels in his sleep and ended up putting a bullet through his foot. See Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 248. For a useful, though excessively psychoanalytical, discussion of how courage involves overcoming the fear of death, see Becker, Denial of Death, 11–13.
46. John Gregory Bishop Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment, 52; Charles E. Davis, Three Years in the Army, 165–66; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 11–15, 32–33; New York Tribune, December 17, 1862; Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 25–30; Waugh, “Reminiscences,” 12, FSNMP. In 1888 recently elected Pennsylvania senator Matthew S. Quay received a Medal of Honor for leading a regiment in Humphreys’s division during their late afternoon charge toward the stone wall. Quay’s bravery was rather vaguely described, and one suspects possible political influence; but a brigade commander recalled Quay saying right before the battle, “I would rather die, and be called a fool, than live, and be called a coward.” See Mulholland, Congress Medal of Honor Legion, 171–73; Quay File, FSNMP.
47. Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, January 2, 1863; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 62–64, 160–61; OR, 224; Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 82–93.
48. Athens (Ga.) Southern Banner, January 7, 1863; Richmond Daily Whig, December 18, 1862; OR, 594, 597, 671, and ser. 1, 51(2):663.
49. Clausewitz, On War, 113; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 15–16, 98–102, 26–27; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 37–41; Royster, Destructive War, 256–57, 264–65; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 12, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC. Even the association of courage with manliness occasionally received a sharp blow. When a Hoosier major heard that a Pennsylvania corporal promoted to sergeant for “gallant conduct” at Fredericksburg had just had a baby, he could only wonder, “What use have we for women if soldiers in the army can give birth to children?” (Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 132).
50. Reid Mitchell, “Northern Soldier and His Community,” 84–88; Keegan, Face of Battle, 73–74, 187–92; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 43–47; OR, 251, 269–70, 288.
51. Easton (Pa.) Free Press, December 18, 1862; OR, 187, 309, 319, 624; Robert Franklin Fleming Jr., “Recollections,” FSNMP; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, December 26, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; New York Herald, December 18, 1862.
52. Clausewitz, On War, 138, 187; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 34–35; William Hamilton to his mother, December 28, 1862, Hamilton Papers, LC; George C. Case to his parents, December 17, 1862, Case Letters, FSNMP; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 5, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC; Keegan, Face of Battle, 35; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 73–79; James Crowther to his sister, December 28, 1862, GAR. For excellent analyses of battle as an act of will and the impulse toward self-sacrifice, see Keegan, Face of Battle, 296; Hess, Liberty, Virtue, and Progress, 42–55.
53. Index Project Summary of Courts-Martial, Fredericksburg, Woodacre, California, copies in FSNMP; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 91; Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 198–99. These statements about the fighting at Fredericksburg are consistent with James McPherson’s estimate that about half the men in any given regiment did most of the fighting. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 6–7. The Lowry project on court-martial records promises to be of enormous value to students of the Civil War.
54. John L. Smith, 118th Pennsylvania, 112–14; Goodson, “Letters of Joab Goodson,” 136; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Paige Memoir, 24–25, USAMHI; Small, Road to Richmond, 70–71; W. C. Ward, “Unable to Help,” 3; Waitt, Nineteenth Massachusetts, 184; Brinton, Memoirs, 219.
55. Goss, Recollections of a Private, 132–33; McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall and Winter Campaign, 46; Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac, 151–52; Pile Memoir, 7, TSLA; Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmonds, Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, 304–5; Bloodgood, Personal Reminiscences of the War, 52–53; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 210.
56. Dickert, Kershaw’s Brigade, 197–98; Orwig, 131st Pennsylvania, 114–15; Wyckoff, Third South Carolina, 93; James Harvey Wood, The War, 109; Robert Franklin Fleming Jr., “Recollections,” FSNMP.
57. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 8–9, 59–61; William Hamilton to his mother, December 28, 1862, Hamilton Papers, LC; Robert Franklin Fleming Jr., “Recollections,” 2, FSNMP; December 20, 1862, Dodge Diary, LC; J. McDonald to his sister, December 19, 1862, Lt. J. McDonald Letters, FSNMP; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, January 13, 27, 1863; Hirst, Boys from Rockville, 78–79; Philadelphia Inquirer, January 21, 1863.
58. Index Project Summary of Courts-Martial, Fredericksburg, Woodacre, California, copies in FSNMP; William B. Jordan Jr., Red Diamond Regiment, 32; Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 204; O. Leland Barlow to his sister, December 29, 1862, Barlow Papers, CSL; Thorpe, Fifteenth Connecticut Volunteers, 40; David Emmons Johnston, Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War, 174–75; January 18, 1863, Hadley Diary, NHHS; Henry A. Allen, Sergeant Allen and Private Renick, 177; January 2, 1863, Cowin Diary, UA; Robert Goldth-waite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 210.
59. Keegan, Face of Battle, 297–98; Clausewitz, On War, 260; December 21, 1862, Malloy Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Means, Waiting for Daybreak, 3–7. For a helpful discussion of the sometimes contradictory efforts to interpret massive numbers of dead as part of a larger cause while also giving meaning to individual sacrifices, see Laderman, Sacred Remains, 130.
1. Heller and Heller, Confederacy Is on Her Way up the Spout, 81; December 14, 1862, Malloy Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; OR, 557–58, 648; Atlanta Southern Confederacy, December 27, 1862; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 16, 1862. The reader will soon notice that much more attention is given to the treatment of the Federal wounded. This is because the Yankees faced a much larger task and also because the Union sources are much richer.
2. Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 16, 1862; Bacot, Confederate Nurse, 169; Mary Janes Lucas to “Dear Nannie,” December 20, 1862, Lucas-Ashley Family Papers, Duke; Judith Brockenbrough McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 176–77; Katharine M. Jones, Ladies of Richmond, 146.
3. MSH, 2:100, 102, 130; Gordon Willis Jones, “Medical History of the Fredericksburg Campaign,” 241–48; Hough, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 8, FSNMP; A. O’Connell to Dr. A. W. Dougherty, December 13, 1862, entry 544, Field Hospital Records, Adjutant General’s Records, NA; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 51–57, 65–66.
4. Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 24–30; New York Tribune, December 2, 1862; Heffelfinger, “‘Dear Sister Jennie,’” 217; Small, Sixteenth Maine, 81; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 45; Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, 420–21; U.S. Army Department, Medal of Honor, 120.
5. MSH, 12:923–24, 937–38; A. O’Connell to Dr. A. W. Dougherty, December 13, 1862, entry 544, Field Hospital Records, Adjutant General’s Records, NA; Samuel J. C. Moore to Ellen Moore, December 15, 1862, Samuel J. C. Moore Papers, SHC; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 185–86; Herbert C. Mason to his father, December 17, 1862, Mason Letter, FSNMP; Grant Memoir, NYHS; Hurd Memoir, USAMHI; OR, 406.
6. Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 11–12; MSH, 2:103, 134; Hough, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 7, FSNMP; OR, 313, 419; Curtis C. Pollock to his mother, December 18, 1862, Pollock Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 180, 187, 190.
7. James I. Robertson Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray, 160; William H. Clairville, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 83, Clairville Papers, Rutgers University; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 267–68; Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 3, 1863; New York Irish-American, December 27, 1862.
8. Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 240–42; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 236–37; Tillinghast, Twelfth Rhode Island, 223–24; George H. Allen, Forty-Six Months, 173.
9. A. O’Connell to Dr. A. W. Dougherty, December 13, 1862, entry 544, Field Hospital Records, Adjutant General’s Records, NA; Grant Memoir, 2–3, NYHS; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 192, 196–99; MSH, 2:101–2, 131; OR, 377; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 69–71; Gordon Willis Jones, “Medical History of the Fredericksburg Campaign,” 248–49. See the map of the division hospitals in Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 193.
10. Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 180, 196–97; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 166–67; December 12, 1862, Bailey Diary, NHHS; Hough, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 8, FSNMP; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 49; Colston, “Personal Experiences,” FSNMP; William H. Stiles to his mother, December 15, 1862, Mackay and Stiles Family Papers, SHC; Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 38. Sanitary Commission officials, War Department inspectors, congressmen, and newspaper correspondents generally praised the operations of the division hospitals near Fredericksburg. See Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 12–13, 27–28; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 178–79; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 90; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 22, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, December 27, 1862.
11. MSH, 2:130; William Child, Fifth New Hampshire, 163; Bisbee, “Three Years a Volunteer Soldier,” 117; Abraham Welch to his sister, December 27, 1862, Welch Letter, SHC; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 27, 1862; OR, 958; Howard Thomas, Boys in Blue from the Adirondack Foothills, 114–15; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 42; Stuckenberg, Surrounded by Methodists, 46; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 180–81. For the deficiencies of individual hospitals, see Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 17–26.
12. Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 57–63; New York Irish-American, December 27, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 15, 1862; Hough, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 8, FSNMP. For reports of Confederate shells striking hospitals in Fredericksburg, including one account of an already badly mangled Pennsylvanian who was killed by a shell just as the surgeons were preparing to amputate one of his legs, see Brinton, Memoirs, 214–15; McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 201–2; Thomson and Rauch, History of the “Bucktails,” 240.
13. Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 60–61; “Volunteer Surgeons,” Medical and Surgical Reporter, November 8, 1862, 158–59; “The Care of the Wounded on the Battle-Field,” Medical and Surgical Reporter, January 24, 1863, 341–42; Bardeen, Little Fifer’s Diary, 115; New York Herald, November 28, 1862; Richmond Daily Whig, November 27, 1862; OR, 342; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 41, 45; MSH, 2:104.
14. Hough, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 15, FSNMP; Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 231; Trobriand, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 378–79; December 15, 1862, Charles S. Granger Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Walter Clark, Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, 2:475–76; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, January 8, 1863.
15. Mary Edwards Walker, “Incidents Connected with the Army,” Walker Papers, Syracuse University; Frank Moore, Rebellion Record, 6:93; Abraham Welch to his sister, December 27, 1862, Welch Letter, SHC; Gordon Willis Jones, “Medical History of the Fredericksburg Campaign,” 251; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 76–86.
16. Rollins, “‘Give My Love to All,’” 28; MSH, 8:451, 12:440; Arthur T. Chapin to his sister, December 20, 1862, Chapin Letter, USAMHI; McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 198–201.
17. MSH, 2:130, 133; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 79–86; Gilbreath Reminiscences, 52–53, ISL; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 265; Frank Moore, Rebellion Record, 6:93. More than a month before the battle, advertisements for artificial limbs appeared in various periodicals, and a Federal commission had met in New York to determine what kinds of prostheses the government would provide. See Harper’s Weekly, November 1, 1862, 703; New York Tribune, November 13, 1862.
18. Burroughs, “Reminiscences of Fredericksburg,” 637; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 86; [Heinichen,] “Fredericksburg,” Maryland Historical Society; Small, Road to Richmond, 68; Susan Leigh Blackford, Letters from Lee’s Army, 150; Todd Reminiscences, 78, SHC.
19. Paludan, “People’s Contest,” 325; Edwin C. Bennett, Musket and Sword, 118–19; Holsinger, “How Does One Feel under Fire?,” 296; December 13, 1862, Bailey Diary, NHHS; George H. Allen, Forty-Six Months, 172–73.
20. Henry Lewis to “Dear Cousin Charlie,” January 3, 1863, Lewis Letters, GLC; McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 207; Mulholland, “Battle of Fredericksburg,” 1; Siegel, For theGlory of the Union, 114–16; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 272; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 49.
21. December 14, 1862, Bescancon Diary, Duke; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 45; New York Herald, December 15, 1862; Frank Moore, Women of the War, 536–40; Paludan, “People’s Contest,” 355; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 117. Sometimes female volunteers could be less than sensitive themselves. As a surgeon was operating on a man who had been shot in the groin, a nurse flippantly remarked to the poor soldier, “How hard [it is] to lose so many privates on the field and then come here and lose your own” (George H. Patch to his mother, December 23, 1862, Patch Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI). Dr. Mary Walker, who had arrived in November, was still resented by male surgeons. See Elizabeth D. Leonard, Yankee Women, 122–23.
22. Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 101–3, 109–12, 119–20; Clara Barton to Mary Norton, January 19, 1863, Norton Papers, Duke.
23. Elizabeth D. Leonard, Yankee Women, 122–23; December 13, 15, 1862, Eaton Diary, SHC; Frank Moore, Women of the War, 119–21. For a general discussion of how hospital conditions affected doctors, nurses, and visitors, see Dean, Shook over Hell, 77–80.
24. Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 3–6; Bremner, Public Good, 59–60; Corby, Memoirs of Chaplain Life, 134–35; New York Herald, December 22, 1862; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 34, 39, 57–58, 64–65; United States Christian Commission, Second Annual Report, 33–34; James Grant, “Flag and the Cross,” 53–54, LC. Also maintaining ties between communities, churches, and soldiers, local aid societies sent supplies and agents to the camps. See Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette, December 17, 1862; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 37–38; Foster, New Jersey and the Rebellion, 523n.
25. Linderman, Embattled Courage, 130–33; Edward Louis Edes to his father, December 19, 1862, Edes Papers, MHS; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, December 25, 1862; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 189; Evangelist, February 5, 1863, 2; Gregory C. White, 31st Georgia, 66; Julian, Political Recollections, 225–26. For the first few days after the battle, company rolls sometimes listed nearly as many absent as present; a New York regimental clerk reported that several men were in some hospital (“don’t know where”). See December 15–16, 1862, Robinson Diary, DCL; Borton, Awhile with the Blue, 53–54; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 47: 490–92.
26. Cogswell, Eleventh New Hampshire, 554–55; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 115; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 39; December 16, 1862, Eaton Diary, SHC; Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 29, 1862; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, December 18, 1862, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; George H. Patch to his mother, December 23, 1862, Patch Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; John England to Ellen Hargeddon, December 17, 1862, England Papers, NYPL. In closing a letter to a friend, a New York lieutenant unintentionally revealed why there were relatively few detailed descriptions of field hospitals right after a battle: “If I ever see you again I’ll tell you things [that] will make your blood run cold and freeze the very marrow in your bones, but such things only make a letter disgusting—and to me, seeing them is terrible enough without deliberately recounting them” (Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” December 17, 1862, Partridge Letters, FSNMP).
27. Miller and Mooney, Civil War, 90–92, 116; December 14, 15, 17, 1862, Kerr Diary, FSNMP; J. E. Hodgkins, Civil War Diary, 18–19.
28. United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 35; Linderman, Embattled Courage, 27–32; John R. Coye to his wife, December 24, 1862, Coye Letters, FSNMP; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, December 15, 1862; Cowtan, Services of the Tenth New York Volunteers, 170; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, January 8, 1863; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 43–44; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 34.
29. A. B. Martin to “Dear Ann,” December 19, 1862, Martin Letter, FSNMP; Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 17–26; “Army and Navy News,” Medical and Surgical Reporter, December 27, 1862, 299–300; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 39; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 120.
30. Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 631–32; Marvel, Ninth New Hampshire, 111–12.
31. McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 195–98; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 118; William Child, Fifth New Hampshire, 163–64; December 14, 1862, Eaton Diary, SHC; Borton, On the Parallels, 56; Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 240; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 29; D. Porter Marshall, Co. “K,” 155th Pennsylvania, 80. As John Keegan pointed out about Waterloo, it is often forgotten in battle accounts that the dying continued for several days after a battle; see Keegan, Face of Battle, 202. For Civil War battles of course—mostly because of improved medical treatment that kept the mortally wounded alive longer—deaths might continue for weeks and even months after a battle.
32. Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 87; Potter, One Surgeon’s Private War, 54; December 18–21, 1862, Kerr Diary, FSNMP.
33. Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 87–88; December 17, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI; Samuel W. Eaton to Eddie Eaton, December 15, 1862, Eaton Papers, SHSW; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 33–34; Edward P. Smith, Incidents of the Christian Commission, 49; McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 204–6; History of 127th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 253; “Sacrifice of Federals at Fredericksburg,” 370; MSH, 2:103–4, 132.
34. McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 205, 208; Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 7; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 205; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 119; MSH, 2:104, 133, 12:957–71.
35. McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 209–11; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 207; Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission, 371–72; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 168–69; Stuckenberg, Surrounded by Methodists, 47; Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 111; MSH, 2:133; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 40; Bliss Memoir, 4: 36–37, USAMHI. The steamship ride took eight hours.
36. Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 205; McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 211; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 34–35; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 45–46; Von Olnhausen, Adventures of an Army Nurse, 56. Some of the wounded would eventually be transferred to Philadelphia. Families now had to scan the hospital lists in the newspapers for word of their loved ones. See Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 113; Miller, Camp Curtin, 148–49; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 22, 1862, January 7, 12, 1863; New York Tribune, December 27, 1862. Confederates also had to rely on hospital lists and other incomplete sources for news of the wounded. Few accounts of treatment in the Richmond hospitals have survived. Two soldiers with painful but not especially serious wounds offered generally favorable assessments of hospital conditions in the Confederate capital. See Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 40–43; December 20–30, 1862, Malloy Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, December 17, 1862.
37. Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 112; Wheelock, Boys in White, 67; MSH, 6:897–99, 910, 913–15, 917–20, 936–42, 12:837–39; Duncan, Medical Department of the United States Army, 181; “The Discharge of the Wounded and Sick Soldiers from the Service,” Medical and Surgical Reporter, December 13, 20, 1862, 273; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 47–50; Stuckenberg, Surrounded by Methodists, 48. Brooks carefully distinguished between the recently constructed, whitewashed structures that appeared to be model facilities, the well-organized hospitals supervised by the Sanitary Commission, and the notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary buildings that had been used since the beginning of the war; see Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 47–50.
38. Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 25–29; Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 115–16; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 85–91.
39. William Houghton to his father, December 22, 1862, Houghton Papers, IHS; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 30–31; Joseph H. Leighty to his sister, January 1, 1863, Leighty Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; J. E. Hodgkins, Civil War Diary, 20. Of course it is significant that such favorable reports usually came from men with relatively minor injuries.
40. J. E. Hodgkins, Civil War Diary, 21; Heffelfinger, “‘Dear Sister Jennie,’” 217; Edwin C. Bennett, Musket and Sword, 120–23. Clara Barton and Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts arranged for Sgt. Thomas Plunkett, who had been so badly wounded during Ferrero’s attack toward the stone wall and had endured the amputation of both arms, to return to Massachusetts. After seeing Plunkett in Washington, even the hard-bitten Wilson was shaken. “My God! What a Price!” he exclaimed. “And where is the end?” See MSH, 10:974; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 119. See the account of Plunkett’s wounding in Chapter 15 above.
41. Mary Edwards Walker, “Incidents Connected with the Army,” no. 1, Walker Papers, Syracuse University; H. O. Thomas to William Oland Bourne, September 27, 1862, Bourne Papers, LC; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 36–37, 91–92.
42. MSH, 7:205, 239, 263–65, 8:299–300, 361–62. The standard Confederate surgical manual recommended a very conservative approach to serious head wounds and opposed trephining altogether. See Chisolm, Manual of Military Surgery, 294–96.
43. MSH, 8:431–32, 554, 9:260; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 35–36.
44. MSH, 9:455, 11:83, 85–86, 170, 366. In 1869 a private in Sykes’s division finally had a bullet extracted from his right shoulder. A sergeant in Humphreys’s division was not nearly so fortunate: with a ball still lodged in his hip joint, in 1874 he died from the wound. See MSH, 10:484, 11:25–26.
45. Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 120; MSH, 10:870, 12:625, 892.
46. MSH, 10, 717–18, 11:301; Mary Edwards Walker, “Incidents Connected with the Army,” no. 3, Walker Papers, Syracuse University; John Lord Parker, Twenty-Second Massachusetts, 236–37.
47. MSH, 10:748, 11:22, 357, 366, 381, 12:633, 828, 839–40, 443–44. “Sloughing” refers to dead tissue separating itself from healthy tissue. Hospital reports do not always make clear distinctions between gangrene and other types of infections, including the commonly reported pyemia.
48. Wheelock, Boysin White, 79–80; George Thornton Fleming, Hays, 286; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 84–86; Gilbreath Reminiscences, 53–55, ISL; Kepler, Fourth Ohio, 196–97.
49. Von Olnhausen, Adventures of an Army Nurse, 57–58; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 29–30, 33, 37–38, 40–41, 43; Alcott, Journals of Louisa May Alcott, 113–15; Hackett, Christian Memorials, 104; Wheelock, Boys in White, 60–61, 71–72; Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 121.
50. Alcott, Journals of Louisa May Alcott, 110–11, 113; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 6, 1863; Wheelock, Boys in White, 72–73; Laderman, Sacred Remains, 131–32. For helpful treatments of the soldiers longing for feminine touches and attempts to describe wartime suffering in conventionally sentimental language, see Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 71–87; Frederickson, Inner Civil War, 87–88. Back home, ladies’ aid societies sponsored relief fairs or gathered special food for shipment to the hospitals. See Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 18, 27, 1862; Gallman, Mastering Wartime, 130; New York Times, December 16, 1862.
51. Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 31, 80–84; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 34, 36; Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 95–99.
52. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Military Statistics, 558; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 30, 49–59; Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 117–18; Lusk, Letters of William Thompson Lusk, 253.
53. Jeffrey D. Marshall, War of the People, 130–31; Alcott, Hospital Sketches, 45–46. For a careful analysis of psychological problems suffered by Civil War soldiers, see Dean, Shook over Hell.
54. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, January 14, 1863; ? to Mrs. Sarah Shure, December 25, 1862, Shure Letters, USAMHI. Private Shure died on December 29. See Samuel Penniman Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 7:272.
