Centerville was supposed to be far enough. By yielding the field at Bull Run and retreating to Centerville, General Pope had expected his army to be safe. But a Rebel force under Stonewall Jackson was moving around his right flank, moving to block the Warrenton Turnpike, Pope’s route to Washington and safety.
It didn’t take Emerson Merrell, Hiram Stoddard and the rest of the regiment long to prepare for the march. Since arriving in northern Virginia they had been without much of their gear: tents, backpacks, blankets and the like had all been lost since leaving the Peninsula. Now they were veterans and experienced in overcoming such hardships; plus the lack of gear made preparations inadvertently quicker.1 Sometime after noon on September 1, they began their move toward Fairfax Court House and eventually Washington.2
The Warrenton Turnpike was Pope’s main line of retreat from Bull Run. From Centerville it ran nearly due east to Germantown, which was only about six miles beyond Centerville. At Germantown the Warrenton Turnpike terminated into the Little River Turnpike, which came down from the northwest, and ran another mile east to Fairfax Court House and then onto Washington. After marching only a little while, Stoddard, Merrell and the rest of Hooker’s division could hear firing off to their left. About a mile north, a Union division had slammed into Jackson’s Confederates moving south past a little town called Chantilly. As the fight to the north unfolded, word came that the Federal division needed help. III Corps’ position in the line of march placed them closest to the fighting, and reinforcements were ordered in. Kearney’s First Division would lead the attack, with Second Division providing support. With Hooker detailed to organize a defense at Germantown, command of Second Division temporarily fell to General Grover.3 By 5 p.m. Kearney had formed most of his men, who were aligned along the turnpike and ready to advance north. While Kearney prepared to move north, Captain Harmon Bliss and the rest of Second Division had continued to move beyond Kearney and on to Germantown. By 5:30 they had turned northwest onto the Little River Turnpike. Orders were relayed; companies went forward into line, then the column of companies formed the regimental lines of battle, and the brigades formed their formations. As Emerson and his Company I mates took their place in line, they could see the other brigades, indeed the whole division, readying for battle. Second division wasn’t what it once was, being down to less than half the number they’d started with at Yorktown. The division looked more like a fresh brigade, but 4,000 veteran troops still presented a respectable force. Facing west, Emerson could easily hear the sounds of battle before them. Their rifles at the ready, Bliss and the rest were poised either to support Kearney’s assault or threaten the Confederate left flank with an attack of their own.
As the battle progressed, most of the fighting was on the Union left, away from Bliss and the Second Division. Yet knowing how the tides of battle could change at any moment, everyone remained under arms with lines formed. Around 8 p.m. General Kearney was killed as he rode too close to the enemy lines, and by ten the battle was over; both sides were too tired and too low on ammunition to continue.4
Eventually the Rebels moved off to the north and east, and at 2:30 a.m. the regiment resumed its march toward Fairfax Court House, arriving around eight that morning. Persistent rumors about the location and intentions of the enemy kept officers debating the best dispositions for the regiments, but after a short rest, Bliss and his men resumed the march. Moving only a few miles, they stopped and camped for the night.5 The following morning, September 3, the division continued its march. Nine miles later, upon reaching Fort Lyon on the outskirts of Alexandria and within sight of Washington, they halted. For the next few weeks at least, the regiment would call Fort Lyon home.6
While the regiment was settling in to life at Fort Lyon, back in New York, Dan Sickles’ recruiting campaign was still in full swing. Since leaving Harrison’s Landing at the beginning of August, Sickles had stormed around the state, speaking at this rally and that, drumming up badly needed replacements for his beloved Excelsior Brigade. Many of Sickles’ old Tammany Hall cronies were now confirmed Copperheads who sought peace at any price and were angry at Dan for his unwavering advocacy for continuing the war and his avid support of Lincoln. “Every man … can put implicit reliance in the good faith, the integrity, the intelligence, the patriotism, and the nerve of Abraham Lincoln,” Dan told an audience at the Produce Exchange, continuing, “I did not vote for him, but I will fight under his orders, and I will trust him everywhere, and pray for him night and day.”7 These were strong words for a confirmed Democrat, but for Dan victory was the only option, and at his rallies he argued for a greater commitment to bring the war to a successful end. “A man may pass through New York, and unless he is told of it, he would not know that this country was at war…. In God’s name, let the State of New York have it to say hereafter that she furnished her quota to the army without conscription—without resorting to a draft.”8 For Dan, the fact that his brigade was a volunteer unit was one of special pride. He railed against those who would wait to be drafted and especially against those who would hire a substitute to go in their places if conscripted. “Would you wait for the drafting and be dragged to the battlefield by the Collar?! I want no conscripts! I have none! I have all volunteers and I know they will fight.”9 For Dan Sickles, leading his men to the war’s glorious conclusion was his first and only priority; any intentions he may have harbored about returning to Congress would have to wait.