1. David Horner Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, 113; Miers, Lincoln Day by Day, 3: 155; Sid Denning to Anson Stager, December 11, 12, 1862; J. G. Garland to Stager, December 11, 1862 (three dispatches); A. H. Caldwell to Stager, December 12, 1862; O. H. Dorrance to Stager, December 12, 1862; E. V. Sumner to Mrs. Sumner, December 11, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC. The presence of these telegrams in the Lincoln papers strongly suggests that the president either read them at the War Department or they were later sent to the Executive Mansion. The Associated Press had a close relationship with the administration and became a quasi-official source of war news. See Richard A. Schwarzlose, Newsbrokers, 1:242–54; Blondheim, News over the Wires, 129–40.
2. A. H. Caldwell to Anson Stager, December 13, 1862 (three dispatches); Sid Denning to Stager, December 13, 1862; J. G. Garland to Stager, December 13, 1862 (two dispatches); Stager to Edwin M. Stanton, December 13, 1862 (two dispatches), Lincoln Papers, LC; New York Times, December 13, 1862. The reference to the “first redoubt” being taken likely referred to the false reports during the late afternoon that some of Couch’s troops had gained a foothold on Marye’s Heights. It is doubtful that the Times quoted Lincoln accurately, but the report surely raised false and unreasonable hopes in the North.
3. OR, 65; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:192; OR Supplement, pt. 1, 3:671; George Thornton Fleming, Hays, 283; Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu, and Cadwallader Washburn, 206; Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager, 206. The “first ridge” in Burnside’s dispatch likely referred to the swale where so many Federals had taken shelter. One of Lincoln’s secretaries, John G. Nicolay, had left Washington to visit Burnside. He did not arrive at Falmouth until noon on December 14, and what information he conveyed to the president is unknown. See John G. Nicolay to Therena Nicolay, December 11, 17, 1862, Nicolay Papers, LC; Lincoln, Collected Works, 5:552, 6:2.
4. Haupt, Reminiscences of Herman Haupt, 177; Villard, Memoirs, 1:384–91. Haupt’s account is believable though he may have exaggerated Lincoln’s reaction. Clearly perplexed, the president had decided not to accompany his wife to church that morning and summoned former secretary of war and Pennsylvania Republican wire-puller Simon Cameron to Washington. See Browning, Diary, 1:495; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:2.
5. Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager, 207; Sandburg, Lincoln, 1:630–31; Gurowski, Diary, 2:29; Browne, Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln, 573–74.
6. Herman Haupt to his wife, December 18, 1862, Haupt Letterbook, Haupt Papers, LC; Browning, Diary, 1:596; Gibbon, Recollections of the Civil War, 106; Francis Becknell Carpenter, Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, 177; Stephen B. Oates, Lincoln, 327; Nevins, War for the Union, 2:352; Mary A. Livermore, My Story of the War, 561. Sight of the Fredericksburg wounded may have further depressed the president. Both Lincoln and his wife visited hospitals shortly after the battle. See McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 217; Gilbreath Reminiscences, 55, ISL.
7. Leech, Reveille in Washington, 222; George Thornton Fleming, Hays, 284; OR Supplement, pt. 1, 3:672–73; Ethan Allan Hitchcock to “Dear Mrs. Mann,” December 15, 1862, Hitchcock Papers, LC; Browning, Diary, 1:596; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:193; Logsdon, White, 92; Matias Romero, Mexican View of America in the 1860s, 138. Brigadier general and recently elected Ohio congressman James A. Garfield took a much longer view of the Fredericksburg debacle. A proponent of aggressive strategy, he welcomed Burnside’s “bloody work” and maintained that the only way to preserve the republic was to “pulverize the great rebel armies.” See Garfield, Wild Life of the Army, 198–99.
8. J. Cutler Andrews, North Reports the Civil War, 333–34; Gobright, Recollection of Men and Things at Washington, 318; Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent, 373; Pratt, Stanton, 262–63; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, December 18, 1862.
9. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 12, 1862; New York Times, December 12, 1862; New York Tribune, December 12, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 12, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 12, 1862; Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 12, 1862.
10. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 13, 1862; Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 13, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 13, 1862.
11. J. Cutler Andrews, North Reports the Civil War, 330; New York Herald, December 14, 1862; New York Times, December 14, 1862; Leech, Reveille in Washington, 221.
12. Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 15, 1862; Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 15, 1862; New York Times, December 15, 1862; Boston Evening Transcript, December 15, 1862; O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 121; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 15, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 15, 1862; New York Tribune, December 15, 1862; Boston Daily Advertiser, December 15, 1862.
13. Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, December 16, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, December 16, 1862; Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 16, 1862; Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 16, 1862; New York Times, December 16, 1862; Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 16, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 16, 17, 1862; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, December 16, 1862; Hartford Daily Courant, December 16, 17, 1862; J. Cutler Andrews, North Reports the Civil War, 335. Banks was in fact sailing for New Orleans to assume command in the Department of the Gulf.
14. Lincoln remarked to one of his secretaries, William O. Stoddard, that even if the Army of the Potomac kept suffering the same proportion of casualties, the Confederates would soon be “wiped out to the last man.” Whether or not Stoddard was quoting the president directly, his account contained one especially telling passage: “No general yet found can face the arithmetic, but the end of the war will be at hand when he shall be discovered” (Stoddard, Inside the White House, 101).
15. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, December 17, 19, 20, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 17–20, 22, 1862; “The Repulse at Fredericksburg,” Independent, December 18, 1862, 4; Easton (Pa.) Free Press, December 18, 1862; New York Times, December 18–19, 1862, January 7, 1863; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, December 18, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, December 17, 1862; Boston Evening Transcript, December 17, 22, 1862. Even a Rochester Democratic editor hedged his bets, claimed to be still hopeful, but for good measure wished that Burnside would not have to face, à la McClellan, political interference from Washington. See Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, December 15, 1862.
16. New York Tribune, December 16, 1862; Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, December 20, 1862; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 17, 18, 1862.
17. New York Times, December 17, 18, 1862; Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 15, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 15–16, 1862; J. Cutler Andrews, North Reports the Civil War, 335; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 22, 1862; Bosse, Civil War Newspaper Maps, 113; New York Herald, December 17, 21, 1862. Swinton’s December 13 dispatch did not appear in print until December 17.
18. New York Times, December 17, 1862; New York Herald, December 17, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, December 18, 1862; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, December 17, 1862; Boston Post, December 17, 1862. A leading Catholic weekly carried somber headlines: “Great Disaster in the Army of the Potomac”; “Terrible Slaughter of the Best Blood of the Country” (Boston Pilot, December 27, 1862).
19. Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:276–78; Elizabeth Blair Lee, Civil War Letters, 214–15. A disaster such as Fredericksburg of course created a great demand for news, but many citizens had already grown skeptical of press accounts. In such an atmosphere, rumors helped people make some sense of a seemingly dangerous, chaotic situation. See Shibutani, Improvised News, 31–46, 57–59, 163–64.
20. Ferris, “Civil War Diaries,” 242; Maria Bryant to John Emory Bryant, December 14, 1862, Bryant Papers, Duke; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:279; Benjamin F. Butler, Correspondence, 2:539; Fisher, Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 444; Royster, Destructive War, 237–39, 246–47; Maria Lydig Daly, Diary of a Union Lady, 208–9. During a period of what one sociologist has termed “sustained collective tension,” civilians (and soldiers) exchanged rumors in an effort to comprehend a chaotic situation. Rumors can flourish in the absence of “news” but also when there is a surfeit of news, especially unreliable news. See Shibutani, Improvised News, 46–49, 64–65; Allport and Postman, Psychology of Rumor, 1.
21. Royster, Destructive War, 241; Gallman, North Fights the Civil War, 77–80; Gay, “Gay Letters,” 389–90; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 113–14; Indiana (Pa.) Weekly Democrat, December 25, 1862.
22. William C. Davis, Davis, 482–84; OR, 1062–63; Jefferson Davis, Papers, 8:549, 552–53.
23. J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:210–13; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:509; Kean, Inside the Confederate Government, 33; Katharine M. Jones, Ladies of Richmond, 146.
24. J. Cutler Andrews, South Reports the Civil War, 223–31; Corsan, Two Months in the Confederate States, 82–83; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, December 13, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 15, 1862; Richmond Daily Whig, December 15, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 15–17, 1862; Columbus (Ga.) Daily Enquirer, December 16, 1862.
25. Judith Brockenbrough McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 174–75; Welton, Caldwell Letters, 162–63; December 14, 1862, Hume Diary, LC; McDonald, Woman’s Civil War, 99; Frobel, Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel, 142, 144–45; Lucy Rebecca Buck, Shadows of My Heart, 164; Eppes, Through Some Eventful Years, 190; Robert Patrick, Reluctant Rebel, 67–68; Edmondston, “Journal of a Secesh Lady,” 315–22. For a discussion of Confederate politics in the aftermath of Fredericksburg, see Chapter 23 below.
26. Klement, Copperheads in the Middle West, 39; Bogue, “Cutler’s Congressional Diary,” 319–20; Nevins, War for the Union, 2:351–52; John Jay to Charles Sumner, December 18, 1862; George F. Williams to Sumner, December 19, 1862; and several other letters, December 1862, Sumner Papers, HU; Moses H. Grinnell to William H. Seward, December 17, 1862; C. Becker Jr. to Seward, December 23, 1862; Jonathan Longfellow to Seward, December 25, 1862, Seward Papers, UR.
27. Van Deusen, Seward, 335–41; Paludan, Presidency of Lincoln, 168–71, 174–75; Niven, Chase, 308–10; Blue, Chase, 191–92; Nevins, War for the Union, 2:335, 353n; “The Cabinet and the Country,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, November 29, 1862, 2; Fessenden, Fessenden, 1: 264.
28. Van Deusen, Seward, 341–44; Gurowski, Diary, 2:23–24, 34; “Secretary Seward and Emancipation,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, December 20, 1862, 2; Dicey, Spectator of America, 97–98; Charles Francis Adams, Cycle of Adams Letters, 1:199; Logsdon, White, 92; Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder, 144.
29. Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:231–36; Browning, Diary, 1:596–98; Lafayette S. Foster to Hamilton Fish, December 16, 1862, Fish Papers, LC. Lincoln’s refusal to approve the executions of more than 300 Sioux after an uprising in Minnesota the preceding summer also stoked Wilkinson’s anger. As if he already did not have enough to disturb his sleep, the president had to decide which Indians would die. Thirty-eight were eventually executed at Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26. See Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., 1862, 13; New York Times, December 8, 1862; Alexander Ramsey to Abraham Lincoln, November 28, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:186; Lincoln, Collected Works, 5:493, 525–26, 537–38, 542–53, 550–51, 6:6; OR, ser. 2, 2:84, 125.
30. Donald, Lincoln, 401; William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, December 16, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:236–38; Browning, Diary, 1:598–99.
31. Jacob F. Collamer to Abraham Lincoln, December 18, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:9; Fessenden, Fessenden, 238–43; Browning, Diary, 1:600–601; Zachariah Chandler to his wife, December 18, 1862, Chandler Papers, LC.
32. Edward Bates, Diary, 268–70; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:194–99; Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:243–48.
33. Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:199–204; Edward Bates, Diary, 270–71.
34. Charles Sumner, Selected Letters, 2:133; Randall, Lincoln the President, 2:243; French, Witness to the Young Republic, 415; Bogue, “Cutler’s Congressional Diary,” 320; Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 22, 1862; Watertown (N.Y.) Daily News and Reformer, December 22, 1862.
35. Moran, Journal of Benjamin Moran, 2:1098, 1100–1101; Charles Francis Adams, Cycle of Adams Letters, 1:221–22; December 27–29, 1862, Adams Diary, MHS. Minister Adams no doubt was also worried about his son Charles Francis Jr. serving in the cavalry.
36. Times (London), December 26, 29, 30, 1862, January 2, 3, 5, 9, 13, 14, 1863; Marx and Engels, Civil War in the U.S., 263–64; London Illustrated News, January 10, 1863, 38–39. Whether Lee could follow up his victory was debated in London, though some British commentators even concluded that Fredericksburg marked a genuine turning point in the war and that the United States might even break up into three separate nations. See “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Saturday Review (London), January 3, 1863, 2–3; “Fort Sumter to Fredericksburg,” Quarterly Review (London), April 1863, 352–53.
37. Henry Shelton Sanford to William H. Seward, December 30, 1862, and Richard M. Blatchford to Seward, January 2, 1863, Seward Papers, UR; Bayard Taylor to Simon Cameron, January 3, 1863, Cameron Papers, LC. Conversely, news of the European reaction to Fredericksburg added to the despair in the American press. See New York Herald, January 15, 1863.
38. ORN, ser. 2, 3:629–33, 653–54, 662–63; Vance, Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, 2:18.
39. “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Index (London), January 1, 1863, 155; “The Only Road to Peace,” Index, January 8, 1863, 168; ORN, ser. 2, 3:619–25, 649, 651–53; Charleston Mercury, January 21, 1863.
40. ORN, ser. 2, 3:634–35; Case and Spencer, United States and France, 382–97; Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, 438–40; Crook, North, South, and the Powers, 279–82; Howard Jones, Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom, 147–48, 157. There was some fear in Washington that the Fredericksburg defeat would rekindle European mediation efforts. See Du Pont, Civil War Letters, 2:323; Gurowski, Diary, 2:56–57.
41. J. E. B. Stuart to Flora Cooke Stuart, December 9–10, 1862, Stuart Papers, VHS; Richmond Daily Whig, December 11, 1862; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 17, 1862; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:517, 528, 534.
42. William Johnson Pegram to Virginia Johnson McIntosh, January 8, 1863, Pegram-Johnson-McIntosh Family Papers, VHS; January 8, 1863, Cowin Diary, UA; Charleston Daily Courier, January 10, 1863; Richmond Daily Examiner, January 12, 1863; ORN, ser. 2, 3:658–59. Confederates also sounded increasingly contemptuous of what one Richmond editor called “those two old painted mummies, Russell and Palmerston” (Richmond Daily Whig, December 29, 1862).
43. December 22, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 244; John White Geary, Politician Goes to War, 72–73; Weld, War Diary and Letters, 154–56.
44. Edmondston, “Journal of a Secesh Lady,” 321–22; McDonald, Woman’s Civil War, 108–9; Charleston Mercury, December 31, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 27, 1862; Kean, Inside the Confederate Government, 35; Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, December 28–29, 1862, Watkins Papers, VHS; Lucy Rebecca Buck, Shadows of My Heart, 168; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:518–19; Charleston Daily Courier, December 24, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 24, 1862; Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 27, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 302–3; W. T. Kinzer to his mother and sister, December 25, 1862, Kinzer Letter, West Virginia University.
45. New York Times, December 13, 16, 1862; New York Herald, December 16–18, 1862; New York Tribune, December 16, 1862; “The Price of Gold,” Banker’s Magazine and Statistical Register, January 1863, 560; “Notes on the Money Market,” Banker’s Magazine and Statistical Register, January 1863, 573; “The Price of Gold,” Banker’s Magazine and Statistical Register, January 1863, 647; Wesley C. Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks, 196, 211, 423–24; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, January 21, 1863; Roll, “Interest Rates and Price Expectations,” 478–79. Military news often arrived at the so-called Gold Room in New York from War Department dispatches before it reached the newspapers, and the major gold traders had other sources of confidential information. Gold prices also fluctuated during this period in response to the fate of congressional legislation making greenbacks legal tender. It is difficult to measure the effects of Fredericksburg as compared with other war news—mostly bad—on the New York financial markets. For differing interpretations of how price fluctuations related to war news, see Wesley C. Mitchell, “Value of the ‘Greenbacks’ during the Civil War,” 144–45, 155; Wesley C. Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks, 216; Guinnane, Rosen, and Willard, “Greenback Prices,” 313–28; McCandless, “Money, Expectations, and the Civil War,” 661–71. The January rise in gold prices likely also reflected the passage of a bill in Congress increasing the volume of greenbacks. See Willard, Guinnane, and Rosen, “Turning Points in the Civil War,” 1013. Gold prices were calculated according to the number of paper dollars it would take to buy 100 gold dollars. So if the price was 130, it would take 130 paper dollars to purchase 100 gold dollars. The higher the price of gold, the weaker both the dollar and public confidence.
46. Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 317; Charleston Daily Courier, December 27, 1862; J.B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:223; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1:165, 201, 212, 214, 2:1104, 1118; Wesley C. Mitchell, History of the Green-backs, 101–5, 248; Andreano, Economic Impact of the Civil War, 178–79, 181. Whether wages lagged significantly behind price increases has been the subject of considerable debate. For useful summaries and data, see Paludan, “People’s Contest,” 113, 182–83; Gallman, Mastering Wartime, 225–26, 271–72.
47. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 2:993; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, November 18, 1862; New York Herald, November 10, 15, 1862, January 5, 1863; Portland (Maine) Eastern Argus, November 19, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 9, 1862.
48. “The Money Question,” Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862, 722; Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke, 1:223–26; Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:327–28, 335, 375–76; Philadelphia Inquirer, November 1, 1862; Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, 285–317.
49. Clausewitz, On War, 592.
50. Melville, Collected Poems of Herman Melville, 404; Garner, Civil War World of Herman Melville, 207–8, 215–16. Literary scholar Stanton Garner has argued that Melville’s “Inscription for the Slain at Fredericksburg” was the only one of his war poems actually written during the war.
1. Caleb H. Beal to his parents, December 13, 1862, Beal Papers, MHS; Willard J. Templeton to his brother, December 15–16, 1862, Templeton Letters, NHSL; Adam Muenzenberger to his wife, December 17, 1862, Muenzenberger Letters, FSNMP; Marvel, Ninth New Hampshire, 116; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, December 28, 1862, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL. On the need of frustrated people to analyze the question of responsibility, see Allport and Postman, Psychology of Rumor, 37–38.
2. David Beem to his wife, December 18, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; Nash, Forty-fourth New York, 120–21.
3. R. S. Robertson to his parents, December 15, 1862, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; George W. Ballock to his wife, December 18, 1862, Ballock Papers, Duke; December 21, 1862, Webb Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; Landon, “Letters to the Vincennes Western Sun,” 340.
4. Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 24, 1862; A. Wilson Greene, “Opportunity to the South,” 295; Augustus Van Dyke to his brother, December 23, 1862, Van Dyke Papers, IHS; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 96; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 54–55; Henry Snow to his sister, December 29, 1862, Snow Letters, CHS; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 120; Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, 77; Sturtevant, Josiah Volunteered, 78–80. The sources cited for general comments on demoralization in the Army of the Potomac represent a cross section of various corps and ranks from private to major.
5. Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 50; Pittsfield (Mass.) Sun, January 1, 1863; Henry J. H. Thompson to Lucretia Thompson, December 21, 1862, Thompson Papers, Duke; December 15, 1862, Bacon Diary, FSNMP; R. S. Robertson to his parents, December 24, 1862, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 242; December 18, 1862, Dodge Diary, LC; Lusk, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, 245–48; Clarence Whedon to his sister, January 5, 1863, Whedon Papers, Schoff Collection, CL.
6. J. L. Smith to his mother, December 15, 1862, John L. Smith Letters, FSNMP; Frinfrock, Across the Rappahannock, 146; Wiley, “Soldier’s Life,” 71–72; Henry Ogden Ryerson to his sister, December 23, 1862, Anderson Family Papers, NJHS; George M. Barnard to his father, December 16, 1862, Barnard Papers, MHS; Winfield Scott Hancock to Zachariah Chandler, December 19, 1862, Chandler Papers, LC.
7. John D. Wilkins to his wife, December 18, 1862, Wilkins Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 152; Anthony G. Graves to his father, December 19, 1862, Graves Letters, FSNMP; William Speed to his sister, December 29, 1862, Speed Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Jacob W. Haas to Frederick Haas, December 18, 1862, Haas Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI.
8. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, 91–92; Joseph H. Haynes to his father, January 7, 1863, Haynes Papers, Duke; Robert Gould Shaw, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune, 267; R. P. Staniels to “My Darling Selina,” December 16, 1862, Staniels Letter, FSNMP; E. H. Wade to “Dear Nell,” December 16, 1862, Wade Letters, CL; December 14, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI; Pardington, Dear Sarah, 49; December 13, 1862, Willand Diary, NHSL; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 198. On the problem of death without purpose, see Lifton, History and Human Survival, 153, 176–77; Drew Gilpin Faust, Riddle of Death, 25–26.
9. Augustus C. Buell, “Cannoneer,” 44; Rodney H. Ramsey to his father, December 27, 1862, Ramsey Letter, NHHS; George H. Bradley to “Dear Friends at Home,” December 20, 1862, Bradley Papers, Yale University; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, December 29, 1862; Ebensburg (Pa.) Democrat and Sentinel, January 7, 1863; Frinfrock, Across the Rappahannock, 125; Hess, Liberty, Virtue, and Progress, 32–41; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 199–25; Clausewitz, On War, 231; Laderman, Sacred Remains, 101.
10. Brunswick (Maine) Telegraph, January 16, 1863; Emerson F. Merrill to his parents, December 24, 1862, Merrill Papers, FSNMP; Philadelphia Press, December 27, 1862; James Madison Stone, Personal Recollections of the Civil War, 117–18; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 46; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 36; William Child, Fifth New Hampshire, 150.
11. Foote, Civil War, 2:116, 118–19; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 37; John England to Ellen Hargeddon, December 17, 1862, England Papers, NYPL; History of the Thirty-Fifth Massachusetts Volunteers, 94–95; James Pratt to his wife, December 19, 1862, Pratt Collection, USAMHI; Osborn, No Middle Ground, 96; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 42–43; Nathan Chesley to “Friend Sawyer,” December 19, 1862, Chesley Letter, FSNMP; Charles H. Eagor to his wife, December 20, 1862, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; George W. Ballock to his sister, December 25, 1862, Ballock Papers, Duke.
12. John Southard to his sister, December 22, 1862, Southard Family Papers, NYHS; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 32–33; A. B. Martin to “Dear Ann,” December 19, 1862, Martin Letter, FSNMP; David V. Lovell to his sister, December 19, 1862, Lovell Letter, Gregory A. Coco Collection, USAMHI; James Coburn to his parents, December 17, 1862, James P. Coburn Papers, USAMHI; Joseph Bloomfield Osborn to his brother, December 26, 1862, Osborn Papers, LC; Cornelius Richmond to his wife, December 25, 1862, Richmond Papers, FSNMP; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 213; Alexander Morrison Stewart, Camp, March, and Battlefield, 280; William Child, Fifth New Hampshire, 166; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 55; O. Leland Barlow to his sister, December 29, 1862, Barlow Papers, CSL; Samuel C. Starrett to David Starrett, December 24, 1862, Starrett Letter, FSNMP. When a despairing young Hoosier cut off his right thumb with an ax, his comrades doubted it was an accident. See Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 213.
13. For examples of this sentiment from various ranks and corps, see Gallup, “Connecticut Yankee at Fredericksburg,” 204; Charles F. Stinson to his mother, December 21, 1862, Stinson Letters, USAMHI; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 41; Isaac Morrow to his brother, December 21, 1862, Morrow Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Matrau, Letters Home, 39; Aaron K. Blake to his sister, December 26, 1862, Blake Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, December 22, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC.
14. Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 40; Siegel, For the Glory of the Union, 116; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 156; Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, December 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, Duke; Bardeen, Little Fifer’s Diary, 123–24; John R. Coye to his wife, December 17, 1862, Coye Letters, FSNMP; John R. McClure, Hoosier Farmboy in Lincoln’s Army, 32.
15. Curtis C. Pollock to his mother, December 18, 1862, Pollock Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 37–38; Dwight P. Peck to “Dear Friends at Home,” January 1, 1863, Dwight P. Peck Letter, FSNMP; Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, December 22, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; John T. Greene, Ewing Family Letters, 33; Ephraim Jackson to “Dear Brother and Sister,” December 20, 1862, Jackson Letters, FSNMP; Samuel Edmund Nichols, “Your Soldier Boy Samuel,” 58–59; Jimerson, Private Civil War, 229; George E. Upton to his wife, December 23, 1862, Upton Papers, NHHS; James Pratt to his wife, December 30, 1862, Pratt Collection, USAMHI.
16. David Jones to John Jordan Jr., December 16, 1862, David Jones Letters, FSNMP.
17. John Harrison Mills, Chronicles of the Twenty-First New York, 280–81; Douglas and Brink, Reports of the Sanitary Commission after Fredericksburg, 13; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 299; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 249; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 44; Wren, James Wren’s Civil War Diary, 126; New York Times, December 21, 1862; New York Herald, December 21, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 18, 1862; Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 31, 1862; Joseph E. Grant, Flying Regiment, 66–68; December 17–31, 1862, Furst Diary, HCWRTC, USAMHI. For a helpful analysis arguing that the army—even right after Fredericksburg—was not as demoralized as historians have often assumed, see A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 177–79. For discussions about distinctions between complaining and defeatism along with attention to the remarkable resilience of Civil War soldiers, see McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 9–10; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 126–27.
18. Rose, Victorian America and the Civil War, 224–28; Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 154–60; Frank and Reaves, “Seeing the Elephant,” 129–40; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 241; Charles Eagor to his wife, January 19, 1863, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Hess, Union Soldier in Battle, 127–57; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 212; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 34–35; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 117; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, December 29, 1862, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL.
19. Sullivan D. Green to “Friend Kittie,” December 25, 1862, Green Papers, MHC; Brewster, When This Cruel War Is Over, 205; Reardon, “Forlorn Hope,” 101; O’Reilly, Jackson at Fredericksburg, 194; John W. Ames to his mother, December 22, 1862, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 215; John S. Crocker to his wife, December 16, 1862, Crocker Letters, CU; John Smart to Ann Smart, December 17, 1862, Smart Letters, FSNMP; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 153–55; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, December 25, 1862, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL. For a discussion of how armies sustain their fighting spirit after a defeat, see Clausewitz, On War, 187.
20. December 21, 1862, Halsey Diary, USAMHI; James Laird to his wife, December 16, 1862, Laird Letter, FSNMP; George W. Ballock to his wife, December 14, 1862, Ballock Papers, Duke; John Claude Buchanan to Sophie Buchanan, December 15, 1862, Buchanan Family Papers, MHC; History of the Thirty-Fifth Massachusetts Volunteers, 97; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 79; Alexander Morrison Stewart, Camp, March, and Battlefield, 282–83.
21. Garfield, Wild Life of the Army, 200; John Claude Buchanan to Sophie Buchanan, January 8, 1863, Buchanan Family Papers, MHC; Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, January 13, 1863; William Adams, “Politics and the Pulpit,” American Presbyterian and Theological Review, January 1863, 122–45; Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 115–16; Fairchild, 27th Regiment, 131; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 84–85.
22. Anson B. Shuey to Sarah Shuey, December 16, 1862, Shuey Letter, FSNMP; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 93; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 265–66.
23. Nolan, “Confederate Leadership at Fredericksburg,” 44; Gallagher, “Yanks Have Had a Terrible Whipping,” 129–35; OR, 549; Robert E. Lee, Wartime Papers, 365, 380–81; Heth, “Letter from Henry Heth,” 153–54. Gallagher’s essay presents the best analysis of Confederate response to the battle, though he admits that Lee’s apparent disappointment with the outcome cannot be entirely explained.
24. Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1862; James Edmond Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 66–67; December 16, 1862, Hamilton Diary, FSNMP; William B. Bailey to C. C. Bailey, December 17, 1862, Bailey Letters, HCWRTC, USAMHI; December 28, 1862, Dulany Diary, VHS.
25. OR Supplement, pt. 2, 71:46; Hodijah Lincoln Meade to Jane Eliza Meade, December 17, 1862, Meade Family Papers, VHS; Thomas Rowland to “Dear Aunt Emily,” December 21, 1862, Rowland Papers, MC; OR, ser. 4, 2:293; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 17, 1862; Isaac Howard to his father, December 23, 1862, Howard Family Papers, SHC; W. H. Burgess to David McKnight, December 20, 1862, McKnight Family Papers, UT; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 13–14, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; R. Channing Price to his mother, December 23, 1862, Price Papers, SHC; John Andrew Ramsay to “Cousin Julius,” December 17, 1862, Ramsay Papers, SHC.
26. LePore, Name of War, xiv, 240; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 17, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 18, 22, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 20, 1862; Charles Kerrison to his uncle, December 18, 1862, Kerrison Family Papers, SCL; C. H. Jones to his mother, December 16, 1862, Robert Hairston Papers, SHC; Times (London), January 7, 1863; Richmond Daily Whig, December 16, 1862; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Constitutionalist, December 23, 1862; Unknown Soldier to “Dear Cousin,” December 19, 1862, Unknown Soldier Letter, FSNMP; Philip H. Powers to his wife, December 17, 1862, Powers Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 21, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS; Richard Irby to his wife, December 19, 1862, Irby Letters, FSNMP. Porter Alexander even claimed that if the Yankees had fought as well as the Confederates, they “would have carried the position at the Marye’s house at the first assault” (Boggs, Alexander Letters, 246).
27. William Henry Cocke to John Cocke, December 25, 1862, Cocke Family Papers, VHS; Richmond Daily Examiner, January 3, 1863; Mortimer Johnson to his wife, December 18[?], 1862, Johnson Family Papers, Virginia Military Institute Archives; Richmond Daily Whig, December 16, 24, 29, 1862; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, December 22, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 16–17, 1862; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 16, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 20, 1862; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:80; Wilmington (N.C.) Daily Journal, December 29, 1862.
28. James I. Robertson Jr., Hill, 170; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 72:278; Emma Holmes, Diary, 222; Isaac Howard to his father, December 25, 1862, Howard Family Papers, SHC; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 18–19, 1862; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 15, 1862; Columbus (Ga.) Daily Enquirer, December 19, 1862; Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph, December 18–19, 1862, January 6, 1863; Atlanta Southern Confederacy, December 24, 31, 1862; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Constitutionalist, December 23, 1862; Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 39; William C. McClellan to his father, December 25, 28, 1862, Buchanan and McClellan Family Papers, SHC; Charleston Mercury, December 22, 1862; Charleston Daily Courier, December 19, 1862; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:221.
29. Philip H. Powers to his wife, December 25, 1862, Powers Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Augusta J. Evans to Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, December 20, 1862, Curry Papers, LC; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 20, 23–24, 1862; Milo Grow to his wife, December 15, 17, 1862, Grow Letters, FSNMP; Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph, December 25, 1862; Richmond Daily Whig, December 30, 1862; W. R. M. Slaughter to his sister, January 4, 1863, Slaughter Letters, VHS; Raleigh Weekly Standard, January 7, 1863.
30. Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 20, 1862; Robert Brooke Jones to “Dearest Bettie,” December 17, 1862, Jones Family Papers, VHS; Jefferson Davis, Papers, 9:11–12; Raleigh Weekly Register, December 24, 1862; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, December 18, 1862; Charleston Daily Courier, December 31, 1862; Richard Lewis, Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, 36.
31. Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 18, 1862; Charles Minor Blackford to Mary Blackford, January 12, 1863, Blackford Family Papers, SHC; Welch, Confederate Surgeon’s Letters, 39; Paxton, Memoir and Memorials, 85–86; Athens (Ga.) Southern Banner, January 7, 1863; L. Calhoun Cooper to his mother, December 18, 1862, Cooper Letters, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park; William B. Bailey to C. C. Bailey, December 17, 1862, Bailey Letters, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Atlanta Southern Confederacy, December 25, 1862.
32. Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 1, 1863; Richmond Daily Whig, January 6, 1863; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, December 16, 1862; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 24, 1862; Charleston Daily Courier, December 17, 1862; Richard L. Dabney to George W. Payne, January 2, 1863, Dabney Family Papers, VHS; OR, 549–50, 1085–86. About this same time misleading reports of a Confederate “victory” at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, sent Confederate hopes soaring even higher. See Richmond Daily Whig, January 3, 1863; Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 5, 1863; Borden, Legacy of Fanny and Joseph, 141.
33. Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of Jackson, 386; Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, 102–3; December 28, 1862, Maury Diary, LC; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 21, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; OR, 644; Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox to his sister, December 17, 1862, Wilcox Papers, LC; Myers, Children of Pride, 1001; Oscar J. E. Stuart to Adelaide L. Stuart, January 6, 1863, Dimitry Papers, Duke; Charleston Daily Courier, December 31, 1862; Robert Taylor Scott to his wife, December 31, 1862, Keith Family Papers, VHS.
34. Charleston Daily Courier, January 3, 1863; Roberson, Weep Not for Me, 95; James T. McElvaney to his mother, December 19, 1862, McElvaney Letter, FSNMP; Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of Jackson, 387–88; Burrows, New Richmond Theater, 3–16.
35. Emerson F. Merrill to his parents, December 17, 21, 1862, Merrill Papers, FSNMP; Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, December 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, Duke; Henry F. Young to “Dear Delia,” December 31, 1862, Young Papers, SHSW; A. J. Wilson to his parents, December 24, 1862, A. J. Wilson Letter, FSNMP; William L. Orr to Margaret Small Orr, December 21, 1862, Orr Family Papers, IU; David Dunkle to Uriah Thompson, January 3, 1863, Dunkle Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; J. L. Willy to his wife, December 17, 1862, Willy Letters, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Augustus Van Dyke to his brother, December 28, 1862, Van Dyke Papers, IHS; Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 280; Tucker, Hancock, 113; Jimerson, Private Civil War, 200.
36. Charles Thomas Bowen to his wife, December 18, 1862, Bowen Letter, FSNMP; Edward Louis Edes to his father, December 26, 1862, Edes Papers, MHS; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 94; Boston Daily Advertiser, December 18, 1862; Henry F. Young to his father, December 17, 1862, Young Papers, SHSW; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 155; Nancy Polk Lasselle to Mary Niles, January 7, 1863, U.S. History Manuscripts, IU; Loren H. Goodrich to “Dear Friends,” December 1862, Goodrich Papers, CHS; Thomas H. Parker, History of the 51st, 280–81.
37. OR Supplement, pt. 1, 3:673; Clark S. Edwards to his wife, January 14, 1863, Edwards Papers, USAMHI; Frinfrock, Across the Rappahannock, 145; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 43; George H. Legate to his sister, December 27, 1862, Legate Letter, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI.
38. O. Leland Barlow to his father, December 24, 1862, Barlow Papers, CSL; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, December 18, 1862; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 19, 1862; New York World, December 19, 1862; New York Tribune, December 27, 1862.
39. Samuel W. Eaton to Eddie Eaton, December 15, 1862, Eaton Papers, SHSW; December 19, 1862, Dodge Diary, LC; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 24, 1862; New York World, December 19, 1862; George M. Barnard to his father, December 20, 1862, Barnard Papers, MHS; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:341; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 156.
40. New York Herald, December 17, 22, 1862; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:281; John Hancock Douglas to his brother, December 25, 1862, Douglas Papers, LC; Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, 36–37, 62; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:206; OR, ser. 3, 2:953–54; Gurowski, Diary, 2:21; Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:248.
41. Bliss Memoir, 4:44, USAMHI; James Edison Decker to his father, December 17, 1862, Decker Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; New York Irish-American, January 10, 1863; Caleb H. Beal to his parents, December 23, 1862, Beal Papers, MHS; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 88–89.
42. Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Military Statistics, 725–26; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 97–98; Joseph Bloomfield Osborn to his father, December 18, 1862, Osborn Papers, LC; Henry H. Young to his mother, December 29, 1862, Young Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Samuel V. Dean to his wife, December 22, 1862, Dean Letters, FSNMP; William Hamilton to his mother, December 24, 1862, Hamilton Papers, LC.
43. December 15, 1862, Lambert Diary, IHS; George Barnard to his father, December 18, 1862, Barnard Papers, MHS; A. J. Wilson to his parents, December 24, 1862, A. J. Wilson Letter, FSNMP; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 238; Gifford Taylor, Gouverneur Kemble Warren, 97.
44. Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 149; Anson B. Shuey to Sarah Shuey, December 16, 1862, Shuey Letter, FSNMP; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 164; R. S. Robertson to his parents, December 24, 1862, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 210–11; New York Irish-American, December 27, 1862; L. B. Havern to Simeon Whiteley, December 16, 1862, Whiteley Papers, Illinois State Historical Library. Some soldiers claimed that McClellan had been seen in camp. Although most rumors, especially those right after a battle, tend to be dark, reports of McClellan’s imminent return proved the exception to the rule. In this case perhaps, the false reports initially did more to boost than to depress morale. See James Jenkins Gillette to his mother, December 17, 1862, Gillette Papers, LC; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, December 21, 1862, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Kapferer, Rumors, 132–35; Shibutani, Improvised News, 146–47.
45. Richmond Daily Examiner, December 18, 1862; Garfield, Wild Life of the Army, 201–2; New York Herald, December 19, 1862, January 10, 1863; Boston Post, December 22, 1862; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, January 12, 1863; Francis Preston Blair Sr. to Abraham Lincoln, December 18, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Edward Bates, Diary, 270; Gurowski, Diary, 2:42, 105; Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch, January 22, 1863.
46. Reuben H. Humphreyville to his sister, January 2, 1863, Humphreyville Papers, Chicago Historical Society; Oliver Willcox Norton, Army Letters, 129; George H. Patch to his mother, December 21, 1862, Patch Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; John Southard to his sister, December 22, 1862, Southard Family Papers, NYHS. In assessing soldier reaction to Burnside after Fredericksburg, I have relied almost exclusively on diaries and letters. After the fact, many remembered considering Burnside a fool from the start, so memoirs and regimental histories should be used sparingly.
47. R. S. Robertson to his parents, December 15, 1862, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, December 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, Duke; Trobriand, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 400–401; William P. Carmany to his sister, December 19, 1862, Carmany Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; George H. Bradley to his home folks, December 20, 1862, Bradley Papers, Yale University; Charles H. Eagor to his wife, December 16, 1862, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI.
48. Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 152; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 192; Teall, “Ringside Seat at Fredericksburg,” 31; Walker, Second Corps, 198; Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, December 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, Duke.
49. Elmer Bragg to his father, December 23, 1862, Bragg Letters, DCL; George Thornton Fleming, Hays, 288; Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, 92; Edwin Winchester Stone, Rhode Island in the Rebellion, 191–92; Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 25, 1862; Woolsey, Hospital Days, 58; John S. Crocker to his wife, December 17, 19, 1862, Crocker Letters, CU; Edward Burns to ?, December 1862, Van Wagonen Papers, University of Oregon; Herbert C. Mason to his father, December 17, 1862, Mason Letter, FSNMP; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 272–73.
50. George W. Coon to his mother, December 23, 1862, Coon Papers, FSNMP; William Teall to his wife, December 16, 1862, Teall Letters, TSLA; Herman Haupt to his wife, December 18, 1862, Haupt Letterbook, Haupt Papers, LC; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 194; Daniel Reed Larned to “Dear Henry,” December 16, 1862, Larned Papers, LC; OR, 66–67. In his report on the campaign Burnside noted that because he was a relatively new face in the Army of the Potomac, many officers had lacked confidence in him. Also, a campaign begun so late in the year had been risky. Moreover, soldiers unpaid for several months added to the “gloom and despondency” that seemed to dog the army. See OR, 96.
51. Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 194; New York Tribune, December 17, 1862; Gurowski, Diary, 2:31; Zachariah Chandler to his wife, December 18, 21, 1862, Chandler Papers, LC. For differing interpretations of how the committee investigated Fredericksburg, see T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 201–5; Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder, 144–47; Marvel, Burnside, 206–7.
52. CCW, 1:654–56.
53. William Teall to his wife, December 17–20, 1862, Teall Letters, TSLA; Julian, Political Recollections, 224–25; CCW, 1:656–63.
54. William B. Franklin to George B. McClellan, December 23, 1862, McClellan Papers, LC; OR, 868–70; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:15, 15–16n; Samuel E. Lyon to Salmon P. Chase, January 6, 1863, Chase Papers, LC.
55. CCW, 1:665–73; John Godfrey to Horace Godfrey, December 16, 1862, Godfrey Papers, NHHS; New York Herald, December 22, 1862; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 149, 153; OR, ser. 1, 32(2):468.
56. Boston Daily Advertiser, December 18, 1862; Washington Daily National Intelligencer,December 22, 1862; Richard Dodge to Simon Cameron, December 25, 1862, Cameron Papers, LC.
57. William Harris to George Hopper, December 26, 1862, Hopper Papers, USAMHI; Cannelton (Ind.) Reporter, December 26, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 19, 1862.
58. Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, December 17, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 17, 18, 1862; “The Reverse at Fredericksburg,” Harper’s Weekly, December 27, 1862, 818.
59. Portland (Maine) Eastern Argus, December 16–18, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 15, 17, 1862; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 18, 1862; Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, December 17, 1862; New York Herald, December 16, 1862; Philadelphia Public Ledger, December 17, 1862; Boston Post, December 18, 1862; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, December 18, 1862; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 20, 1862; “The Civil War: A Week of Grave Events,” Albion, December 20, 1862, 606–7.
60. Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 424; New York Times, January 27, 1863; Ambrose E. Burnside to Lincoln, December 19, 20, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:10; Daniel Reed Larned to his sister, December 23, 1862, Larned Papers, LC; W. Lloyd Aspinwell to Ambrose E. Burnside, December 23, 1862, Burnside Papers, entry 159, box 3, NA. For the most part Republican editors stuck by Burnside. Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin saw no reason to dump a general for “one mistake.” See Chicago Daily Tribune, December 19, 1862; Cahors (N.Y.) Cataract, December 20, 1862; Watertown (N.Y.) Daily News and Reformer, December 17, 1862; Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 17–18, 1862; H. Draper Hunt, Hamlin, 166.
61. OR, 66–67. Drafts of Burnside’s letter dated December 19 are in both the Lincoln and Stanton papers with the notation that it was to be sent to the Associated Press. See Burnside to Halleck, December 19, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Burnside to Halleck, December 19, 1862, Stanton Papers, LC.
62. John Claude Buchanan to Sophie Buchanan, December 24, 1862, Buchanan Family Papers, MHC; Charles Gibson to his sister, January 6, 1863, Gibson Letters, FSNMP; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 274; Dexter, Seymour Dexter, 124, 130; December 23, 1862, Dodge Diary, LC; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 156–57; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 196. Meade and Franklin were not impressed by the letter but pitied Burnside. See Meade, Life and Letters, 1:341; William B. Franklin to George B. McClellan, December 23, 1862, McClellan Papers, LC. Rebels dismissed the general’s confession of failure as a weak effort to cover up administration blunders. “To sacrifice an army to please a cabinet and to curry favor with a mob is a crime that cannot be excused,” the Confederacy’s London propaganda organ huffed. Several verses of broadside doggerel ridiculed a general who “basely bows at Lincoln’s toes.” See Richmond Daily Examiner, December 30, 1862; Atlanta Southern Confederacy, January 7, 1863; “General Burnside’s Report and Sworn Statement,” Index (London), January 8, 1863, 170; Shelton, Downfall of Burnside.
63. Boston Evening Transcript, December 23, 1862; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, December 23, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 23, 1862; Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 23, 1862; Hay, Lincoln’s Journalist, 324–27; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December 23, 1862; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 23, 1862; New York Times, December 23–24, 30, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, December 23, 1862; New York Tribune, December 23, 1862; Whittemore and Whittemore, “Rebellious South through New York Eyes,” 349; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:282; Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:345; D. Robinson to William H. Seward, December 23, 1862, Seward Papers, UR; J. Van Buren to Ambrose E. Burnside, December 23, 1862, Burnside Papers, entry 159, box 3, NA.
64. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, December 23, 1862; Philadelphia PublicLedger, December 25, 1862; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 23, 1862; Yonkers (N.Y.) Examiner, December 25, 1862; New York Herald, December 23, 26, 1862.
65. Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:13. Lincoln scholars, including notables such as James G. Randall, David Donald, Stephen Oates, and Phillip Paludan, do not even mention the document. The president’s private secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, along with Carl Sandburg and Benjamin Thomas quoted from it but left off the statement about the casualties. See Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 6:211; Sandburg, Lincoln, 1:632; Benjamin P. Thomas, Lincoln, 350.
66. OR, 68; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 149–50. For defenses of Lincoln’s reasoning, see Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 38–39; “The Cabinet Imbroglio,” Harper’s Weekly, January 3, 1863, 2.
67. Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 27, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 25, 1862; Boston Post, January 1, 1863. Confederates also ridiculed Lincoln’s effort to turn a defeat into a victory. See Lynchburg Daily Virginian, January 4, 1863.
68. Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder, 147; Catton, Never Call Retreat, 58–59; Daniel Reed Larned to “Dear Henry,” December 26, 1862, Larned Papers, LC; New York Times, December 26, 1862; Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch, December 27, 1862; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 25, 1862; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, December 27, 1862; James H. Leonard, “Letters of a Fifth Wisconsin Volunteer,” 70; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 155; Eliza Wilkes to John Wilkes, January 4, 1863, Wilkes Family Papers, Duke; Portland (Maine) Eastern Argus, December 27, 1862. In April 1863 Franklin issued a pamphlet attempting to vindicate his reputation. This scathing, self-serving, and ultimately unpersuasive review of the controversy neither helped him nor hurt Burnside. Franklin’s attempt to portray himself as a naive innocent without political friends was laughable. See OR, ser. 1, 51(1):1019–33; Ambrose E. Burnside to James Allen Hardie, May 14, 1863, Hardie Papers, LC; Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder, 161.
69. New York Tribune, December 15–17, 19, 24–25, 1862; New York Herald, December 25, 1862.
1. Providence (R.I.) Daily Journal, December 20, 1862; Waukesha (Wisc.) Freeman, December 23, 1862; New York Times, December 25, 1862; Chicago Daily Tribune, December 25, 1862; Hartford Daily Courant, December 24, 1862; New York Tribune, December 24, 1862; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, December 27, 1862; New York Herald, December 24, 1862.
2. John F. Hartranft to Sallie Hartranft, December 16, 1862, Hartranft Letter, FSNMP; December 16, 1862, Mancha Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Rusling, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days, 292; Wightman, Antietam to Fort Fisher, 93; Charles A. Legg to his parents, December 17, 1862, Legg Papers, Duke; Sanford Truesdale to his sister, December 17, 1862, Trues-dale Papers, University of Chicago; Lucius B. Shattuck to “Dear Ellen,” December 17–21, 1862, Shattuck Letters, MHC; Lancaster (Pa.) Daily Evening Express, December 23, 1862; Charles F. Stinson to his mother, December 21, 1862, Stinson Letters, USAMHI; Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, December 22, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 41; December 21, 1862, Boyts Diary, HSP; Emory Upton to his sister, December 23, 1862, Upton Letter, HCWRTC; Augustus Van Dyke to his brother, December 28, 1862, Van Dyke Papers, IHS; George Henry Chandler to his mother, December 25, 1862, Chandler Papers, NHHS. For an insightful general discussion of how rumors are constructed and discussed in the absence of reliable information and how their discussion also helps people cope with monotony and routine, see Shibutani, Improvised News, 55–56, 70–73.
3. Cook, Twelfth Massachusetts, 85; Wyman Silas White, Civil War Diary, 117–18; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 39; January 5, 7, 1863, Hadley Diary, NHHS; Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette, January 23, 1863; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 77; George A. Seaman to Olivia Seaman, December 24, 1862, Seaman Letters, FSNMP; Virgil W. Mattoon to “Dear Brother John,” December 28, 1862, Mattoon Papers, CHS; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 254.
4. Houghton, Seventeenth Maine, 37; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 145–46; Bloodgood, Personal Reminiscences of the War, 58–59.
5. Information on the huts came from twenty detailed descriptions in diaries, letters, newspapers, regimental histories, and memoirs. On various dimensions, see Narragansett (R.I.) Weekly, January 8, 1863; Storey, History of Cambria County, 251; George Chandler to his father, December 25, 1862, Chandler Letters, FSNMP; Wellsboro (Pa.) Agitator, January 4, 1863; Galwey, Valiant Hours, 71; Fairchild, 27th Regiment, 128.
6. McCrea, Dear Belle, 179; Albert Foster to his daughter, January 4, 1862, Foster Letters, FSNMP; Stearns, Three Years with Company K, 151–52; Nathaniel W. Brown to Albert M. Given, December 23, 1862, Brown Letter, FSNMP; Frederick, Story of a Regiment, 137.
7. Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 42; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 116; John Harrison Foye to his father, January 14, 1863, Foye Papers, NHHS; David Beem to his wife, December 25, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 521.
8. Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 120; History of the Thirty-Fifth Massachusetts Volunteers, 93; John Day Smith, Nineteenth Maine, 34; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 147; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 51–52, 55; Jacob Henry Cole, Under Five Commanders, 123; Matrau, Letters Home, 40; Billings, Hard Tack and Coffee, 74–78; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 94–95; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 65; Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” January 6, 1863, Partridge Letters, FSNMP.
9. David Beem to his wife, December 18, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; January 15, 1863, Marshall Diary, LC; Charles H. Eagor to his wife, December 20, 1862, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” January 17, 1863, Partridge Letters, FSNMP; Aaron Blake to his sister, January 11, 1863, Blake Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 238; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 299–301.
10. George M. Barnard to his father, December 21, 1862, Barnard Papers, MHS; Lewis Nettleton to “My own dear love,” December 20, 1862, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; David W. Benjamin to his sister, December 27, 1862, Benjamin Letter, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 52–53; O. Leland Barlow to his sister, January 20, 1863, Barlow Papers, CSL; Rusling, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days, 291.
11. Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 181; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 98; Pullen, Twentieth Maine, 63–65; Solomon Dodge to “Dear Brother Charles,” December 30, 1862, Dodge Papers, NHHS; Marbaker, Eleventh New Jersey, 29–30.
12. Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 36; Glazier, Three Years in the Federal Cavalry, 114–15; Samuel Penniman Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 4:186; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 24; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 54; Foster, New Jersey and the Rebellion, 571; Gavin, Campaigning with the Roundheads, 227; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 147.
13. Henry J. H. Thompson to Lucretia Thompson, December 19, 1862, Thompson Papers, Duke; Thomas J. Halsey, Field of Battle, 52; Wren, Captain James Wren’s Civil War Diary, 126–27; Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 37; Wyman Silas White, Civil War Diary, 119; Brian A. Bennett, 140th New York, 123; John March Cate to his wife, December 24, 1862, Cate Letters, FSNMP; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 87; Henry Ogden Ryerson to his sister, January 13, 1863, Anderson Family Papers, NJHS; Orson Blair Curtis, History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan, 107; Niven, Connecticut for the Union, 94–95; Ebensburg (Pa.) Democrat and Sentinel, January 14, 1863; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 24, 1862. The comment about British workers referred to relief efforts to help the unemployed in the north of England suffering from the so-called cotton famine, a point of great sensitivity in Anglo-American relations at this time.
14. O. Leland Barlow to his sister, December 29, 1862, Barlow Papers, CSL; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 45; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 45.
15. O. Leland Barlow to his father, January 13, 1863, Barlow Papers, CSL; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 52; Darius Starr to his mother, January 15, 1863, Starr Papers, Duke; Solomon Dodge to “Dear Brother Charles,” December 30, 1862, Dodge Papers, NHHS; Oliver S. Coolidge to ?, December 27, 1862, Coolidge Papers, Duke.
16. Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 51; Gallup, “Connecticut Yankee at Fredericksburg,” 204; December 20, 1862, Brown Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; John Southard to his sister, December 22, 1862, Southard Family Papers, NYHS; John W. Ames to his mother, December 29, 1862, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, December 28, 1862, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Orson Blair Curtis, History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan, 109.
17. David Beem to his wife, December 21, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; Best, History of the 121st New York, 53–54; Houghton, Seventeenth Maine, 42; James Lorenzo Bowen, Thirty-Seventh Regiment, 115–16; Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers, 10, 594–95; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 93; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 51; Lucius B. Shattuck to “Dear Ellen,” December 21–24, 1862, Shattuck Letters, MHC.
18. S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 93; Foster, New Jersey and the Rebellion, 522; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 41–44; Blakeslee, Sixteenth Connecticut, 29; David Lane, Soldier’s Diary, 25.
19. James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, December 19, 1862, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; MSH, 3:77; Robert W. Hemphill to his father, December 18, 1862, Hemphill Letter, Henry Family Papers, USAMHI; Asa W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth New Hampshire, 516; Crowinshield, First Regiment Massachusetts Cavalry, 105; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 7, 1863; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 37; Foster, New Jersey and the Rebellion, 387; Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 62–63.
20. Orson Blair Curtis, History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan, 102–3; Lord, History of the Ninth New Hampshire, 628–31; December 24, 1862, Eaton Diary, SHC; Pardington, Dear Sarah, 53. It is understandable that many of the boys preferred home remedies, from cayenne pepper to various tonics and elixirs to a daily dousing of the head in cold water. One Pennsylvanian astutely warned that sickly soldiers could easily “become victims of quackery.” See Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, December 22, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; January 11, 1863, Eaton Diary, SHC; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 52; January 7, 1863, Halsey Diary, USAMHI; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 5, 1863; Ebensburg (Pa.) Democrat and Sentinel, January 14, 1863.
21. Asa W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth New Hampshire, 704; Sturtevant, Josiah Volunteered, 80; “Army Correspondence,” German Reformed Messenger, January 14, 1863, 1; December 21, 1862, Eaton Diary, SHC; December 20, 1862, Halsey Diary, USAMHI. For a good sense of how one regiment that had barely been engaged at Fredericksburg suffered serious losses from disease in December 1862 and January 1863, see the individual cases noted in Brainard, One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York, 312–415 passim.
22. December 26, 1862, Mancha Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 114; Cutcheon, Story of the Twentieth Michigan Infantry, 46; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 168–69; Weygant, One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Regiment, 76–77; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 57; Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 35–36; December 25, 862, Eaton Diary, SHC.
23. Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 93; Henry C. Heisler to his sister, December 22, 1862, Heisler Papers, LC.
24. For typical schedules, see Vautier, 88th Pennsylvania, 93; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 95; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 51; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 529–30.
25. Small, Sixteenth Maine, 84–87; Henry F. Young to his father, January 9, 1862, Young Papers, SHSW; Brainard, One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York, 47–50; Cudworth, First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), 332; Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, 95–96; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 131–33; Jacob Henry Cole, Under Five Commanders, 121; Frederick, Story of a Regiment, 135–36.
26. Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 153; December 21, 1862, Gilpin Diary, LC; Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, December 20, 1862, Watkins Papers, VHS; John R. Coye to his wife, January 7, 1863, Coye Letters, FSNMP; Lucius B. Shattuck to “Dear Gill and Mary,” December 16–18, 1862, Shattuck Letters, MHC; Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 37–38; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 300; Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Military Statistics, 580; Philip Hacker to William Hacker and Barbara Woll Hacker, January 6, 1863, Hacker Brothers Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Loren H. Goodrich to “Dear Friends,” January 5, 1863, Goodrich Papers, CHS.
27. Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 47; David Beem to his wife, January 4, 1863, Beem Papers, IHS; George W. Ballock to Jenny Ballock, December 18, 1862, Ballock Papers, Duke; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 45; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 300; January 5, 1863, Taber Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Charles H. Brewster to ?, January 14, 1863, Brewster Collection, Northampton Historical Society.
28. Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” January 9, 1863, Partridge Letters, FSNMP; Jacob F. Smith to “Dear Callie,” February 5, 1863, Jacob F. Smith Letter, CWMC, USAMHI; Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 153; George E. Upton to his wife, January 15, 1863, Upton Papers, NHHS; December 23, 1862, Dodge Diary, LC; Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 64; David Beem to his wife, December 18, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; December 27, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI.
29. William Speed to his sister, December 29, 1862, Speed Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Matrau, Letters Home, 40; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 36–37, 58–59, 63–64; Charles Carelton Coffin, Four Years of Fighting, 174–75; Solomon Dodge to “Dear Brother Charles,” December 30, 1862, Dodge Papers, NHHS; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 523; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 55; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 96, 98; Melcher, With aFlash of His Sword, 20; Forbes, Thirty Years After, 133; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 26; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 213.
30. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Democrat and American, January 8, 17, 1863; Brian A. Bennett, 140th New York, 120; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 115; John Gregory Bishop Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts, 60–61.
31. Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 46; December 21, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 25; Henry Grimes Marshall to “Dear Hattie,” January 25, 1863, Marshall Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; January 4, 1863, Henry C. Marsh Diary, Marsh Papers, ISL; Henry Snow to his mother, December 25, 1862, Snow Letters, CHS; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 48–49; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 98; Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, January 6, 1863. In the Irish Brigade, Chaplain William Corby held daily mass for some time after the battle of Fredericksburg. See Corby, Memoirs of Chaplain Life, 135–36; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 41.
32. United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 57; Charles H. Eagor to his wife, January 4, 1863, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 114; January 18, 1863, Jackson Diary, IHS; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 52; John Harrison Foye to his sister, January 30, 1863, Foye Papers, NHHS; Sim Siggins to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 25, 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory.
33. James R. Woodworth to his wife, December 28, 1862, January 7, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Josiah W. Perry to Phoebe Perry, January 15, 1863, Perry Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; January 25, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; George E. French to his mother, January 1, 1863, French Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Charles Augustus Fuller, Recollections of the War of 1861, 76; Andrew J. Bennett, Story of the First MassachusettsLight Battery, 99–100; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 37; Alexander Morrison Stewart, Camp, March, and Battlefield, 290–93; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 59–60; Virgil W. Mattoon to “Dear Brother John,” December 28, 1862, Mattoon Papers, CHS.
34. Sturtevant, Josiah Volunteered, 81; Melcher, With a Flash of His Sword, 18; Carlisle (Pa.) Herald, December 26, 1862; Hartford Daily Courant, January 14, 1863; Robert Guyton to his father, December 28, 1862, Guyton and Heaslet Papers, Duke; January 15–16, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; Clark S. Edwards to his wife, January 5, 1863, Edwards Papers, USAMHI.
35. Kibler, “Letters from a Confederate Soldier,” 125; December 17, 1862, Firebaugh Diary, SHC; James T. McElvaney to his mother, December 19, 1862, McElvaney Letter, FSNMP; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 6:294; Alexander Routh to ?, December 22, 1862, Routh Letter, East Carolina University; W. H. Andrews, Footprints of a Regiment, 100; J. F. Shaffner to “My Dearest Friend,” December 21, 1862, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH.
36. William Alexander Smith, Anson Guards, 173; Welch, Confederate Surgeon’s Letters, 41; Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 21, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS; Robert Taylor Scott to his wife, December 31, 1862, Keith Family Papers, VHS; Richard Lewis, Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, 37; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 267.
37. Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 120–21; McCreery Recollections, section 10, 1862–63, VHS; January 17, 1863, Cowin Diary, UA; Napier Bartlett, Military Record of Louisiana, 164; Manarin, 15th Virginia, 36; Lee A. Wallace Jr., 17th Virginia, 42.
38. David L. Bozeman to his wife, January 18, 1863, Bozeman Letters, FSNMP; DeNoon, Charlie’s Letters, 124–25; Jonathan Fuller Coghill to “Dear Pappy, Ma, and Mit,” January 25, 1863, Coghill Letters, Auburn University Archives; Krick, 30th Virginia, 34; McMurry, Hood, 67; “Letters from the Front,” 157.
39. Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 200; Reidenbaugh, 33rd Virginia, 56; Robert A. Moore, Life for the Confederacy, 125; Jensen, 32nd Virginia, 106–7; Walter Clark, Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, 2:297; Austin, Georgia Boys with “Stonewall” Jackson, 58.
40. Jennings Cropper Wise, Long Arm of Lee, 1:425–26; Bone Reminiscences, NCDAH; Driver, 52nd Virginia, 31–32; J. G. Montgomery to his family, January 9, 1863, Montgomery Letter, FSNMP; William Ross Stillwell to “My Dear Mollie,” December 14, 1862, Stillwell Letters, GDAH; Pipes Memoir, 15, VHS; OR, 1097.
41. Chapla, “Quartermaster Operations in the Forty-second Virginia,” 19–20; James H. Simpson to his mother, December 25, 1862, Allen and Simpson Family Papers, SHC; Cutrer and Parrish, Brothers in Gray, 138; Emory M. Thomas, Confederate Nation, 190–91; Bell, 11th Virginia, 36; Walter Clark, Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, 2:586; OR, 1097–99; Michael W. Taylor, Cry Is War, War, War, 129; James T. McElvaney to his mother, December 19, 1862, McElvaney Letter, FSNMP.
42. OR, 1088–90, 1100–1101, 1109–11, and ser. 1, 51(2):667. One problem was that Northrop waited until after the battle of Fredericksburg to order additional supplies from the lower South. See Goff, Confederate Supply, 80–81.
43. Caldwell, History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, 70; Terry L. Jones, Lee’s Tigers, 140; Musselman, Caroline Light, Parker, and Stafford Light Virginia Artillery, 55; December 18, 22, 1862, Ware Diary, SHC; Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 27, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS.
44. William Meade Dame to “Dear Nell,” January 1863, Dame Letters, FSNMP; Carmichael, Purcell, Crenshaw, and Letcher Artillery, 106; Hartley, Stuart’s Tarheels, 183; Krick, 30th Virginia, 34–35.
45. Thomas J. Morrison to his mother, December 20, 1862, Morrison Letters, FSNMP; Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 117; Chapla, 42nd Virginia, 30–32; Hagood, “Memoirs,” 92, SCL; James W. Espy to Alexander H. Stephens, December 30, 1862, Stephens Papers, LC; Edwin G. Lee to Frederick W. M. Holliday, December 22, 1862, Holliday Papers, Duke; Clement Anselm Evans, Confederate Military History, 8:860. Officers’ slaves, too, got sick and had to be sent home. See John Bratton to his wife, January 1, 1863, Bratton Letters, SHC.
46. J. F. Shaffner to “My dearest friend,” December 21, 1862, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH; OR, 1084–85; Henry Kyd Douglas to Helen Macomb Boteler, December 22, 1862, Douglas Papers, Duke; January 23, 1863, Ware Diary, SHC; Constantine Hege to his parents, December 21, 1862, Hege Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Edward E. Sill to his sister, December 20, 1862, Sill Letters, Duke; Jensen, 32nd Virginia, 107; December 27, 1862, January 1, 1863, Pickens Diary, UA. Though not as severe as in warmer weather, diarrhea still plagued many soldiers. “When one’s bowels get wrong here, it is difficult to correct them with the diet we have,” an Alabama lieutenant observed. See Burgwyn, Captain’s War, 44; James M. Simpson to his mother, December 25, 1862, and Simpson to his wife, January 6, 1863, Allen and Simpson Family Papers, SHC; Cutrer and Parish, Brothers in Gray, 139–40; Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 211; January 17, 1863, Ware Diary, SHC; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:89.
47. Robert E. Lee, Wartime Papers, 379–81.
48. Henry Clay Krebs to Lizzie Beard, December 25, 1862, Krebs Papers, Duke; William D. Henderson, 12th Virginia, 43; December 25, 1862, Shipp Diary, VHS; J. F. Shaffner to “My dearest friend,” December 26, 1862, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH; Malone, Whipt ’em Everytime, 67; Iobst and Manarin, Bloody Sixth, 108; Henry Alexander Chambers, Diary, 78; Alexander E. Pendleton to his sister, December 28, 1862, Pendleton Papers, SHC; Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 199–200. For a useful though at times overblown analysis of changing Christmas customs and their significance, see Nissenbaum, Battle for Christmas.
49. Bell, 11th Virginia, 36; Driver, 52nd Virginia, 30; Isaac Howard to his father, December 25, 1862, Howard Family Papers, SHC; Manarin, 15th Virginia, 36; Trout, With Pen and Saber, 129; Jensen, 32nd Virginia, 107; David Holt, Mississippi Rebel, 155–58.
50. William Henry Cocke to John Cocke, December 26, 1862, Cocke Family Papers, VHS; Chamberlayne, Ham Chamberlayne, Virginian, 151; Riggs, 13th Virginia, 28; William C. McClellan to his father, December 28, 1862, Buchanan and McClellan Family Papers, SHC; David L. Bozeman to his wife, December 27, 1862, Bozeman Letters, FSNMP; Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys, 141.
51. Edgar Allan Jackson, Three Rebels Write Home, 81; Burgwyn, Captain’s War, 45; Irvin Cross Wills to James W. Wills, January 1, 1863, Wills Family Papers, VHS; Pierrepont, Reuben Vaughan Kidd, 319; Mills Lane, “Dear Mother: Don’t Grieve about Me,” 208; Jeremiah M. Tate to his sister, February 14, 1863, Tate Papers, GLC; Balfour, 13th Virginia Cavalry, 11; Krick, Parker’s Virginia Battery, 106.
52. George Wise, Seventeenth Virginia, 132; Patterson, Yankee Rebel, 91; Bryan Grimes to William Grimes, December 26, 1862, Grimes Family Papers, SHC; December 24, 1862, Ware Diary, SHC; December 25, 1862, E. P. Miller Diary, FSNMP; December 24, 1862, Hodnett Diary, UDC Bound Typescripts, GDAH; Richard Lewis, Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, 38.
53. Accounts of Christmas Day in the Army of Northern Virginia confirm Reid Mitchell’s argument that long-held notions about Confederates as devout Christian soldiers need revising. See Reid Mitchell, “Christian Soldiers?,” 297–309.
54. Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 27, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS; Francis P. Fleming, “Fleming in the War for Southern Independence,” 48–49; December 25, 1862, Jones Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; W. H. Andrews, Footprints of a Regiment, 100–101; Henry P. Garrison to Emily Aurora Bosworth, January 4, 1863, Garrison Papers, Austin State University; Halsey Wigfall to Charlotte Wigfall, December 26, 1862, Wigfall Papers, UT.