Captain Chadwick had been in New York recuperating from his wounding at Malvern Hill but was well enough by mid–September to join the general on the recruiting circuit both in New York City and throughout the state. Familial connections allowed Chadwick to bypass the normal procedure of stays at army hospitals along with its accompanying bureaucracy and go straight home to the care of his own doctor. Other officers and men from the brigade who received time away from their regiments joined Chadwick with recruiting, and though Sickles was clearly the star of the show, they did what they could.10
III Corps had been assigned to defenses in and around Washington. With a Rebel threat to the capital slim, regiments throughout the corps were afforded a chance to rest, recuperate and recruit. But Robert E. Lee was not a man to rest. Seizing upon Pope’s retreat to Washington, he positioned his army for a move into Maryland. The defeated Pope was through as head of the army, and Lincoln reluctantly restored command to George McClellan. But the normally plodding McClellan recognized the danger and at the start of September was moving 70,000 troops northwest from Washington to meet Lee’s threat. Joe Hooker was too valuable an asset to be sitting around the defenses of Washington, and on September 5 was given command of I Corps. Eventually the two great armies clashed on the 9th near Sharpsburg, Maryland, while all of III Corps and the Excelsiors remained in Washington. The fighting around Antietam Creek was the bloodiest one-day affair of the war. Lee ultimately withdrew back to Virginia, leaving the Army of the Potomac to claim the field but denying the numerically superior North another superb chance to crush his Rebel army.
In Alexandria, change was in the air. Three days after establishing camp, Nelson Taylor was promoted to brigadier general and moved from the regiment to command a brigade within I Corps. Temporary command of the Excelsiors fell to Colonel George Hall of the 71st New York. Sickles’ position within the army was changing too. With Hooker out, Second Division was in need of a new commander and, despite missing all of the August fighting, Dan enjoyed the reflected glory of his Excelsior Brigade and a reputation as an aggressive fighter. And so, on September 5, Sickles was given Second Division.11
Sickles’ time spent recruiting had been a success. Perhaps the numbers weren’t quite the 1,200 recruits that had been rumored, but there were certainly enough new men to keep the brigade in business and avoid consolidation. Among the newly added was an entire company of New York City firemen ready to join the 73rd, while in the 72nd, 112 new men helped to restore depleted companies.12 Replacements for Third Excelsior came from across the whole state, but recruiting in New York City had gone especially well. Thirty of the new men fell in with Company C and First Lt. Berend Huttmann, who had been keeping shop since Chadwick’s wounding. The influx established C as the largest company within the regiment.13 George Russell, Tom Roper, and a young Scotsman from Astoria named James Dean were among the new men. Dean had missed joining up back in ’61 but wanted to serve. He was a gardener, just like his father, and felt a life of tending flowers could wait.14 Even with the new men, the regiments remained small compared to newly minted organizations. To ensure the brigade could fight on more or less equal terms, a whole new regiment was added. The 120th New York, a brand new outfit from Kingston in upstate New York, became the brigade’s sixth regiment.15
As new enlisted men were filling the depleted ranks of the 72nd, there were other changes in the regiment’s officer corps. Lieutenant Colonel Israel Moses, the regiment’s fighting doctor, had grown tired of command or perhaps felt his talents were best used elsewhere. Whatever the reason, he left the 72nd on October 4 and picked up his scalpel as surgeon with a different regiment. With both Nelson and Moses out, Major William O. Stevens was now the regiment’s senior officer and was promoted to colonel on October 25. By the end of October other field positions were sorted out with John S. Austin, captain of Company K, becoming lt. colonel and the Indian fighter from out west, John Leonard of Co. F, named major.16 Up at III Corps headquarters, Heintzelman was out as corps commander, and George Stoneman, who led the pursuit of the Rebs back at Yorktown, was in.17
The weather around Alexandria had been fairly good through the first part of October, but occasional heavy rainstorms played havoc with some men. “Had fine weather till Friday night when the rain came down in torrents, running through some tents in a regular stream and when the boys woke up they were in a regular puddle,”18 wrote Private Dean in a letter home, adding, “but I have a comfortable bed made of young trees and covered over with rushes and it is about a foot off the ground … our tent was as dry as if there had been no rain owing to the trench we dug around it.”19 With October’s changing weather and winter on the way, the boys were issued tall, circular Sibley tents.20 These large Sibleys held as many as 12 men, and their conical shape offered room enough to stand upright. The tent was designed around a central stove that vented out through a hole at the roof’s apex. This kept the men warm; each man could put his feet or head, depending on preference, close to the fire. The men soon learned that the feature that made the Sibley comfortable was also its biggest liability. With it circular design and only one door, nearly every man had to step over a tent mate to get out when either nature or the corporal of the guard called.