55. Philip H. Powers to his wife, December 25, 1862, Powers Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Miles H. Hill to his sister, December 24, 1862, Morgan-Hill Family Papers, Troup County Archives; H. Waters Berryman to his mother, December 27, 1862, Berryman Letter, USAMHI; Hightower, “Letters from Harvey Judson Hightower,” 180; Dobbins, Grand-father’s Journal, 116; Samuel J. C. Moore to his wife, December 25, 1862, Samuel J. C. Moore Papers, SHC; Young and Young, 56th Virginia, 69–70; James I. Robertson Jr., 4th Virginia, 23; William G. Bean, “House Divided,” 407; D. R. E. Winn to “Dear Fannie,” December 23, 1862, Winn Letters, Emory.
56. Charleston Daily Courier, December 24, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 24, 25, 29, 1862; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:224; Katharine M. Jones, Ladies of Richmond, 147; Welton, Caldwell Letters, 166–67; Lee A. Wallace Jr., 1st Virginia, 38; December 25, 1862, Hamilton Diary, FSNMP; December 25, 1862, Penrose Diary, LSU; Greer, “All Thoughts Are Absorbed in the War,” 35.
57. Milledgeville (Ga.) Confederate Union, December 30, 1862; Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1862; December 25, 1862, Ware Diary, SHC; J. F. Shaffner to “My dearest friend,” December 26, 1862, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH; Richmond Daily Examiner, December 25, 1862.
58. Richmond Daily Whig, December 24, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 25, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 25, 1862; Charleston Daily Courier, December 25, 1862; Simpson and Simpson, Far, Far from Home, 168.
59. John R. McClure, Hoosier Farmboy in Lincoln’s Army, 35; Cornelius Richmond to his wife, December 25, 1862, Richmond Papers, FSNMP; James H. Leonard, “Letters of a Fifth Wisconsin Volunteer,” 69; Aldrich, History of Battery A, 167; Bright and Bright, “Respects to All,” 36; George H. Patch to his mother, December 27, 1862, Patch Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 301; Wellsboro (Pa.) Agitator, January 4, 1863; John D. Withrow to Sarah Withrow, December 28, 1862, Withrow Letters, FSNMP; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 55.
60. Edward Henry Courtney Taylor to his brother, January 7, 1863, Taylor Letters, MHC; J. L. Smith to his mother, December 26, 1862, John L. Smith Letters, FSNMP; History of the Sixth New York Cavalry, 88; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 97; Curtis C. Pollock to his mother, December 27, 1862, Pollock Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Joseph H. Leighty to his sister, December 25, 1862, GAR.
61. Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 44; Harper, Civil War History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, 187; Henry Grimes Marshall to “Dear Folks at Home,” December 25, 1862, Marshall Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Jacob Henry Cole, Under Five Commanders, 121; Allan L. Bevan to his sister, January 1, 1863, Bevan Correspondence, CWMC, USAMHI; Edward W. Steffan to his brother, December 27, 1862, Steffan Letters, FSNMP; Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, 115.
62. J. L. Smith to his mother, December 26, 1862, John L. Smith Letters, FSNMP; Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 63–64; William Hamilton to his mother, December 28, 1862, Hamilton Papers, LC; Weygant, One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Regiment, 78–79; Cudworth, First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), 333; John W. Ames to his mother, January 4, 1863, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Solomon Dodge to his brother, December 30, 1862, Dodge Papers, NHHS; Henry Butler to his wife, December 30, 1862, Butler Papers, Castine Public Library.
63. Henry C. Heisler to his sister, January 5, 1863, Heisler Papers, LC; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 148–49; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 5, 1863; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 130; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 23–24; New York Times, December 30, 1862; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 196.
64. John Godfrey to Horace Godfrey, December 28, 1862, Godfrey Papers, NHHS; Louis Fortescue to “Friend Sam,” January 9, 1863, Fortescue Letters, FSNMP; David Beem to his wife, December 25, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; Conyngham, Irish Brigade, 360–61; December 25, 1862, Holford Diary, LC; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 58; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 213; George E. Stephens, Voice of Thunder, 219; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 153–57; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, December 25, 1862, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL. Some men decorated their camps with holly or even Christmas trees; others organized races and games. As with the Confederates, there were apparently few religious observances. See Trask, Fire Within, 163–64; William Hamilton to his mother, January 6, 1863, Hamilton Papers, LC; Mulholland, 116th Pennsylvania, 72; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 149–51; Trobriand, Our Noble Blood, 88–89; David Beem to his wife, December 25, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS.
65. December 25, 1862, Taggart Diary, USAMHI; George W. Ballock to Jenny Ballock, December 23, 25, 1862, Ballock Papers, Duke; Lewis Nettleton to “My own dear love,” December 25, 1862, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, December 25, 1862, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 126; John Claude Buchanan to Sophie Buchanan, December 31, 1862, Buchanan Family Papers, MHC; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 47; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 114; John R. McClure, Hoosier Farmboy in Lincoln’s Army, 32; David Beem to his wife, December 25, 1862, Beem Papers, IHS; George H. Legate to his sister, December 27, 1862, Legate Letter, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI.
66. December 25, 1862, Bacon Diary, FSNMP; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Wood-worth, December 25, 1862, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 56; John Claude Buchanan to Sophie Buchanan, December 24, 1862, Buchanan Family Papers, MHC; Edward Hutchinson to “Dear Emma,” December 22, 1862, Hutchinson Letters, FSNMP; John Harrison Foye to his sister, January 18, 1863, Foye Papers, NHHS; Lois Hill, Poems and Songs of the Civil War, 68. For the Christmas Eve drawing, see Harper’s Weekly, January 3, 1863, 8.
67. For representative Christmas advertising, see New York Herald, December 23, 1862; New York Tribune, December 23, 1862; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, December 10, 15, 23, 1862; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 17, 25, 27, 1862; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 24, 1862; O’Connor, Civil War Boston, 122.
68. Ferris, “Civil War Diaries,” 242; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 27, 1862, January 5, 1863; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 52; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 27, 1862.
69. New York Herald, December 25, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 25, 1862; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:282; Thomas Gouldsberry to his brother, December 25, 1862, Gouldsberry Letter, FSNMP.
70. New York Irish-American, December 27, 1862; Dexter, Seymour Dexter, 130. The unnamed Irishman might have been even more depressed had he known that on Christmas Day several aldermen visited a cemetery near St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which had been set aside for the burial of Catholic soldiers. See New York Herald, December 25, 1862.
71. Boston Evening Transcript, December 24, 1862; Hartford Daily Courant, December 25, 1862; Lounger, “Holy-Time,” Harper’s Weekly, January 10, 1863, 18; “Christmas Greeting,” Independent, December 25, 1862, 4; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 239.
1. Robert Taylor Scott to his wife, January 5, 1863, Keith Family Papers, VHS; William Rhadamanthus Montgomery, Georgia Sharpshooter, 13.
2. January 1, 1863, Ware Diary, SHC; Clement Anselm Evans, Intrepid Warrior, 125–26; Wingfield, “Diary of Capt. H. W. Wingfield,” 21–22; Patterson, Yankee Rebel, 91–92; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:524; Edmondston, “Journal of a Secesh Lady,” 326–29; Cumming, Journal, 82.
3. Clement Anselm Evans, Intrepid Warrior, 131; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1: 228; Jefferson Davis, Papers, 9:8; Henry Alexander Chambers, Diary, 80; Susan Leigh Blackford, Letters from Lee’s Army, 152–53; Lucy Rebecca Buck, Shadows of My Heart, 171; Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph, January 2, 1863; Charleston Mercury, January 1, 1863; Sarah Morgan Dawson, Civil War Diary, 380–81.
4. Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 172; Philip Piper to his cousin, January 7, 1863, GAR.
5. John L. Smith, 118th Pennsylvania, 158; January 1, 1863, S. W. Gordon Diary, FSNMP; William B. Jordan Jr., Red Diamond Regiment, 34; Trobriand, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 397–98; Ayling, Yankee at Arms, 89; Todd, Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, 267; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 251; Siegel, For the Glory of the Union, 118. For connections between drinking and liberty, see Rorabaugh, Alcoholic Republic, esp. 35.
6. December 31, 1862, Webb Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 240; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 78; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 1, 1863.
7. The points about morality and providence are brilliantly discussed in Diggins, Lost Soul of American Politics, 312–33, 346.
8. It is easy when discussing “freedom” in the Civil War era to assume that emancipation was all but inevitable and give short shrift to competing visions of freedom. Eric Foner’s recent survey of the subject, while acknowledging that “both sides fought the Civil War in the name of freedom,” adopts a tone suggesting that the triumph of progressive notions about freedom was not seriously in doubt. See Eric Foner, Story of American Freedom, 95–100.
9. Harriet Beecher Stowe to Charles Sumner, December 13, 1862; John Murray Forbes to Sumner, December 18, 1862; John D. Baldwin to Sumner, December 30, 1862, Sumner Papers, HU; B. Birdsoll to Zachariah Chandler, December 22, 1862, Chandler Papers, LC; Sylvanus Cobb to Abraham Lincoln, December 27, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:284; Charles Sumner, Selected Letters, 2:135–36.
10. Beecher, Patriotic Addresses, 403–21; Chicago Daily Tribune, December 19, 1862; George E. Stephens, Voice of Thunder, 216–19; Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell and Ann Phillips, 166.
11. Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 114–15; Browning, Diary, 1:602; Joseph H. Geiger to Salmon P. Chase, December 27, 1862, Chase Papers, LC.
12. New York Tribune, December 26–27, 1862; “Fredericksburg and Washington,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, December 27, 1862, 2; “God’s Ways Not Our Ways,” Evangelist, January 1, 1863, 1; Resolution of Conference of Baptist Ministers to Abraham Lincoln, December 24, 1862, Seward Papers, UR. In arguing that emancipation would bring military victory, abolitionists and their Republican allies echoed Clausewitz’s contention that an ambitious “policy” objective would infuse energy into an army. See Clausewitz, On War, 606–7, 610, 642.
13. Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, December 18, 1862; New York Herald, December 18, 1862.
14. Miers, Lincoln Day by Day, 3:159; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:209–11; Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:350–51; Browning, Diary, 1:606–7; Sandburg, Lincoln, 2:14; Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, 2:136.
15. Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, 48–49; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 58–60; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:212; Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, 2:137; Frederick W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 227; Francis Becknell Carpenter, Inner Life of Lincoln, 87.
16. Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:28–30. For a brief, analytical, and carefully balanced appraisal of the Emancipation Proclamation, see Paludan, Presidency of Lincoln, 187–89.
17. Stephen B. Oates, Woman of Valor, 118–19; Cary, George William Curtis, 161; John Murray Forbes to Zachariah Chandler, January 26, 1862, Chandler Papers, LC; “Why a Prolonged War?,” Liberator, January 29, 1863, 18; Thaddeus Stevens, Selected Papers, 1:357; New York Tribune, January 13, 1863; Paludan, Presidency of Lincoln, 190–91.
18. Douglass, Writings of Douglass, 3:305–10; Douglass, Life and Times, 427–30; Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 170–74. For accounts of similar celebrations elsewhere, see McPherson, Negro’s Civil War, 50, 81; Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 174–75; Dusinberre, Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 151–53.
19. “The New Year,” Independent, January 1, 1863, 4; “The Edict of Freedom,” Independent, January 8, 1863, 8; “The Happy New Year,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, January 10, 1863, 2; Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, January 3, 1863; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January 3, 1863; Chicago Daily Tribune, January 2, 1863; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:286; Boston Daily Advertiser, January 1, 1863; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, January 2, 1863; Boston Evening Transcript, January 2, 1863.
20. New York World, January 6, 1863; “Mr. Lincoln Proclaims Emancipation,” Albion, January 3, 1863, 6–7; Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, January 1, 1863; Klement, Copperheads in the Middle West, 43–45; New York Herald, January 1, 1863; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 3, 1862, January 3, 1863; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 3, 6, 1863. Historian John Hope Franklin noted how Democratic editors responded in remarkably mild language. This is partly true, and even the Republican press did not comment extensively on the final Emancipation Proclamation. But it is also important to keep in mind that the Democrats had many other issues with which to browbeat the administration. The failures of the Army of the Potomac, the new calls for peace, the coming inauguration of Horatio Seymour as governor of New York, and the prospects for foreign intervention in the war all consumed increasing amounts of editorial space. See Franklin, Emancipation Proclamation, 118–24.
21. Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:212–13; Browning, Diary, 1:609, 612–13, 618–19; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 5, 1863; Thomas Ewing Sr. to William H. Seward, January 13, 1863, and William Crafts to Seward, January 24, 1863, Seward Papers, UR; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, January 2, 12, 23, 1863; New York Times, January 3, 9, 1863.
22. Edward W. Peck to his mother, January 3, 1863, Peck Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 215–16; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 161; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 20, 1863; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 156; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 119–20.
23. John C. Ellis to his nephew, January 1863, Ellis-Marshall Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Gay, “Gay Letters,” 390; Joseph Bloomfield Osborn to Mary Osborn, Osborn Papers, LC.
24. Kearney, “Letters from the Field,” 189–90; Jonathan Hutchinson to his home folks, January 7, 1863, Hutchinson Letters, USAMHI; G. O. Bartlett to Ira Andrews, January 11, 1863, Bartlett Papers, GLC; Daniel Faust to his mother, January 5, 1863, Faust Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI; January 2, 1863, Dodge Diary, LC; “Alarming Evidence of Demoralization in the Army,” Old Guard, February 1863, 36; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 22, 1863; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 215–16. Some officers attempted to resign in protest over the Emancipation Proclamation, but Burnside and Sumner quickly put a halt to that ploy. See Ambrose E. Burnside to William B. Franklin, January 18, 1863, Burnside Letterbook, Dispatches, December 26, 1862–January 20, 1863, RIHS; New York Tribune, January 21, 1863; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, January 22, 1863; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 421.
25. John R. McClure, Hoosier Farmboy in Lincoln’s Army, 35–36; Landon, “Letters to the Vincennes Western Sun,” 341; “Alarming Evidence of Demoralization in the Army,” Old Guard, February 1863, 36; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 61; December 15, 1862, Boyts Diary, HSP; George E. Stephens, Voice of Thunder, 214; Morton Hayward to his sister, December 23, 1862, Hayward Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI. Ironically, racial prejudice helped build support for the enrollment of black troops. “The true question,” Hannah Ropes believed, “was whether we would have sons sacrificed, or the blacks, for whose freedom this war is waged.” Such reasoning helped convince white soldiers that black regiments might redound to their advantage. See Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, November 12, 1862; Ropes, Civil War Nurse, 114–15; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 126–28.
26. Jacob W. Haas to Frederick Haas, January 3, 1863, Haas Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 215.
27. Edward Henry Courtney Taylor to his sister, January 15, 1863, Taylor Letters, MHC; Joseph Ripley Chandler Ward, One Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania, 128; Banes, Philadelphia Brigade, 148–49; Anson B. Shuey to his wife, January 11, 1863, Shuey Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Thomas H. Parker, History of the 51st, 282. James McPherson’s careful analysis rightly notes that Lincoln’s decision did not cause a morale crisis in the army. Yet despite the complexity of soldier opinion, there is little doubt that the Emancipation Proclamation at least contributed to morale problems among Burnside’s men. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 121–26.
28. Brunswick (Maine) Telegraph, January 16, 1863; January 14, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; Stearns, Three Years with Company K, 152; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 242; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 92–93; Gates, Civil War Diaries, 60; David Beem to his wife, January 8, 1863, Beem Papers, IHS; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 526; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 216; William Franklin Draper to his father, January 9, 1863, Draper Papers, LC. James McPherson has argued that the majority of Federal soldiers favored emancipation and, along with Reid Mitchell, has pointed out the strength of pragmatic arguments in the evolution of military attitudes. Yet McPherson acknowledged that opinion seemed to be running the other way during the winter of 1862–63, certainly the case in the Army of the Potomac. See McPherson, What They Fought For, 60–64; Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 126–31. For a good narrative account of soldier reactions that emphasizes diversity, change over time, and finally steadfast patriotism, see William C. Davis, Lincoln’s Men, 99–108.
29. Richmond Daily Examiner, January 7, 1863; January 1, 1863, Harriet Ellen Moore Diary, SHC; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, January 9, 1863; Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, 107; Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph, January 8, 1863; Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 6, 1863. At this point the southern press was still reporting the battle of Stones River as a Rebel victory.
30. John G. Nicolay to Therena Nicolay, January 11, 1863, Nicolay Papers, LC; P. C. Smith to Salmon P. Chase, January 1, 1863, Chase Papers, LC; Nevins, War for the Union, 2:351; T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 242–43; Catton, Never Call Retreat, 58; Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Sumner, 4:114; Kapferer, Rumors, 132–35. For a concise discussion of speculation about a so-called Northwest Confederacy, see McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 593.
31. Nicholas B. Wainwright, “Loyal Opposition in Philadelphia,” 298–99; Roseboom, History of Ohio, 404; Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., 1862, 2, 26–37, 86–90, 227; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, December 6, 1862; Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, January 20, 1863. Prisoners whom Democrats considered martyrs to liberty, Republicans dismissed as either cheating contractors or traitors. See Augusta (Maine) Kennebec Journal, December 19, 1862; Philadelphia Inquirer, December 24, 1862; New York Tribune, December 9, 1862.
32. Stewart Mitchell, Horatio Seymour, 260–67; George Brinton McClellan, Civil War Papers, 537; George B. McClellan Democratic Club, Morrisania, N.Y., to George B. McClellan, January 16, 1863, McClellan Papers, LC; Thurlow Weed to William H. Seward, November 20, 1862, January 1, 1863, Seward Papers, UR.
33. Stewart Mitchell, Horatio Seymour, 267–71; New York World, January 9, 1863; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 9, 1863; Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 7, 1863; New York Herald, January 8, 1863; New York Irish-American, January 17, 1863; Boston Pilot, January 24, 1863. Mark Neely has pointed out that the question of civil liberties became a more attractive issue for northern Democrats after the fall elections. See Neely, Fate of Liberty, 192–95. Weed’s newspaper organ praised Seymour’s message overall but declared him wrong on the issue of arbitrary arrests. See Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, January 7, 1863.
34. New York Tribune, January 8, 1863; Yonkers (N.Y.) Examiner, January 15, 1863; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 6, 1863; Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, January 8, 1863; New York Times, January 8, 9, 1863.
35. Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:329; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:219; John A. Dix to Edwin M. Stanton, January 1, 1863, Lincoln Papers, LC; Douglass, Writings of Douglass, 3:314–17. In light of the later draft riots in the city, Dix proved something of a prophet.
36. Nevins, War for the Union, 2:341–42; Fernando Wood to Abraham Lincoln, December 8, 17, 1862, and Horace Greeley to Lincoln, December 12, 1862, Lincoln Papers, LC; Lincoln, Collected Works, 5:553–54; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 705; Van Deusen, Greeley, 288–97; Carroll, Henri Mercier and the Civil War, 254–59; N. P. Tallmadge to William H. Seward, January 7, 1863, Seward Papers, UR. One of the informal diplomats was recently elected New York congressman Fernando Wood, a notorious Tammany Hall Democrat. For the international context of these peace rumors, see Howard Jones, Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom, 159–61.
37. Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 5, 1863; Shankman, Pennsylvania Antiwar Movement, 108–9; “What Is the War Coming To?,” Knickerbocker, January 1863, 44; Fisher, Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 445; Dusinberre, Civil War Issues in Philadelphia, 153–56.
38. Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., 1862, 15; New York Times, December 13, 1862; Klement, Limits of Dissent, 122–28; Appendix to Congressional Globe, 37th Cong. 3rd sess., 1862, 52–60; Klement, Copperheads in the Middle West, 42; New York Herald, January 3, 1863; Silbey, Respectable Minority, 90–110; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, December 24, 1862; Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder, 143–44; Bogue, “Cutler’s Congressional Diary,” 321.
39. W. R. Halloway to John G. Nicolay, January 2, 1863, and Henry B. Carrington to Abraham Lincoln, January 14, 1863, Lincoln Papers, LC; OR, ser. 3, 3:4; Stampp, Indiana Politics during the Civil War, 162–76; Indianapolis Daily Journal, January 10, 1863; Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, January 16, 1863; Terrill, Indiana in the War of the Rebellion, 301–15.
40. Klement, Copperheads in the Middle West, 52–67.
41. Joseph H. Geiger to Salmon P. Chase, November 7, 18, 1862, Chase Papers, LC; Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:312–14, 325–26; Zachariah Chandler to his wife, January 15, 1863, Chandler Papers, LC; Trefousse, Wade, 192; Blue, Chase, 194–95.
42. Zachariah Chandler to his wife, January 8, 17, 1863, Chandler Papers, LC; George, Zachariah Chandler, 97–99; Watertown (N.Y.) Daily News and Reformer, January 15, 1863.
43. Simon Cameron to Edwin M. Stanton, November 24, 1862, Stanton Papers, LC; Cameron to Abraham Lincoln, January 13, 1863, Lincoln Papers, LC; Bradley, Cameron, 226–32; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 12, 1863; New York Tribune, January 13, 1863; Philadelphia Inquirer, January 14, 1863; Fisher, Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 446; Harrisburg Patriot and Union, January 22, 1863; Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:223.
44. Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch, January 16, 1863; Gurowski, Diary, 2:59–60; New York Tribune, January 22, 1863; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 81–83; Edward Warren to Charles Sumner, January 17, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU.
45. Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 26, 1862; Augusta (Maine) Kennebec Journal, January 9, 1863; New York Tribune, January 27, 1863; “No Surrender,” Harper’s Weekly, January 31, 1863, 66; Freidel, Union Pamphlets on the Civil War, 1:503–11.