On the morning of October 22 the call sounded through camp for the companies to fall in, each man’s leathers fully blackened, all brass polished and every hand donning a white glove; the division was being reviewed by Lincoln. It was a brilliant day, “all that could be wished for,” described one Excelsior man.21 As they stood at attention, Sickles and the president engaged in a pithy exchange that perhaps harkened back to the early days and the brigade’s uncertain beginnings. As the commander-in-chief reviewed the troops, many of the men gazed upon him for their first and possibly only time. Private Dean described the affair this way in a letter home:
We had a grand review last week, we were reviewed by President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton, Major General Banks and Heintzelman and two hundred generals and staff officers. There must have been 40 thousand troops present consisting of infantry, Cavalry and artillery and [it] was a splendid affair to see the Cavalry dashing up and down with their sabers drawn, the artillery flying and occasionally stopping and give a salute and off again. The infantry on a double quik [sic] with fixed bayonets and on a charge and yelling and it seemed impossible for any rebel army to defeat us.22
While the boys may have been getting used to life at Fort Lyon, high command had other ideas. Under its new commander, Dan Sickles, Second Division on November 1 began a reconnaissance along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. With the notion of being able to support any offensive moves the army might make into northern Virginia, they would rebuild bridges and repair track.23 Excelsior Brigade struck camp and stepped off for Manassas Junction at four that afternoon. By eight that evening, after a march of eight miles, the boys stopped for the night. With weather mild and dry, few likely even pitched a tent. Before dawn the regiment was on the move again, moving through land it had travelled only weeks before. Eighteen miles later, four miles from Centerville, and on the same ground they had camped on the eve of the Second Bull Run fight, privates Merrell and Dean, with their new colonel William Stevens in the lead, stopped for the night. At daybreak on November 3 the boys continued on, eventually stopping around eight that morning to make camp about ½ mile from the junction.24 While the Excelsiors established their base at Manassas Junction, Third Brigade under General Francis Patterson—the same General Patterson who back on the Peninsula had revealed the division’s location by blowing his bugle—made camp further down the line at Warrenton Junction. Near Manassas Junction there was little enemy activity, but rumors abounded of a sizeable enemy force just south of Patterson’s New Jersey Blues. Soon the rumors of a large enemy cavalry force were too much for Patterson and, acting upon the belief his position was too isolated, he retreated.25 “My position is untenable. The whistles of cars are going freely, indicating the arrival of troops. I am returning to my old camp,”26 wired the shaken Patterson. Whether due to drunkenness as rumored or simply a loss of nerve, Patterson’s retreat was the last straw in a list of failings, and Sickles immediately relieved him from command. With Third Brigade out of position, the enraged Sickles ordered Patterson detained and the Excelsiors to move south to restore order. “Friday night [Nov. 7th] the Brigade, in the midst of a cold, driving sleet, was again on the march for Warrenton Junction,”27 wrote the Excelsior’s Chaplain Twichell. When the New Yorkers arrived, the phantom enemy had gone, purportedly withdrawn to below the Rappahannock. With the Excelsiors now in Warrenton Junction, redeployment was decided upon. The 71st, 73rd and 120th New Yorks returned all the way back to Manassas Junction, while the 70th and 74th moved back to Bristoe Station. Colonel Stevens and the boys of the 72nd N.Y. would stay in Warrenton Junction with two Massachusetts regiments, “thus giving about 15 miles of the Rail Road into our (Excelsior Brigade’s) keeping,”28 observed Twichell.