46. Newark (N.J.) Daily Advertiser, December 31, 1862, January 10, 1863; Hartford Daily Courant, January 23, 1863; Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, January 17, 1863.
47. Motley, Correspondence, 2:103; Boston Evening Transcript, January 17, 1863; Chicago Daily Tribune, January 21, 1863; “Secession at Home,” Independent, January 22, 1863, 4; Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., 1862, 314–18; Albany (N.Y.) Evening Journal, January 15, 1863.
48. Charles Gibson to his sister, January 6, 1863, Gibson Letters, FSNMP; Reuben Kelley to his sister, January 15, 1863, Kelley Letters, FSNMP; Richard J. Gist to his aunt, January 7, 1863, Gist Family Papers, LC; James T. Odem to Eleanor Odem, January 1, 1863, Odem Papers, UVa; A. Caldwell to his brother, January 1, 1863, Caldwell Family Papers, CWTI, USAMHI. One historian has suggested that Fredericksburg raised fundamental questions about whether a democracy was too weak and inefficient to defeat what some northerners considered to be a centralized southern despotism. See Michael C. C. Adams, Our Masters the Rebels, 136–37.
49. James Bloomfield Osborn to Joseph M. Osborn, December 18, 1862, Osborn Papers, LC; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, December 26, 1862, Wentworth Papers, LC; December 22, 1862, Lewis Nettleton Diary, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; James T. Odem to Eleanor Odem, January 13, 1863, Odem Papers, UVa; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 99; Naum Hass Apgar to John A. Apgar, January 1, 1863, GAR.
50. Charles Jewett Morris to his brother and sister, January 8, 1863, Morris Papers, Duke; Brookville (Ind.) Franklin Democrat, January 23, 1863; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 197–98, 201; Brewster, When This Cruel War Is Over, 205; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 2, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 114; Augustus Van Dyke to his brother, December 23, 1862, Van Dyke Papers, IHS; George H. Patch to his mother, December 27, 1862, Patch Papers, Leigh Collection, USAMHI. Exaggerated reports of northern unrest—including supposed riots in New York and Boston—also proved disheartening. See Murton S. Tanner to his mother, December 27, 1862, Tanner Letter, CWMC, USAMHI.
51. David Beem to his wife, January 8, 1863, Beem Papers, IHS; January 11, 1863, Plumb Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Sawyer, Military History of the 8th Ohio, 102; Oliver Edwards to his mother, January 13, 1863, Edwards Papers, GLC; Kepler, Fourth Ohio, 103; Flauvius Bellamy to his brother, January 16, 1863, Bellamy Papers, ISL; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 126, 134; January 19, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; Moe, Last Full Measure, 219; Robert Goldth-waite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 233.
52. Confederate Soldier to “Dear Molly,” December 14, 1862, UDC Bound Typescripts, GDAH; Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 39; Kibler, “Letters from a Confederate Soldier,” 124; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:215; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 17, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; Irvin Cross Wills to James W. Wills, January 1, 1863, Wills Family Papers, VHS; Carson, Life, Letters, and Speeches of James Louis Petigru, 465; Breckinridge, Lucy Breckinridge of Grove Hill, 93. Assessing Confederate opinion in this period is complicated because many soldiers and civilians also realized that success might still depend on victories in the western theater. The inconclusive battle of Murfreesboro made the prospect of peace appear more problematic. See Archer, “James J. Archer Letters,” 140–41; Spencer, Civil War Marriage in Virginia, 153–54; W. R. M. Slaughter to his sister, January 4, 1863, Slaughter Letters, VHS; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, January 4, 1863; Henry P. Garrison to Emily Aurora Bosworth, January 4, 1863, Garrison Papers, Austin State University.
53. Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, December 21, 1862; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 298; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, January 9, 1863; Graves, Confederate Marine, 98; Maggie Iredell to Cadwallader Jones, December 28, 1862, Jones Papers, SHC; McDonald, Woman’s Civil War, 115; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:521–22, 526–27, 540–42; Wilmington (N.C.) Daily Journal, December 23, 1862.
54. Edmund Ruffin Jr. to Edmund Ruffin, December 27, 1862, Edmund Ruffin Papers, VHS; January 4, 17, 1863, Cowin Diary, UA; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, December 27, 1862; McDonald, Woman’s Civil War, 116–17; Charleston Mercury, January 27, 1863; Atlanta Southern Confederacy, January 8, 1863; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:90–91; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:539; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:236; Raleigh Weekly Register, December 31, 1862; Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph, December 20, 1862.
55. Allston, South Carolina Rice Plantation, 192; Robert Taylor Scott to his wife, January 5, 1863, Keith Family Papers, VHS; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 297; William G. Bean, “House Divided,” 410; Clement Anselm Evans, Intrepid Warrior, 131–32.
56. “Proceedings of the First Confederate Congress,” 191; House Resolution by Mr. Foster, January 20, 1863; House Bill No. 25, January 13, 1863; Richmond Daily Examiner, January 21, 1863; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:550–52; J.B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:230; Charleston Mercury, January 26, 1863; Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 26, 1863. Realistic Confederates also recognized that the Yankees could throw still more troops into the fray and that southern armies had best prepare for spring offensives. See Lang, “Letters of Lang,” 345; Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 6, 1863.
57. John Bratton to his wife, January 1, 1863, Bratton Letters, SHC; Milledgeville (Ga.) Confederate Union, January 20, 1863; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, January 6, 1863; Charleston Mercury, January 13, 1863; James I. Robertson Jr., Stonewall Brigade, 178; Richmond Daily Whig, January 5, 1863.
58. Charleston Daily Courier, January 21, 1863; Raleigh Weekly Register, December 31, 1862; Raleigh Weekly Standard, December 31, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 17, 1862; Alfred E. Doby to his wife, January 18, 1863, Doby Letters, MC. For an extended discussion on how the Confederates developed rival political cultures of national unity and libertarianism, see Rable, Confederate Republic.
59. Jefferson Davis, Papers, 8:566–67, 9:11–15.
60. James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers, 1:276–77, 290–93; Alfred E. Doby to his wife, January 15, 1863, Doby Letters, MC; Judith Brockenbrough McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 183–84; Richmond Daily Whig, January 16, 1863; Charleston Mercury, January 23, 1863.
61. Lerner, “Money, Prices, and Wages,” 15; Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 5; Jefferson Davis, Papers, 8:588–89; “Proceedings of the First Confederate Congress,” 122; Lucy A. Caldwell et al. to John Letcher, Letcher Papers, Library of Virginia; “A Lady” to John Gill Shorter, January 19, 1863, Shorter Papers, Alabama Department of Archives and History; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 29, 1862; Bessie Martin, Desertion of Alabama Troops, 126–38; Laws of the State of Mississippi, 68–72, 79–81; House Bill No. 20 ... January 28, 1863. Freedom remained so precious in part because southern women had made so many sacrifices. Despite a falling off in ladies’ aid society activity, soldiers duly noted the connection between female charity and the defense of southern liberty. See Charleston Daily Courier, January 24, 1863; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:84; Lang, “Letters of Lang,” 346.
62. Richmond Daily Enquirer, November 20, 1862; “Proceedings of the First Confederate Congress,” 126–28, 149–50.
63. Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 22, 1862; OR, ser. 4, 2:262–63, 294–95; “Proceedings of the First Confederate Congress,” 128–29, 171–75, 180–84; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:242.
64. Mollie Harris to Jefferson Davis, January 30, 1863, Letters Received, microcopy 437, roll 94, NA; Adelia Ethridge to Davis, December 22, 1862, Letters Received, microcopy 437, roll 126, NA; Mrs. L. W. Nicholson to John J. Pettus, December 17, 1862, Pettus Papers, MDAH. For numerous petitions in December 1862 and January 1863 from women trying to get their men out of the army for various reasons, see Confederate Secretary of War papers cited above. For examples of draft resistance and disaffection in some areas, see OR, ser. 4, 2:258; Tatum, Disloyalty in the Confederacy, 46–49, 58–59, 99.
65. Richmond Daily Whig, December 19, 1862, January 3, 1863; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 18, 1862; Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1863; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 15, 1862.
1. OR, 886; Marvel, Burnside, 208; CCW, 1:716–17, 726, 747–50.
2. CCW, 1:716; OR, 95, 899–901; Abiel Hall Edwards, “Dear Friend Anna,” 42; Bellard, Gone for a Soldier, 190–92; Virgil W. Mattoon to his brother, December 28, 1862, Mattoon Papers, CHS; Fairchild, 27th Regiment, 131; Felix Brannigan to his sister, December 27, 1862, Brannigan Papers, LC; John W. Ames to his mother, December 29, 1862, Ames Papers, USAMHI; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 521–22; Charles Francis Adams, Cycle of Adams Letters, 1:225–32; McNamara, History of the Ninth Massachusetts, 270–71; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 217–20; John L. Smith, 118th Pennsylvania, 152–56; Captain Charles A. Stevens, Berdan’s Sharpshooters, 226–28; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, January 15, 1863; Brewster, When This Cruel War Is Over, 205.
3. John Godfrey to Horace Godfrey, December 28, 1862, Godfrey Papers, NHHS; Rusling, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days, 292–93; Felix Brannigan to his sister, December 29, 1862, Brannigan Papers, LC; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 153; George E. Stephens, Voice of Thunder, 219–20.
4. William W. Burns to S. S. Cox, January 12, 1863, Dearborn Collection, HU; Trobriand, Our Noble Blood, 90; Winslow, Sedgwick, 52–53.
5. John Newton to George W. Cullum, December 3, 1862, Cullum Papers, Allegheny College; John Cochrane to Salmon P. Chase, December 19, 1862, Chase Papers, LC; Warner, Generals in Blue, 86–87, 334–45. Cochrane’s dour assessment of army morale may have been influenced by his chronic bronchitis and an increasingly painful double hernia. See Jack D. Welsh, Medical Histories of Union Generals, 71.
6. CCW, 1:730–31, 735, 741, 745–46; OR, 1009–10. Franklin’s testimony on his conversations with subordinates was confusing if not mendacious. He admitted knowing that Newton planned to “see influential people” about morale problems and Burnside’s plans but denied knowing of any effort “to see the President, or anybody else who had any power in the matter” (CCW, 1:711–12). For extremely helpful but somewhat differing accounts of Burnside in Washington, see Marvel, Burnside, 209–10; Sears, Chancellorsville, 4–8.
7. CCW, 1:731–33, 737–38, 740–44. For an excellent account of the Newton-Cochrane affair, see Sears, Chancellorsville, 1–4.
8. OR, 900–902. Lincoln called off the operation without apparently consulting Halleck or Stanton. See CCW, 1:722–23.
9. CCW, 1:722, 750–52; Walter Phelps to his wife, December 31, 1862, Phelps Letters, FSNMP; Weld, War Diary and Letters, 157; James S. Graham to his grandfather, January 2, 1863, Graham Letters, FSNMP; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 53; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 197–98. As if to confirm the claims made by Newton and Cochrane, a soldier in Sturgis’s division heard several men say they would not cross the river again. See James Pratt to his wife, January 1, 1863, Pratt Collection, USAMHI.
10. Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:211; CCW, 1:717–18; Daniel R. Larned to his uncle, January 1, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:343–44; Marvel, Burnside, 209–10. In a later conversation with Franklin, Burnside learned that it had been Newton and Cochrane who had visited Lincoln. See CCW, 1:722–23.
11. Daniel Reed Larned to his uncle, January 1, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; OR, 941–42, 945; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:344; Burnside memorandum, May 24, 1863, Burnside Papers, entry 159, box 3, NA; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 422; OR, 1006–12.
12. Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:209; OR, 940–41; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 6:215.
13. Mrs. Austin Blair to William Withington, December 30, 1862, and Benjamin Baker to Withington, December 30, 1862, Withington Papers, MHC; David Green to Sullivan Green, December 30, 1862, Sullivan Green Papers, MHC; Hollister, Colfax, 203; “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Scientific American, December 27, 1862, 402.
14. OR, 1008, 1010–11; CCW, 1:718; Marvel, Burnside, 210–11; Meade, Life and Letters, 1: 344.
15. Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 200; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:346; John Godfrey to his brother, January 4, 9, 1863, Godfrey Papers, NHHS; Hebert, Fighting Joe Hooker, 164–65; T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 265; Gates, Civil War Diaries, 60.
16. Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, January 14, 1863, Parmelee Papers, Duke; New York Irish-American, January 3, 1863; R. S. Robertson to his parents, January 9, 1863, Robertson Papers, FSNMP; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Trobriand, Our Noble Blood, 92; Henry F. Young to his father, January 9, 1863, Young Papers, SHSW.
17. Uriah N. Parmelee to his mother, January 1, 1863, Parmelee Papers, Duke; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 130; Allan L. Bevan to his sister, January 1, 1863, Bevan Correspondence, CWMC, USAMHI; Guiney, Commanding Boston’s Irish Ninth, 161; George Washington Whitman, Civil War Letters, 79.
18. Philadelphia Inquirer, January 5, 7, 1863; New York Herald, January 6, 1863; Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette, January 2, 1863; William R. Williams to his wife, January 4, 1863, Williams Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 103; William Franklin Draper to his father, January 9, 1863, Draper Papers, LC. For additional evidence of rebounding morale, see A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 190–91.
19. John D. Withrow to Sarah Withrow, December 28, 1862, Withrow Letters, FSNMP; Samuel Parmelee to his mother, December 26, 1862, Parmelee Papers, Duke; John T. Greene, Ewing Family Letters, 35; Aaron K. Blake to his sister, January 11, 1863, Blake Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Edward W. Peck to his mother, January 3, 1863, Peck Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Henry Lewis to his cousin, January 3, 1863, Lewis Letters, GLC.
20. Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 5, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC; Weston, Picket Pins and Sabers, 36; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 164; Sears, Chancellorsville, 15; William Hamilton to his brother, January 3, 1863, and Hamilton to his mother, January 6, 1863, Hamilton Papers, LC; Ebensburg (Pa.) Democrat and Sentinel, January 14, 1863.
21. S. B. Tarleton to “Dear Amy,” January 12, 1863, Tarleton Letter, CWMC, USAMHI; Matrau, Letters Home, 40.
22. Philip Hacker to William and Barbara Woll Hacker, January 6, 1863, Hacker Brothers Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 101–2; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 93. Soldiers and their families reportedly complained of too much “hard biscuit and stinking meat” while Lincoln “lives on Roast Beef and every delicacy he wants” (C. Ainslie to William H. Seward, January 8, 1863, Seward Papers, UR).
23. George H. Mellish to his mother, January 2, 1863, Mellish Papers, HL; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 179; Letterman, Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac, 94–95; Benedict, Vermont in the Civil War, 1:347. The health of some regiments had become unusually good. See Charles Piper to cousin, January 7, 1863, GAR; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 129.
24. Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 24; Rufus P. Stanick to “My Darling Selina,” January 5–6, 1863, Stanick Letter, Virginia Polytechnic; OR, 958; Charles Dwight Chase to his father, January 11, 1863, Chase Papers, NHHS; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 45–46; John T. Greene, Ewing Family Letters, 35–36.
25. MSH, 2:130, 134; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 51; OR, 957–58.
26. Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 102; Musgrove, Autobiography of Captain Richard Musgrove, 55–56; Catton, Glory Road, 93; January 13, 1862, Asa W. Bartlett, “Diary of Military Action,” NHHS; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 173–74, 176, 179, 184, 188–89.
27. January 11, 1863, Mancha Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 62–63; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 115; Cornelius Richmond to his wife, January 3, 1863, Richmond Papers, FSNMP.
28. January 10, 21, 1863, Eaton Diary, SHC; Jonathan Hutchinson to his home folks, January 7, 1863, Hutchinson Letters, USAMHI; Philadelphia Inquirer, January 7, 1863; William Franklin Draper to his wife, January 18, 1863, Draper Papers, LC; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 27–28; Orson Blair Curtis, History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan, 108; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 99–100; United States Christian Commission, First Annual Report, 62; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 177.
29. David Lane, Soldier’s Diary, 25; A. B. Martin to “Dear Ann,” December 19, 1862, Martin Letter, FSNMP; Loren H. Goodrich to “Dear Friends,” January 5, 1863, Goodrich Papers, CHS; John W. Ames to his mother, January 12, 1863, Ames Papers, USAMHI.
30. Alexander Way to his wife, December 18, 1862, Way Letters, FSNMP; Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 36–38; George E. Upton to his wife, January 18, 1863, Upton Papers, NHHS; Cavins, Civil War Letters of Cavins, 130; John Vestal Hadley, “Indiana Soldier in Love and War,” 222.
31. Henry Grimes Marshall to “Dear Hattie,” December 28, 1862, Marshall Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Henry F. Young to “Dear Delia,” January 25, 1863, Young Papers, SHSW; William Franklin Draper to his wife, January 18, 1863, Draper Papers, LC; Pardington, Dear Sarah, 51–52; John R. Coye to his wife, December 19, 1862, Coye Letters, FSNMP; Jacob Bechtel to “Miss Cannie,” January 15, 1863, Bechtel Letters, Gettysburg National Military Park; Hagerty, Collis’ Zouaves, 131–32. Loneliness, sentimental attachments to home, and the desire to maintain family ties led soldiers to exchange pictures with their loved ones and kept photographers in camp busy. See Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 51; January 3, 1863, Pope Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Perkins, “Letters Home,” 130.
32. James P. Coburn to his father, January 28, 1863, James P. Coburn Papers, USAMHI; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 60; Ford, Fifteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 233–34; John Vestal Hadley, “Indiana Soldier in Love and War,” 224.
33. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 3, 1863; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 141; January 13, 1863, Thompson Memoir, LC; Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 59; Osborne, Twenty-Ninth Massachusetts, 214; Glazier, Three Years in the Federal Cavalry, 122; James T. Odem to Eleanor Odem, January 15, 1863, Odem Papers, UVa; James L. Converse to his wife, January 16, 1863, Converse Letters, Chicago Historical Society; George H. Allen, Forty-Six Months, 184–85.
34. Josiah W. Perry to his brother, December 23, 1862, Perry Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; John S. Weiser to his parents, January 1, 1863, Weiser Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Oliver Willcox Norton, Army Letters, 129–30; Walker, Second Corps, 198–99; Barber, Civil War Letters, 111; Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 59–60; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 243; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 133; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 198; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 72.
35. Cushing, “Acting Signal Corps,” 103–4; Ebensburg (Pa.) Democrat and Sentinel, January 7, 1863; Henry Grimes Marshall to his home folks, December 25, 1862, Marshall Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; John R. Coye to his wife, January 7, 1863, Coye Letters, FSNMP; Charles B. Sloan to Lt. Col. Dickinson, January 5, 1863, Lincoln Papers, LC; Best, History of the 121st New York, 52–53; Barber, Civil War Letters, 114; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 253; Newell, 10th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, 181; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 139; Charles Frederick Taylor, “Colonel of the Bucktails,” 357. Capt. Charles B. Sloan of the 114th Pennsylvania, the officer whose plea reached the president, was discharged with a surgeon’s certificate in March. See Samuel Penniman Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 6:1202.
36. Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:357–59; Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., 1862, 199–200; Wesley C. Mitchell, “Greenbacks and the Cost of the Civil War,” 154–55; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:60–61; Wesley C. Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks, 105.
37. Philadelphia Inquirer, December 30, 1862, January 12, 1863; Springfield (Mass.) Republican, January 22, 1863; William Claflin to Charles Sumner, January 17, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU; New York Herald, December 27, 1862; Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, January 15, 1863; Portland (Maine) Eastern Argus, December 30, 1862; John March Cate to his wife, December 24, 1862, Cate Letters, FSNMP; A. J. Wilson to his parents, December 24, 1862, A. J. Wilson Letter, FSNMP; Moe, Last Full Measure, 220.
38. Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 52; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 201; General Order No. 3, 16th Connecticut, January 17, 1863, Burnham Papers, CSL; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 216–17. Complaints about a shortage of good officers—no doubt exacerbated by heavy Fredericksburg casualties—contributed to the uneven discipline. Harsh punishments only further alienated enlisted men. “It was such officers,” a young private recalled, “who received a stray ball occasionally on the field of battle” (Bellard, Gonefor a Soldier, 187–88). See also Osborn, No Middle Ground, 99; Favill, Diary of a Young Officer, 216, 218.
39. Banes, Philadelphia Brigade, 148; Brian A. Bennett, 140th New York, 116; George Lewis, First Rhode Island Light Artillery, 142–43; Gavin, Campaigning with the Roundheads, 232; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 69. In analyzing the extent of desertion, I have followed the treatment in Sears, Chancellorsville, 18. For interesting attempts to play down the number of deserters, see Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General, 2:553; A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 179.
40. Reid Mitchell, Vacant Chair, 30–31; Alotta, Stop the Evil, 66–67, 76–79; James Lorenzo Bowen, Thirty-Seventh Regiment, 116; Jimerson, Private Civil War, 232; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 17, 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 201–2; Henry J. H. Thompson to Lucretia Thompson, January 7, 1863, Thompson Papers, Duke.
41. Marvel, Ninth New Hampshire, 116–17; Small, Sixteenth Maine, 89; OR, 985, and ser. 1, 25(2):73.
42. James S. Graham to his grandfather, January 1, 1863, Graham Letters, FSNMP; Houghton, Seventeenth Maine, 41–42; Harper, Civil War History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, 185–86; January 18, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 46; January 18, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Bloodgood, Personal Reminiscences of the War, 59; Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 66–67; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 49–50.
43. Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 66; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 12, 1863; Asa W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth New Hampshire, 56–58; Reuben Schell to his father, January 1863, Schell Letters, FSNMP; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 180–81; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 12, 19, 1863; Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:265.
44. Augusta (Maine) Kennebec Journal, January 2, 1863; Philadelphia Inquirer, January 5, 1863; Wellsboro (Pa.) Agitator, January 4, 1863; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 99; Barber, Civil War Letters, 111–12; Stephen M. Pingree to his cousin, January 6, 1863, Pingree Papers, Vermont Historical Society; David Beem to his wife, January 4, 8, 11, 1863, Beem Papers, IHS; Bicknell, History of the Fifth Maine, 188–89.