The arrest of their general created hard feelings against Sickles among the New Jersey boys. They liked Patterson in spite of his shortcomings—be it his absence from important battles or his drunkenness. The Blues had always been suspicious of Sickles and did little to hide their ambivalence, even going so far as to recite the homemade ditty, “Johnny stole a ham and Sickles killed a man,” within earshot of the Excelsiors.29 For two weeks following his arrest, Patterson awaited investigation; then he was discovered dead in his tent. Although he was judged to have been killed by an accidental discharge of his pistol, many instead believed he had committed suicide rather than face the shame of an inquiry. The increasingly bitter boys of the Jersey Brigade believed their beloved Patterson was now the second man murdered by Dan Sickles.30
Camp near Warrenton Junction was less hospitable than in Alexandria. Rations were frequently short, as men of Third Excelsior carried on through frost and the occasional snow. “The weather is pretty cold and every night we have ice from a quarter to half an inch thick, last week we had snow over 4 inches deep,”31 wrote James Dean in a November 13 letter home. Dean and his fellow New Yorkers camped and patrolled on much of the same ground over which they had fought the previous August. The countryside was littered with razed buildings, burned hulks of locomotives and destroyed rail cars. Sickles’ division was spread out over a sizeable area of northern Virginia and charged with protecting a considerable amount of track. “Posts are established at all stations, bridges, causeways, culverts and high embankments along the line and the interval between the posts are vigilantly patrolled day and night,”32 Sickles reported. With the Confederate Army close and Rebel cavalry still a menace, the capture of enemy horsemen was worthy of mention by Dean: “Three nights ago we captured forty 3 calvary [sic] and horses. They were dressed all kind of suits and them and their horses looked pretty hard.”33 Aside from contending with enemy cavalry, the boys kept busy tracking down errant enemy soldiers, sympathizers, agents and spies. On Saturday night the 15th, Emerson Merrell and his newly minted corporal, Edgar Hyatt, were out of camp foraging for chickens. Coming upon a house about three miles from camp, they told the residents, who viewed the two with considerable suspicion, that they had been in pursuit of some Rebels. The story went that they had followed the Southern men there and had now lost them. As the pair continued their explanation, they happened upon some unexpected information. “I took one of the niggers aside,” described Emerson, “talked with him awhile and he told me that thire [sic] was a rebel spy courting one of the girls.”34 According to the servant, the spy was in the habit of staying at the home all night and observing the camp all day, adding that “he had been there that day and was comeing [sic] again that night to take the girl away with him.”35 Excited at the prospect of catching a spy, Merrell, Hyatt and another returned to the home later that evening. In the dark of the Virginia night, the three crept toward the house, muskets at the ready. Once within 50 feet of the house, “his horse commenced snorting and blowing which gave him the hint and before we could get to the road … he was on his horse and a gowing [sic] with the velocity of lightning,”36 leaving Emerson and his frustrated mates behind with nothing to show for their late night sortie.
While Merrell, Dean and the rest of their regiment camped at Warrenton, critical events were unfolding in Washington. General George McClellan was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac for failing to adequately pursue the retreating Confederate Army after his strategic victory at Antietam. His replacement was Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside; the date was November 7, 1862. Burnside felt himself inadequate to the task of such a large command, but he reluctantly accepted President Abraham Lincoln’s offer. This was Burnside’s third offer of army command, and he feared a third refusal might mean the post falling to his rival, Gen. Joseph Hooker. Burnside had risen to leadership of the IX Corps by performing well at Bull Run and in other campaigns to secure coastal waterways in North Carolina. His poor showing at Antietam caused his standing among many senior officers to fall several notches.37 Despite all this, he tackled his new job with vigor and on November 9 sent Washington a new plan for taking the Rebel capital.
The plan was a simple eastward sidestepping of the Confederate army: cross the Rappahannock River at the town of Fredericksburg and then plunge south to Richmond. Once across the Rappahannock, Burnside would be in a position to block any attempts by Robert E. Lee’s pursuing Confederate Army to stop him. The plan relied on the Union army’s ability to move speedily through Fredericksburg, and speed was something this army had yet to demonstrate. President Lincoln hesitantly agreed to the plan, commenting, it “will succeed, if you move rapidly; otherwise not.”38 For William O. Stevens and his men, their time tending the track of the Orange and Alexandria was coming to an end.
With speed the primary condition for Lincoln’s permission to pursue his campaign, Burnside quickly set his large army in motion. He divided the army into three large “Grand Divisions,” each containing two corps and commanded respectively by Generals Joseph Hooker, Edwin Sumner and William Franklin. Sumner’s grand division, comprising II and IX Corps, left its camps on November 15 and marched south. Franklin’s grand division, made up of I and VI Corps, along with Hooker’s command consisting of III and V Corps, left the following day. The army had orders to concentrate at Falmouth, and Stevens and his 72nd boys stepped off from Warrenton Junction on the 18th. Poor weather with nearly constant rain turned the roads thick with mud. Since leaving Alexandria two weeks before, the supply situation had been rather shaky, with men going on short rations much of the time and replacement gear almost unheard of. Wet blankets, “heavy as lead,”39 only served to compound an already difficult march. Many veterans wore shoes and uniforms that were worn out, while the new October-recruits no doubt enjoyed fresher equipment. Men who wore shoes and boots sent to them from loved ones back home were likely the envy of their companies. Second Division’s route had been a long backtracking, but after reaching Fairfax Station, the regiment finally turned south toward Fredericksburg on the 21st. For four days the regiment camped at Wolf Run Shoals along the Occoquan Creek. Eventually Col. Stevens and the rest completed the remaining 20 or so miles to Falmouth, arriving there on the 28th.40
With unprecedented speed, lead elements of the Yankee army moved the forty miles to Falmouth in only two and a half days. This positioned the army only a mile from the critical Rappahannock River town of Fredericksburg and a skeleton Confederate force that held the town. As Burnside planned his next move, things began to go awry. Those same heavy rains that Merrell and the rest had slogged through had caused the river to rise. This threatened important fords, while the resultant mud brought all troop and supply movements to a crawl. But the worst blow was yet to follow: the pontoon bridges critical to the river crossing had failed to arrive. Despite chief-of-staff Halleck’s assurances that the pontoons would be there, the situation’s urgency was not realized, and the bridges did not begin their move south from Washington until November 19. Encountering washed-out bridges and endless mud, movement of the bridging supplies was painfully slow until at last the material arrived on November 27. Burnside’s Army of the Potomac meanwhile sat idle for a full ten days.41
During these delays, Robert E. Lee and his Confederate Army were anything but idle. Though unsure of Burnside’s intentions, Lee was certain the Yankees were on the move. As Sumner’s Yankee troops moved toward Falmouth, the Confederates began moving two divisions of James Longstreet’s I Corps in the direction of Fredericksburg. Once the objectives of the balance of the Union Army became clear, Lee ordered the remainder of Longstreet’s and all of Stonewall Jackson’s corps to the heights above Fredericksburg. By the 29th of November the bulk of the Rebel Army was taking defensive positions in and around the town.42
With the regiment stopped and camped at Falmouth with the rest of the army, James Dean busied himself with letter writing and seeking out friends belonging to other units. During one walk along the banks of the river, a Rebel soldier from the far side hailed him. The curious Confederate asked him to which regiment Dean belonged. After an exchange, the Southron then complimented the Excelsiors as one of the North’s best fighting brigades.43
Company C’s Captain Chadwick, wounded on July 1 at Malvern Hill and recuperating in New York while on recruiting detail, had requested to be released from that duty and allowed to return to his men. By December 1, he had rejoined the company at Falmouth and in command in time for the coming campaign. The miserable weather and rigors of the campaign, however, would prove the undoing for Chadwick’s now-fragile health.