45. Jacob H. Haas to Frederick Haas, January 3, 1863, Haas Papers, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Clausewitz, On War, 189; January 1, 1863, Webb Diary, Schoff Collection, CL.
46. January 5, 1863, Jackson Diary, IHS; January 7, 1863, Pope Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Henry Butler to his wife, January 18, 1863, Butler Papers, Castine Public Library; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 51–52.
47. Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 199; OR, 944–45, 953–54; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:46–48.
48. Meade, Life and Letters, 1:346; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 6, 1863; OR, ser. 3, 3:294; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 93; Henry Lewis to his cousin, January 3, 1863, Lewis Letters, GLC; Hopkins, Seventh Rhode Island, 54; January 8, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, MCWRTC, USAMHI; OR, 749–51; D. P. Woodbury to Orrin E. Hine, January 2, 1863, Hine Papers, LC; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 80; John S. Weiser to his parents, January 12, 1863, Weiser Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; New York Times, January 8, 1863; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 12, 1863; OR Supplement, pt. 1, 3:679; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 65–67; Daniel Reed Larned to “My Dear Henry,” January 9, 1863, and Larned to his sister, January 11, 1863, Larned Papers, LC.
49. Sears, Chancellorsville, 15; Cudworth, First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), 334–35; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 96–97; Rufus P. Stanick to “My Darling Selina,” January 5–6, 1863, Stanick Letter, Virginia Polytechnic; Brian A. Bennett, 140th New York, 123; January 6, 1863, Pope Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Teall, “Ringside Seat at Fredericksburg,” 33; Joseph N. Haynes to his father, January 7, 1863, Haynes Papers, Duke.
50. William Franklin Draper to his mother, January 5, 1863, Draper Papers, LC; Franklin Sawyer to Samuel Sexton, January 5, 1863, Sexton Papers, OHS; Partridge, Letters from the Iron Brigade, 72; New York Herald, January 11, 1863.
51. Richmond Daily Whig, December 20, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 17, 22, 1862; Lineberger, Letters of a Gaston Ranger, 31; Isaac Howard to his father, December 25, 1862, Howard Family Papers, SHC; Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys, 143–44; December 23, 1862, Jones Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 300; James C. Zimmerman to his brother, December 30, 1862, Zimmerman Papers, Duke.
52. Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel, December 18, 1862; Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1862; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 296; Mills Lane, “Dear Mother: Don’t Grieve about Me,” 208; Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox to his sister, December 17, 1862, Wilcox Papers, LC; Charles Kerrison to his uncle, December 18, 1862, Kerrison Family Papers, SCL; Micah Jenkins to his wife, December 21, 1862, Jenkins Papers, Duke.
53. A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 198–99; Susan Pendleton Lee, Memoirs of William Nelson Pendleton, 250–51; Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, 103; OR, 689–97, 870; J. E. B. Stuart to Flora Cooke Stuart, December 22, 1862, Stuart Papers, VHS; Plum, Military Telegraph, 1:356–58; Cauthen, Family Letters of Three Wade Hamptons, 89–90; Richmond Daily Whig, December 24, 1862; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Constitutionalist, January 3, 1863; Thomas Ruffin, Papers, 3:282.
54. OR, 731–35, 1075–76; Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, December 28–29, 1862, Watkins Papers, VHS; R. Channing Price to his sister, January 2, 1863, Price Papers, SHC; Robert Brooke Jones to “Dearest Bettie,” January 5, 1863, Jones Family Papers, VHS. Federal reports greatly exaggerated Confederate numbers but failed to conceal Yankee ineptitude. “Fruitless” was the word one New Yorker chose to describe efforts to cut off Stuart’s retreat. The mere mention of the Rebel cavalry chieftain struck terror among sutlers and in the North made Stuart appear nearly as invincible as Jackson. See OR, 968, 887, 893; Alpheus Starkey Williams, From the Cannon’s Mouth, 156–57; Alfred Pleasonton to “Dear General,” January 8, 1863, Pleasonton Papers, LC; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 5, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Landon, “Letters to Vincennes Western Sun,” 342; Gray and Ropes, War Letters, 57; Frank Longstreet to his sister, December 31, 1862, Longstreet Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; OR Supplement, pt. 1, 3:674–75; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 5, 1863.
55. Robert E. Lee, Wartime Papers, 384, 386, 388–90; Welch, Confederate Surgeon’s Letters, 41–42; Woodworth, Davis and Lee, 213–15.
56. Walter Clark, Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina, 2:558–59; James I. Robertson Jr., Jackson, 438–39; Cooke, Jackson, 240.
57. J. F. Shaffner to “My dearest friend,” December 21, 1862, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH; William B. Pettit to his wife, December 16, 1862, Pettit Papers, SHC; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, January 11, 1863, Hotchkiss Papers, LC.
58. Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, December 27, 1862, Elder Papers, VHS; Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 205; Stikeleather Reminiscences, 35, NCDAH; Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 187; Hubbert, “Diary of Mike M. Hubbert,” 313; Hodijah Lincoln Meade to his mother, February 10, 1863, Meade Family Papers, VHS; Dickert, Kershaw’s Brigade, 205; O’Sullivan, 55th Virginia, 43; Charleston Daily Courier, February 5, 1863; Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 119; Ott, “Civil War Diary of James J. Kilpatrick,” 94.
59. Polley, Hood’s Texas Brigade, 139–40; Richard Lewis, Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, 37–38; Napier Bartlett, Military Record of Louisiana, 164–66; Coward, South Carolinians, 74; Redwood, “Johnny Reb at Play,” 35–36.
60. December 28, 1862, Ware Diary, SHC; Carmichael, Purcell, Crenshaw, and Letcher Artillery, 151; Alfred E. Doby to his wife, January 15, 1863, Doby Letters, MC.
61. William W. Bennett, Narrative of the Great Revival, 252–53.
62. David Holt, Mississippi Rebel, 139; Lineberger, Letters of a Gaston Ranger, 31; Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Watkins, January 4, 1863, Watkins Papers, VHS; Welch, Confederate Surgeon’s Letters, 40–41.
63. William G. Bean, “House Divided,” 408–9; William Alexander Smith, Anson Guards, 174; John William Jones, Christ in the Camp, 242–45, 295–311; William W. Bennett, Narrative of the Great Revival, 251–57; Stiles, Four Years under Marse Robert, 139–43; Abernathy, Our Mess, 21–22; Shattuck, Shield and Hiding Place, 97–98.
64. January 18, 1863, Firebaugh Diary, SHC; Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 39; Paxton, Memoir and Memorials, 86. Paxton would be killed at Chancellorsville.
65. Simpson and Simpson, Far, Far from Home, 167; Francis Marion Coker to his wife, December 18, 1862, Coker Letters, UG; Alfred E. Doby to his wife, January 20, 25, 1863, Doby Letters, MC; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, January 23, 1863, Hotchkiss Papers, LC.
66. Ujanirtus Allen, Campaigning with “Old Stonewall,” 203; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, January 11, 1863, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; Speairs and Pettit, Civil War Letters, 1:85–86; McDaniel, With Unabated Trust, 124; James M. Simpson to Addie Simpson, January 6, 1863, Allen and Simpson Family Papers, SHC.
67. Thomas Claybrook Elder to Anna Fitzhugh Elder, January 3, 1863, Elder Papers, VHS; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 304; Pender, General to His Lady, 195–96; Richard Irby to his wife, December 19, 1862, Irby Letters, FSNMP; Borden, Legacy of Fanny and Joseph, 127–29; William Ross Stillwell to “My Dear Mollie,” December 1862, Stillwell Letters, GDAH; Hester Reeve to Edward Payson Reeve, December 22, 1862, Reeve Papers, SHC; Fitzpatrick, Letters to Amanda, 39; Elizabeth Preston Allan, Margaret Junkin Preston, 159–60. For an excellent discussion of the war’s impact on children’s play, see Marten, Children’s Civil War, 158–66.
68. William Ross Stillwell to “My dear Mollie,” January 15, 1863, Stillwell Letters, GDAH; Samuel H. Walkup to his wife, January 1, 1863, Walkup Papers, SHC; Constantine Hege to his parents, December 21, 1862, Hege Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Lineberger, Letters of a Gaston Ranger, 32; Clement Anselm Evans, Intrepid Warrior, 133–34; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 301–2; Jonathan Fuller Coghill to his home folks, January 25, 1863, Coghill Letters, Auburn University Archives; J. G. Montgomery to “Dear Bro Arthur and Sister Bettie,” January 9, 1863, Montgomery Letter, FSNMP; Lang, “Letters of Lang,” 345; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 17, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC.
69. John Lee Holt, I Wrote You Word, 122; Young and Young, 56th Virginia, 69; Ruffner, 44th Virginia, 34; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 98; Henry A. Allen, Sergeant Allen and Private Renick, 175; James I. Robertson Jr., Jackson, 676; Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of Jackson, 388; James I. Robertson Jr., Hill, 170; Lee A. Wallace Jr., 1st Virginia, 104; DeNoon, Charlie’s Letters, 118.
70. Caldwell, History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, 71; Dickert, Kershaw’s Brigade, 205; January 25, 1863, E. P. Miller Diary, FSNMP; W. H. Andrews, Footprints of a Regiment, 99; December 21, 1862, Jones Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; Edward Stuart to his sister, December 27, 1862, Dimitry Papers, Duke.
71. Goolsby, “Crenshaw Battery,” 350; Worsham, One of Jackson’s Foot Cavalry, 155–56; December 19, 1862, Hatton Memoir, 383, LC; January 20, 1863, Ware Diary, SHC; Edward M. Burruss to Kate Burruss, January 19, 1863, Burruss Papers, LSU; Jere Malcolm Harris to his sister, December 26, 1862, Jere Malcolm Harris Letter, FSNMP.
1. New York Times, January 13, 1863; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 256–57.
2. Horace Greeley, “A Great War in Winter,” Independent, January 15, 1863, 1; New York Times, January 16, 1863; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 70–71; Chicago Daily Tribune, January 17, 1863; New York Herald, January 10, 18, 1863; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, January 12, 1863; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 16, 1863.
3. CCW, 1:719; Philadelphia Inquirer, January 16, 1863; Marvel, Burnside, 212; OR, 961, 965, 969; January 13, 1863, Henry Taylor Diary, FSNMP; Henry Ogden Ryerson to his sister, January 13, 1863, Anderson Family Papers, NJHS.
4. Daniel Reed Larned to “My Dear Henry,” January 16, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 202–3; CCW, 1:728–29; A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 195; ORN, ser. 1, 5:213–14; Clausewitz, On War, 271.
5. Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 81; O. Leland Barlow to his brother, January 14, 1863, Barlow Papers, CSL; Abiel Hall Edwards, “Dear Friend Anna,” 45. “Our Potomac army... can do nothing but dissolve, decompose, and die,” Senator Sumner feared. “There must be a speedy extrication, or its present encampment will be a Golgotha” (Charles Sumner, Selected Letters, 2:138).
6. Flauvius Bellamy to his sister, January 16, 1863, Bellamy Papers, ISL; Melcher, With a Flash of His Sword, 18; Fiske, Dunn Browne’s Experiences in the Army, 110–11; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 420; Josiah W. Perry to Phoebe Perry, January 11, 1863, Perry Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.
7. Edwin Winchester Stone, Rhode Island in the Rebellion, 198; William Franklin Draper to his wife, January 18, 1863, Draper Papers, LC; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 13, 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 17, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL.
8. Fessenden, Fessenden, 1:266; Bogue, “Cutler’s Congressional Diary,” 323–24; Zachariah Chandler to his wife, January 22, 1863, Chandler Papers, LC.
9. Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 23, 1863; New York Tribune, January 21, 23, 1863.
10. Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, 2:428–29; Edgar Allan Jackson, Three Rebels Write Home, 29–30; OR, 1088, 1091–92, 1096–97, 1103–4, 1108; J. B. Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 1:239.
11. January 16, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI; OR, 76–77, and ser. 1, 51(1):973; January 16, 1863, Mancha Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 100; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, January 16, 1863, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 139–40; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 305; James P. Coburn to his home folks, January 16, 1863, James P. Coburn Papers, USAMHI.
12. January 17, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI; James Bloomfield Osborn to Mary Osborn, January 17, 1863, Osborn Papers, LC; Stephen M. Pingree to “Cousin Augustus,” January 17, 1863, Pingree Papers, Vermont Historical Society; Kepler, Fourth Ohio, 102; Samuel R. Beardsley to his wife, January 17, 1863, Beardsley Papers, USAMHI; January 17, 1863, Bacon Diary, FSNMP; OR, 975; January 17, 1863, Asa W. Bartlett, “Diary of Military Action,” NHHS; George H. Mellish to his mother, January 17, 1863, Mellish Papers, HL. One befuddled volunteer had heard various rumors that the army might be going to Fredericksburg, Washington, or New Orleans. See Charles Littlefield to his wife, January 17, 1863, Littlefield Letters, CWMC, USAMHI.
13. James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 18, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 100; James Lorenzo Bowen, Thirty-Seventh Regiment, 118; Pardington, Dear Sarah, 62; McKelvey, Rochester in the Civil War, 118–19; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 420; OR, 977; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:347; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 258; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 157; William Franklin Draper to his wife, January 18, 1863, Draper Papers, LC.
14. Henry Van Aernum to his daughter, January 19, 1863, Van Aernum Papers, FSNMP; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 420–21; Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 157–58; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 259; January 19, 1863, Eaton Diary, SHC. Troops from Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel’s Reserve Grand Division (the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps) were in position near Stafford Court House and Fairfax to support any movement by the other three grand divisions.
15. Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 68; Charles H. Eagor to his wife, January 19, 1863, Eagor Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI; Reuben H. Humphreyville to his sister, January 19, 1863, Humphreyville Papers, Chicago Historical Society; January 19, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI; James A. Carman to his uncle, January 19, 1863, Carman Family Collection, USAMHI; John Pellett to his family, January 19, 1863, Pellett Papers, USAMHI; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 162–63.
16. OR, 127.
17. James A. Graham to Ellen Lee, January 20, 1863, Graham Letters, FSNMP; Catton, Glory Road, 85; Burrage, Thirty-Sixth Massachusetts, 30; Page, Fourteenth Connecticut, 107–8; Welsh and Welsh, “Civil War Letters from Two Brothers,” 160; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 180; Abbott, Fallen Leaves, 163–64; Henry Ropes to “Dear John,” January 21, 1863, Ropes Letters, Boston Public Library.
18. Sanford Truesdale to his sister, January 26, 1863, Truesdale Papers, University of Chicago; Osborn, No Middle Ground, 104; James Edison Decker to his father, January 20, 1863, Decker Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; McCrea, Dear Belle, 181–82; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 243; McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall and Winter Campaign, 48–49; Lusk, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, 271–72; Mayo, Civil War Letters, 224–25. The prospect of battle also awakened a strange lust. “The idea of another fight makes me wild almost,” Larned admitted. “I long to hear the guns again. It is one of the most exciting things I ever experienced, and if it could be rid of the awful horrors & agony, it could be beautiful” (Daniel Reed Larned to his sister, January 20, 1863, Larned Papers, LC).
19. OR, 79–80, 986. Hooker had earlier refused to attend a council of war to discuss the plan. See John Godfrey to Horace Godfrey, January 13, 1863, Godfrey Papers, NHHS.
20. Hays, Sixty-Third Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 168–69; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 205; Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” January 25, 1863, Partridge Letters, FSNMP; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 16:478, 507; January 20, 1863, Madill Diary, Gregory A. Coco Collection, HCWRTC, USAMHI; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 47–48; January 20, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; McAllister, Letters of Robert McAllister, 260–61; Bellard, Gone for a Soldier, 196–97; Cudworth, First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), 339.
21. Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac, 159–60; Asa W. Bartlett, History of the Twelfth New Hampshire, 54–55. Humor did not mask more serious demoralization. A lieutenant in Griffin’s division reported, “No one cared, no one had confidence, and it made not the slightest difference whether they stayed in camp or inaugurated a campaign” (Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 205).
22. OR, 78–79; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 45:580; John Vestal Hadley, “Indiana Soldier in Love and War,” 226; Edmund Halsey, Brother against Brother, 105–6.
23. Charles Shields Wainwright, Diary of Battle, 158; Bicknell, History of the Fifth Maine, 190–93; H. S. Hall, “Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,” 191; Charles E. Davis, Three Years in the Army, 187–88; Siegel, For the Glory of the Union, 121.
24. Dority, “Civil War Diary,” 12; Waugh, “Reminiscences,” FSNMP; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 534–35; Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” January 25, 1863, Partridge Letters, FSNMP; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 16:507; John W. Ames to his mother, January 25, 1863, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Trobriand, Four Years with the Army of the Potomac, 407; January 20, 1863, Bacon Diary, FSNMP; Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 67; January 20, 1863, James P. Coburn Diary, James P. Coburn Papers, USAMHI.
25. James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 142; Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, 116; Sanford Trues-dale to his sister, January 26, 1863, Truesdale Papers, University of Chicago; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field, 217; McClenthen, Narrative of the Fall and Winter Campaign, 50–51; January 20, 1863, Bailey Diary, DCL; Bright and Bright, “Respects to All,” 37; Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 155; Fairchild, 27th Regiment, 134–35. They might have envied their comrades in Sumner’s Right Grand Division, badly bloodied at Fredericksburg but not in the vanguard this time. Burnside instructed his most faithful subordinate to hold his command in readiness to support Hooker and Franklin. See OR, 78.
26. Davenport, Fifth New York Volunteer Infantry, 366; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 206; January 21, 1863, Bacon Diary, FSNMP; John D. Cooper to his daughter, January 25, 1863, Cooper Papers, DCL; Bardeen, Little Fifer’s Diary, 149; January 21, 1863, Hadley Diary, NHHS; Van Santvoord, One Hundred and Twentieth New York, 39–40; January 21, 1863, Cavada Diary, HSP.
27. Kearney, “Letters from the Field,” 189–90; Weygant, One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Regiment, 81–82; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 192–93; Pullen, Twentieth Maine, 68–69; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 21, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Brian A. Bennett, 140th New York, 125–26; Powell, Fifth Corps, 408–9; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 225–26.
28. James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 142; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 45:580; Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, 97; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 38–39; Abiel Hall Edwards, “Dear Friend Anna,” 47; Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, 116–17; George H. Mellish to his mother, January 24, 1863, Mellish Papers, HL; Twitchell, Carpetbagger from Vermont, 50; Berkshire County (Mass.) Eagle, January 29, 1863.
29. January 21, 1863, Holford Diary, LC; January 21, 1863, Bailey Diary, DCL; January 21, 1863, Charles P. Perkins Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Best, History of the 121st New York, 51–52; Sanford Truesdale to his sister, January 26, 1863, Truesdale Papers, University of Chicago.
30. Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 66; Pullen, Twentieth Maine, 61; Foote, Civil War, 2:129; Charles Littlefield to his wife, January 24, 1863, Littlefield Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 164; Billings, Hard Tack and Coffee, 72; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 82. For a useful analysis of both the soil and the storm system, see Winters, Battling the Elements, 33–39.
31. OR, 989–90, 1000–1001; Locke, Story of the Regiment, 182; Gilbert Thompson, Engineer Battalion, 28; Kokomo (Ind.) Howard Tribune, February 5, 1863; Roe, Tenth Massachusetts, 168; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 16:508; Craft, History of the One Hundred Forty-First Pennsylvania, 48; Hagerty, Collis’ Zouaves, 167.
32. Relyea Memoir, 88, CHS; H. S. Hall, “Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,” 191–92; Bidwell, Forty-ninth New York Volunteers, 28; History of the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, 535–36; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 195; Louis Fortescue to “Friend Sam,” January 1863, Fortescue Letters, FSNMP; Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac, 160–61; William H. Peacock to “Sarah,” January 28, 1863, Peacock Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Bellard, Gone for a Soldier, 196–97; John W. Ames to his mother, January 25, 1863, Ames Papers, USAMHI; Swinfen, Ruggles’ Regiment, 17.
33. John Godfrey to Horace Godfrey, January 13, 1863, Godfrey Papers, NHHS; William Boston to “Aunt Rosa,” January 30, 1863, Boston Papers, MHC; History of the 127th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 273; Forbes, Thirty Years After, 209; Glover, Bucktailed Wildcats, 183; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 25, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Perkins Memoir, 8, NHHS; Cudworth, First Regiment (Massachusetts Infantry), 339; Dayton E. Flint to his father, January 27, 1863, Flint Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Hitchcock, War from the Inside, 165–66. Perhaps some 100 to 150 horses and mules were lost; one officer estimated their value at $50,000. See Orville Thomson, Seventh Indiana, 148; Stephen Z. Starr, Union Cavalry, 1:336–37; James B. Thomas, Civil War Letters, 143. Not surprisingly, the Mud March gave birth to tall tales about mules sinking so deep that only their ears could still be seen, or an entire wagon train being swallowed. One raconteur told about a pair of mules that disappeared into the earth and were next seen plowing a field in China. See Catton, Glory Road, 88; Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 155–56; Cook, Twelfth Massachusetts, 87; Orville Thomson, Seventh Indiana, 147.
34. Daniel Reed Larned to “My Dear Henry,” January 21, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 421; Cogswell, Eleventh New Hampshire, 66; George H. P. Rowell to his parents, January 24, 1863, Rowell Papers, NHHS; Howard Coffin, Full Duty, 142; George Thomas Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps, 176; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 82; OR, 752, 990–91.
35. Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 421–22; OR, 81–82, 994.
36. John D. Cooper to his daughter, January 25, 1863, Cooper Papers, DCL; Bardeen, Little Fifer’s Diary, 150; Dority, “Civil War Diary,” 13; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 25, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; Elisha Hunt Rhodes, All for the Union, 97; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 40:540; Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 44; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 71; OR, 1003.