Despite having taken a beating the previous months on the Peninsula with McClellan and under Pope, many of the 72nd men remained hopeful. “We have soldiered 1 year ½ and have not gained ground enough for our winter quarters … but it is impossible for the tide to be out always,”44 wrote Pvt. Merrell. The Harvard educated chaplain Twichell echoed some of the private’s melancholy but was perhaps a bit more philosophical:
The army cannot be called disheartened, but dull. Its pulse beats, not feebly, but very moderately. The prospect at best is not charming…. If we are held here in readiness, yet do not advance, we shall attain a condition which while it cannot be called discomfort, will yet be far from comfort—a kind of uneasy ease.45
But as the fall turned to winter and with the regiment camped just across the river from Fredericksburg, the cold, boredom, and political changes—particularly the pending Emancipation Proclamation—caused Merrell to question Lincoln’s motives. In a December 7 letter to his parents, Emerson offered his views:
Write and let me know what the peoples’ opinion is of the Presidents Message—my opinion is the same as the majority of the soldiers and that is, he is bound to do away slavery at all hazards and has been working into it by degrees until he has finally come to the spot. President Lincoln is bound to die with the party which it is very evident is short lived.46
Attitudes about slavery and the plight of the negro ran the gamut throughout the entire army, and the 72nd reflected this diversity. Men such as Emerson Merrell were ambivalent about slavery and saw emancipation as a distraction for Lincoln, drawing his attention away from the war effort. Others, such as George Bailey of Company H, had none of Merrell’s doubt and viewed freedom for slaves as a great double-cross. “When I enlisted, I laid my politics aside until such time as the war should be over and the Union restored which was the cry of all Loyal people … then Politics was again brought up, the interests of the country were thrown aside, the Allmighty nigger [is now] the question.”47 But many men on the other side of the question, such as Charles Gould, saw the issue of slavery as intertwined with winning the war. “I think that the rebellion must, and will be crushed. I hope slavery will be crushed with it.”48
Drawing three days’ cooked rations, the regiment and the rest of III Corps began preparations to move on Tuesday, December 9. The boys had since fashioned comfortable winter quarters for themselves from logs, sod and whatever else kept out the elements, and each man regretted leaving such accommodations behind. During the afternoon of the 10th, Sickles accompanied General Stoneman forward to plan the corps’ dispositions and the best routes to the bridges over the Rappahannock. At 4 a.m. on Thursday morning the boys were rousted from their sleep, and four hours later Sickles’ Second Division had left Falmouth and marched to the rear of the Lacy House: General Sumner’s headquarters. Colonel George B. Hall of the 71st New York was in temporary command of the Excelsior Brigade (Second Brigade), while Brig. Gen. Joseph Carr commanded the New Jersey men of the First Brigade and Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Revere, grandson of the Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, commanded the Third Brigade.49 Chaplain Twichell described the scene behind Lacy House.
There we met the other regiments of our Brigade and Division, in fact, of the Corps and Grand Division with the Cavalry and Artillery thereto belonging. It was a magnificent morning, several degrees warmer than it had been for the week past, yet cool and bracing. The air was humid and the rising sun showed a face of blood, presaging, as it were, the terrible scenes about to be enacted. I have never witnessed so splendid a military display as that morning furnished. The long dark columns of infantry with fifty thousand gleaming bayonets and waving ensigns; the numerous trains of Artillery with guns of shining brass or black steel, heavily rumbling over the frozen ground; the quick moving bodies of cavalry with resounding hoofs and the jingling of the sabres, combined with the music of the bands, the blare of bugles, the shouts of command, the galloping of aides and the tramp of multitudes; made up a spectacle not easily forgotten.50
Burnside’s army of 118,000 Federal troops stood on the east side of the Rappahannock River. Directly on the other side lay the town of Fredericksburg, which hugged the river’s bank for about a mile. West of town, the hills gently rose for nearly one and one-half miles, most of that distance an expanse of treeless fields, perfect for a parade but offering no cover whatsoever for an attack. Just beyond the treeless plain a fine Virginia forest began. Here, in the cover of the woods, 78,000 Rebels would eventually be dug into positions that commanded every possible approach.