37. Bloodgood, Personal Reminiscences of the War, 70; Charles E. Davis, Three Years in the Army, 191; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 82–83; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 196–97; Hartwell, To My Beloved Wife and Boy at Home, 44; Joseph Bloomfield Osborn to Mary Osborn, January 25, 1863, Osborn Papers, LC; Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 25, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC; Dayton E. Flint to his father, January 27, 1863, Flint Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Abram P. Smith, Seventy-Sixth New York, 202; Walker, Second Corps, 200. Some enlisted men received fines for straggling—better than marching in the mud, one private decided. A few soldiers remained defiantly in the woods and dared anyone to arrest them, but most apparently received lenient treatment. See Gilbert Crocker, “Gilbert Crocker’s Civil War,” 66; Albany (N.Y.) Atlas and Argus, January 30, 1863; Marbaker, Eleventh New Jersey, 32–34.
38. Haley, Rebel Yell and Yankee Hurrah, 70; History of the 121st Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, 41; Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 156; Edward Cotter to his brother, January 23, 1863, Cotter Letter, CWMC, USAMHI; John Henry Burnham to Sarah B. Burnham, January 26, 1863, Burnham Papers, CSL; Howard Thomas, Boys in Blue from the Adirondack Foothills, 125; James Madison Stone, Personal Recollections of the Civil War, 124; Reeves, Twenty-Fourth New Jersey, 28; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 103.
39. January 23, 1863, Horace Currier Diary, SHSW; Marvel, First New Hampshire Battery, 32–33; Dawes, Sixth Wisconsin, 117–18; January 24, 1863, Jackson Diary, IHS; January 23, 1863, Diary of Private Elisha Dean, SHSW; Partridge, Letters from the Iron Brigade, 76.
40. Terry A. Johnston, “Him on the One Side and Me on the Other,” 123; Gay, “Gay Letters,” 394; William B. Jordan Jr., Red Diamond Regiment, 38; Craig L. Dunn, Iron Men, Iron Will, 155; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 61:81; Zerah Coston Monks to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 25, 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory; Bellard, Gone for a Soldier, 198; OR, ser. 1, 25(2):77–78; Index Project Summary of Courts-Martial, Fredericksburg, Woodacre, California, copies in FSNMP; Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Union and Advertiser, January 29, 1863; Sanford Truesdale to his sister, January 26, 1863, Truesdale Papers, University of Chicago.
41. Fairchild, 27th Regiment, 135; January 23, 1863, Henry Starke Seage Diary, MHC; Gavin, Campaigning with the Roundheads, 235; January 23, 1863, Bescancon Diary, Duke; OR Supplement, pt. 2, 45:580; James Pratt to his wife, January 23, 1863, Pratt Collection, USAMHI; William Boston to “Aunt Rosa,” January 30, 1863, Boston Papers, MHC; Daniel M. Holt, Surgeon’s Civil War, 71.
42. January 22–23, 1863, S. W. Gordon Diary, FSNMP; January 22–24, 1863, Stevens Diary, USAMHI; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 51; Perkins Memoir, 8, NHHS; Reminisco, Life in the Union Army, 20; January 25, 1863, Halsey Diary, USAMHI; Bliss Memoir, 4:46, USAMHI; Haines, 15th New Jersey, 40; January 24, 1863, Fribley Diary, CWMC, USAMHI; John Lord Parker, Twenty-Second Massachusetts, 244–45; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 226–27; John L. Smith, 118th Pennsylvania, 162–63.
43. Nolan, Iron Brigade, 192; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 197; S. Millett Thompson, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 102–31; January 16–20, 1863, Stoner Diary, FSNMP; Duncan, Medical Department of United States Army, 208–9; January 24, 1863, Eaton Diary, SHC; Roe, Tenth Massachusetts, 168; Aldrich, History of Battery A, 168; Baquet, History of the 1st New Jersey, 205; Edwin O. Wentworth to his wife, January 25, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC.
44. Charles Jewett Morris to his brother and sister, January 27, 1863, Morris Papers, Duke; Levander Sawtelle to “Respected friend and brother,” January 25, 1863, Sawtelle Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; Thorpe, Fifteenth Connecticut Volunteers, 42; James R. Woodworth to Phoebe Woodworth, January 25, 1863, Woodworth Papers, Hotchkiss Collection, CL; John Ripley Adams, Memorials and Letters, 96–97; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 104.
45. Berkshire County (Mass.) Eagle, January 29, 1863; New York Times, January 26, 1863; Humphreys, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, 182; Meade, Life and Letters, 1:349; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 50–51; Henry Grimes Marshall to “Dear Hattie,” January 25, 1863, Marshall Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Flauvius Bellamy to his parents, January 25, 1863, Bellamy Papers, ISL; Jacob F. Smith to “Dear Callie,” February 5, 1863, Jacob F. Smith Letter, CWMC, USAMHI; January 22, 1863, Bailey Diary, DCL; John Vestal Hadley, “Indiana Soldier in Love and War,” 227.
46. Ayling, Yankee at Arms, 94; Charles Bowers to “Dear Lydia,” January 23, 1863, Bowers Papers, MHS; Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 244; J. L. Smith to “Dear Mother,” January 25, 1863, John L. Smith Letters, FSNMP; Samuel S. Partridge to “Dear Ed,” Partridge Letters, FSNMP; Howard Coffin, Full Duty, 143; Edward Henry Courtney Taylor to “Bill,” January 25, 1863, Taylor Letters, MHC; Sears, Chancellorsville, 20; George W. Barr to Vinnie Barr, January 21, 1863, Barr Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Robert Goldthwaite Carter, Four Brothers in Blue, 228–29; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 206–7; Hagerty, Collis’ Zouaves, 168; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 307; Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 205; Sprenger, 122d Regiment, 196; Sim Siggins to Hannah T. Rohrer, January 25, 1863, Monks-Rohrer Letters, Emory.
47. Lewis Nettleton to “My own dear love,” January 25, 1863, Nettleton-Baldwin Family Papers, Duke; William L. Orr to Margaret Small Orr, January 28, 1863, Orr Family Papers, IU; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 205–6; Johnstown (Pa.) Cambria Tribune, January 30, 1863.
48. Edwin Wentworth to his wife, January 25, 1863, Wentworth Papers, LC; Edward Henry Courtney Taylor to “Bill,” January 25, 1863, Taylor Letters, MHC; James P. Coburn to his father, January 28, 1863, James P. Coburn Papers, USAMHI.
49. Alpheus Starkey Williams, From the Cannon’s Mouth, 159–60; Hartsock, Soldier of the Cross, 52; Dayton E. Flint to his father, January 27, 1863, Flint Letters, CWMC, USAMHI; William Franklin Draper to his wife, January 23, 1863, Draper Papers, LC.
50. J. C. Lee to Ellen Lee, January 24, 1863, Graham Letters, FSNMP; John D. Cooper to his daughter, January 25, 1863, Cooper Papers, DCL; Nolan, Iron Brigade, 193; Smithe, Glimpses of Places, and People, and Things, 40–43; Brewer, Sixty-first Regiment, 47; Edward J. Nichols, Toward Gettysburg, 158–59.
51. Robert Taylor Scott to his wife, January 30, 1863, Keith Family Papers, VHS; Edmund Ruffin, Diary, 2:557–58; Charleston Daily Courier, January 31, 1863; Edmondston, “Journal of a Secesh Lady,” 352. After Fredericksburg and the Mud March, rumors of Federal demoralization made it easy for Confederates to indulge in wishful thinking. Recent “news” had been so positive, making even ambiguous information grounds for Pollyannaish assessments. See Allport and Postman, Psychology of Rumor, 43–45.
52. Molyneux, Quill of the Wild Goose, 66; Galwey, Valiant Hours, 74; Sears, Chancellorsville,20; William Howard Mills, “From Burnside to Hooker,” 50; Jeffries, “Diary of Lemuel Jeffries,” 271–72.
53. Douglas Southall Freeman, Calendar of Confederate Papers, 382; “Letters from the Front,” 157–58; Charleston Daily Courier, January 29, February 5, 1863; Jonathan Fuller Coghill to “Dear Pappy, Ma, and Mit,” January 25, 1863, Coghill Letters, Auburn University Archives; J. F. Shaffner to “My dearest friend,” January 22, 1863, Shaffner Papers, NCDAH; Perry, “Whip the Devil and His Hosts,” 42; William Ross Stillwell to his wife, February 1, 1863, Stillwell Letters, GDAH.
54. New York Tribune, January 24, 26–27, 1863; New York Herald, January 24, 1863; Boston Post, January 26, 1863; Strong, Diary of George Templeton Strong, 3:289–90; H. Draper Hunt, Hamlin, 166; CCW, 1:716; New York Times, January 24, 27, 1863.
55. Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 423; OR, 998–99; Ambrose E. Burnside to ?, May 24, 1863, Burnside Papers, entry 159, box 3, NA. Burnside had earlier ordered the arrest of Brooks on grounds of insubordination. Brooks stoutly denied that he had used “language tending to demoralize his command” but expressed some confidence in Hooker. See William T. H. Brooks to his father, February 17, 1863, Brooks Papers, USAMHI.
56. Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 703–4; Daniel Read Larned to Mrs. Ambrose E. Burnside, January 28, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; CCW, 1:719–20; Ambrose E. Burnside to Abraham Lincoln, January 23, 1863, Lincoln Papers, LC; Lincoln, Collected Works, 6:74.
57. Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 704; Daniel Read Larned to Mrs. Ambrose E. Burnside, January 28, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; CCW, 1:720.
58. Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1:229–30; Niven, Chase, 314; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 705; OR, 1004, 1007, 1009; CCW, 720–21.
59. OR, 1004–5; Raymond, “Extracts from the Journal of Henry J. Raymond,” 706, 708.
60. Bliss Memoir, 4:48–49, USAMHI; Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, 208; Daniel Read Larned to Mrs. Ambrose E. Burnside, January 28, 1863, Larned Papers, LC; Louis Fortescue to “Friend Sam,” January 1863, Fortescue Letters, FSNMP; OR, 1005. Although the account of Burnside’s final days with the Army of the Potomac presented here differs slightly in detail and more in tone and emphasis, I have greatly benefited from two excellent accounts: Marvel, Burnside, 213–17; A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver, and Mud,” 205–15.
61. Meade, Life and Letters, 1:351; Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 53–54; January 28, 1863, Nathan B. Webb Diary, Schoff Collection, CL; A. S. West to his father, 1863, West Letters, FSNMP; Haydon, For Country, Cause, and Leader, 308; William Watson, Letters of a Civil War Surgeon, 51; Wyman Silas White, Civil War Diary, 125–26; Robert S. Robertson, “Diary of the War,” 84; Moe, Last Full Measure, 221; E. A. Walker to “Friend Knight,” January 24, 1863, Walker Letters, Leigh Collection, USAMHI.
62. Isaac Lyman Taylor, “Campaigning with the First Minnesota,” 245; Joseph Harrison Law to Mary E. Law, January 26, 1863, Law Family Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; William Franklin Draper to his father, January 26, 1863, Draper Papers, LC; Bright and Bright, “Respects to All,” 38.
63. Joseph Hooker to “Dr. Wilkes,” January 29, 1863, Annmary Brown Military Collection, Brown University; George Henry Hood to “Dear Etta,” January 26, 1863, Hood Papers, Duke; Charles Jewett Morris to his brother and sister, January 27, 1863, Morris Papers, Duke; Hugh Roden to George Roden, February 1, 1863, Roden Papers, Schoff Collection, CL; Jacob F. Smith to “Dear Callie,” February 5, 1863, Jacob F. Smith Letter, CWMC, USAMHI; William A. Guest to his father, January 30, 1863, Guest Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; Washburn, 108th Regiment, 115; Louis Langer to Mr. and Mrs. John W. Scales, January 31, 1863, Scales Family Papers, CWMC, USAMHI; William Boston to “Aunt Rosa,” January 30, 1863, Boston Papers, MHC. Hooker eventually learned of General Orders No. 8 and wrote a long letter to Stanton, essentially a diatribe accusing Burnside of everything from cowardice at First Bull Run to blundering at Antietam to “madness” at Fredericksburg to being a two-faced liar. See OR, ser. 1, 25(2):855–56.
64. Lusk, War Letters of William Thompson Lusk, 274–75; Sears, Chancellorsville, 16; Wightman, From Antietam to Fort Fisher, 106; George H. Mellish to his mother, January 29, 1863, Mellish Papers, HL; O. Leland Barlow to his sisters, January 26, 1863, Barlow Papers, CSL; Uriah N. Parmelee to his brother, January 26, 1863, Parmelee Papers, Duke.
65. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 156; Gray, Hidden Civil War, 133; Jimerson, Private Civil War, 232; Edward W. Steffan to Gus Steffan, January 31, February 2, 1863, Steffan Letters, FSNMP.
66. Franklin Sawyer to Samuel Sexton, February 2, 1863, Sexton Papers, OHS; John Ripley Adams, Memorial and Letters, 98–99; George Henry Chandler to his mother, January 27, 1863, Chandler Papers, NHHS; Thomas Bell to “Dear Friend,” January 1863, GAR; Charles Bowers to “Dear Lydia,” January 23, 1863, Bowers Papers, MHS.
67. Peter Welsh, Irish Green and Union Blue, 65–67. Welsh continued to serve his adopted country until he was mortally wounded at the battle of Spotsylvania.
68. Washington Daily National Intelligencer, January 28, 1863; Brooks, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 83–84; Thorndike, Sherman Letters, 187; Chase, Salmon P. Chase Papers, 3:375, 377–78; T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 242.
69. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 27, 1863; Mrs. Austin Blair to William Withington, January 29, 1863, Withington Papers, MHC.
1. December 28, 1862, Maury Diary, LC; Charles Minor Blackford to Mary Blackford, January 12, 1863, Blackford Family Papers, SHC; Simpson and Simpson, Far, Far from Home, 169; L. Minor Blackford, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 213; William Murdock Parsley to his mother, January 4, 1863, Parsley Papers, SHC; Charleston Daily Courier, January 17, 31, 1863. Mary Tom found the Baptist church in much better shape than she had expected, even though shells had damaged the spire, smashed windows, and struck the organ. See Mary Tom to Mary Anna McGuire Claiborne, December 29, 1862, Claiborne Family Papers, VHS.
2. Shand Memoir, SCL; J. H. Wallace to William Ware, December 28, 1862, National Bank of Fredericksburg Correspondence, FSNMP; W. L. Masten to his brother, March 16, 1863, Masten Letter, FSNMP; Douglas H. Gordon to Ann Eliza Gordon, January 27, 31, 1863, Douglas H. Gordon Letters, FSNMP; S. G. Pryor, Post of Honor, 299.
3. December 13–14, 1862, Hamilton Diary, FSNMP; Jane Howison Beale, Journal, 75–78; Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 116; Mrs. Frances Bernard Goolrick, “Shelling of Fredericksburg,” 574; George J. Nicholson to Charles W. Wellford, December 22, 1862, Schooler Papers, Duke; December 29, 1862, January 1, 1863, Alsop Diary, VHS.
4. Atlanta Southern Confederacy, December 27, 1862; Delia Smith Taylor to Anna McGuire Claiborne, March 5, 1863, Claiborne Family Papers, VHS; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, January 21, 1863, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; January 20, 1863, Maury Diary, LC. Several cold and hungry refugees (including one woman in her nineties) drifted into the Federal camps. At least one Fredericksburg child ended up in an orphan asylum near Washington, D.C. See Pencil Notes on the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11–15, 1862, Larned Papers, LC; Castleman, Army of the Potomac, 270–72; Elizabeth Blair Lee, Civil War Letters, 278.
5. Robert E. Lee, Wartime Papers, 382; December 29, 1862, Alsop Diary, VHS; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, December 21, 1862, Hotchkiss Papers, LC; William H. Jones to his wife, December 23, 1862, William H. Jones Papers, Duke. Anger over the destruction of the town and suffering of the refugees made some Confederates rejoice at seeing so many dead Yankees scattered about the streets and yards. Jedediah Hotchkiss hoped he would never see another town so ruined unless it was that “sink of iniquity” Washington, D.C. See Shotwell, Papers of Randolph Abbott Shotwell, 1:435–36; R. Channing Price to his mother, December 23, 1862, Price Papers, SHC; Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Ann Comfort Hotchkiss, January 21, 1863, Hotchkiss Papers, LC. Even a Pennsylvania corporal noted how pitiful it was to see “young women here who were once comfortable dressed in clothing made of old grain sacks and blankets” (Pettit, Infantryman Pettit, 43–44).
6. Allbritton, “Third Arkansas,” 161; January 1863 passim, Slaughter Papers, HL; Charleston Daily Courier, December 31, 1862; Ruffner, 44th Virginia, 35; OR, ser. 1, 51(2):665–66; Conn and Conn, “Letters of Two Confederate Officers,” 187; List of Richmond Howitzers’ Contributions, n.d., MC; Burgwyn, Captain’s War, 44; Douglas Southall Freeman, Calendar of Confederate Papers, 254; Susan Leigh Blackford, Letters from Lee’s Army, 149; January 2, 1863, Pickens Diary, UA; Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, 106–7; December 21, 1862, Pickett Diary, CWTI, USAMHI; Riggs, 7th Virginia, 18; J. C. C. Sanders to “Dear Fannie,” January 3, 1862[3], Sanders Letters, FSNMP; Perry, “Whip the Devil and His Hosts,” 42; James Power Smith, “With Stonewall Jackson,” 60.
7. Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 116; Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 1, 1863; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 29, 1862.
8. Athens (Ga.) Southern Banner, January 14, 1863; Lynchburg Daily Virginian, December 16, 1862; Richmond Daily Enquirer, December 23, 1862; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Constitution-alist, January 8, 1863; Charleston Mercury, January 24, 1863; William M. Blackford to Montgomery Slaughter, March 30, 1863, Slaughter Papers, HL; Lucy Rebecca Buck, Shadows of My Heart, 166, 174–76.
9. Blair, “Barbarians at Fredericksburg’s Gate,” 158–59; Charleston Daily Courier, January 3, 1863; Augusta (Ga.) Daily Constitutionalist, January 21, 1863; January 1863 passim and unidentified clipping, Lynchburg, Virginia, February 17, 1863, Slaughter Papers, HL; Massey, Refugee Life in the Confederacy, 253–55; Dobbins, Grandfather’s Journal, 116–17; Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 24, 1862, January 5, 1863.
10. Charlotte E. Lomax to Montgomery Slaughter, January 31, 1863; E. M. Hunter to Slaughter, February 6, 1863; Harriet Barbour to Slaughter, February 26, 1863; Mrs. Joseph B. Anderson to Slaughter, February 24, 1863; William J. Jones to ?, April 10, 1863; Matelda Barnett to Slaughter, February 1863, all in Civil War Damage Inventories, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Fredericksburg; unidentified clipping with letter from Montgomery Slaughter, March 13, 1863, Slaughter Papers, HL.
11. Blair, “Barbarians at Fredericksburg’s Gate,” 160–62; Trowbridge, The South, 106–7, 109, 113; Conwell, Magnolia Journey, 8, 10; Philadelphia Weekly Times, August 6, 1881; Edward King, Great South, 796.
12. MSH, 12:840–41. Serving in Caldwell’s brigade of Hancock’s division, Zuelch had been in the thick of the fight on December 13. For other examples of long recovery periods, see MSH, 12:487, 545. Although the vast majority of cases in the Medical and Surgery History (the best source for information on the long-term fate of the seriously wounded) are of Federal soldiers, many Confederates experienced similar torments.
13. MSH, 8:289, 10:648, 11:14–15, 248; Bengtson and Kuz, Photographic Atlas of Civil War Injuries, 111.
14. Marvel, Ninth New Hampshire, 113; MSH, 9:12, 287, 309. Men who managed to survive serious abdominal wounds usually did not live into the 1870s.
15. MSH, 11:148, 12:429, 553, 635. Historians know surprisingly little about the long-term psychological effects of Civil War combat on the soldiers. For a penetrating analysis and case studies, especially for Indiana (largely western theater) volunteers who suffered some kind of posttraumatic stress disorder, see Dean, Shook over Hell, 91.
16. For examples of the stirring, often sentimental, and ephemeral poetry inspired by the battle of Fredericksburg, see McCarter, My Life in the Irish Brigade, 230–33; Charles Carelton Coffin, Fours Years of Fighting, 145, 147; Owen, Christmas Reminiscence of Fredericksburg.
17. The exchange of news and rumors—a persistent activity in both camp and home—allowed the venting of frustrations but also shaped social life. People reacted to the latest reports and to one another’s understanding of both the recent past and the immediate future. What the psychological and sociological literature on rumor reveals is the central importance of exploring the perceptions of the men in uniform and their families. Conversations in camp and at home became prime indicators of morale. See Kapferer, Rumors, 41–50; Shibutani, Improvised News, 163–64, 175–77.
18. The military situation in the western theater had, of course, been much more fluid and largely favored the Federals. At the same time, after Fredericksburg, people could hardly foresee the ferocity of the more than two more years of deadly fighting in the eastern theater that still lay ahead.
19. “Many Prominent Persons Present,” 174–78; Reardon, “Forlorn Hope,” 106; Kerbey, On the War-Path, 160–66; Werkheiser Memoir, 19, FSNMP.
20. [De Peyster,] “Fredericksburg,” 201; Hutchison, “Fredericksburg,” 267; Cavanagh, Memoirs of Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher, 470–71; Pepper, Under Three Flags, 333.
21. OR, ser. 1, 27(2): 645; Richmond Daily Whig, July 12, 1863; J. S. Wood Reminiscences, 11, Personal Papers, GDAH; Dickert, Kershaw’s Brigade, 190–91; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox, 314–15; Bruce, “Strategy of the Civil War,” 461–62.