With Rebel strength increasing, Burnside sought alternatives to a direct assault through Fredericksburg. Finding none to be satisfactory, the commanding general convinced himself that Lee had split his army and that an attack across the river, through the town and up the heights would be successful. No other Union officers shared their general’s confidence. A IX Corps brigade commander, Col. Rush C. Hawkins, said to attack would “be the greatest slaughter of the war; there isn’t infantry enough in our whole army to carry those heights if they are well defended.”51 Lt. Col. Joseph H. Taylor told Burnside more pointedly, “The carrying out of your plan will be murder, not warfare.”52
Beset by delays and doubt, the Federal Army finally began their attack in the pre-dawn darkness of December 11. The 50th New York Engineers began bridging operations just as the Excelsiors were readying for their march from Falmouth. Confederate marksmen were stationed among the buildings on the river’s far side, and the exposed engineers took heavy losses as progress on the bridges slowed. Finally, around 2:30 p.m. the next day, the Federals succeeded in spanning the river. Only after a building-leveling barrage from 150 cannons and an amphibious assault did Union troops manage to clear the opposite bank of Rebels. Yankee engineers eventually placed a total of six bridges across the Rappahannock: two at the northern end of town, another at its southern edge, and three more about two miles south of the town.53
Rebel skirmishers gave up the town and retreated to the safety of the heights as Federal troops poured across the bridges. All night long, troops moved across the six bridges and before dawn on Saturday the 13th, the bulk of Burnside’s force was on the Confederates’ side of the river. In and around Fredericksburg were II and V Corps, with IX Corps positioned in reserve. Near the lower crossings slightly to the east lay men of the I, VI and III Corps, with Sickles’ division composing the bulk of the reserve, which remained on the east side of the river. Opposing these Federal troops near the lower crossing were four divisions of Stonewall Jackson’s corps.54
“The 13th of December opened with a dense fog enveloping the whole field,”55 wrote Pvt. George Shreve of Henry’s Battery, part of the Confederate artillery facing Franklin’s oncoming troops:
Beyond the hedge, we could hear the Federal Infantry maneuvering; distinguishing a medley of voices, but could not see them. Evidently they were only a few hundred yards distant. The fog commenced to lift between nine and ten o’clock, and exposed to our view as we peered through, the hedge, a grand spectacle of marshalled soldiery, in readiness for the fray, spread out in vast proportions, on the level plain, in our immediate front.56
Burnside’s written orders contained critical errors that seemed to contradict earlier verbal instructions, yet Federal corps commanders began launching their attacks around 8:30 that morning. Nearest Fredericksburg, divisions comprising the Federal right took a horrible beating as they attacked the entrenched Confederates at Marye’s Heights. Rebel infantry and cannon, positioned in the protection of the Sunken Road and the Stone Wall, decimated advancing Union regiments. Two major attacks were launched here over the course of the day, the first by the II Corps and the second by the IX Corps. Shortly after 5 p.m. the fighting on this side of the line was over; Gen. Hooker called an end to the disaster, declaring he had “lost as many men as my orders required.”57 When the day’s attacks were finished, 7,000 Yankees were either killed or wounded in the futile endeavor, and it was said no Federal soldier advanced closer than 25 feet to the fortified Rebels.
Below the town, on the Union left, the day began slightly better for Franklin’s men. With the 72nd and the rest of the Excelsior Brigade still on the far side of the river, General George Meade’s division had inadvertently found a weak spot in the Confederate line and by 1 p.m. was making nice progress. Franklin inexplicably refused to offer sufficient support to Meade’s advance, and despite this early success, effective counterattacks by Jackson’s Confederates sent the northern men reeling.58
During this phase of the battle, the Second and Third brigades of Sickles’ division were ordered across the bridges. Earlier that morning Carr’s First Brigade went across to secure the bridge’s approaches. By the time it was Col. Hall’s Excelsiors’ turn to cross, the brigade had been severely depleted. Seventy-Fourth New York was missing, having been detailed to support the First and Fifth New York Artillery, still on the east side of the river, two miles below the three bridges of “Franklin’s Crossing.” Hall’s largest regiment, the 120th N.Y., had only about 100 men present during the crossing, the remainder sent earlier to assist General Woodbury of the engineers.59
Across the bridges the regiments continued south for another mile. The division formed two lines in support on the left of Ward’s Second Brigade of Birney’s First Division. Excelsior Brigade formed their line of battle to the right of the Carr’s men, while Revere’s Third Brigade formed a second line in support. Sickles’ men were in position by 3 p.m. and, almost at once, skirmishers were deployed who took up a heavy exchange with the Confederates.60 Col. Hall’s reports described the intensity of the exchange:
Upon arriving in line of battle, skirmishers were immediately thrown out. We were exposed to the enemy upon open ground, with but a slight rise between us, at a distance of about 400 paces. The skirmishers were immediately engaged, and their ammunition (60 rounds) was entirely expended shortly after being posted, owing to the heavy and continued firing of the enemy’s sharpshooters, stationed in the trees in front, but the men were promptly relieved from their own commands, until dark put an end to the fire on each side.61
Worried about a Rebel counterattack, Col. Stevens ordered his men to fix bayonets. Circulating about the regiment as best he could, Stevens urged his boys to make every shot tell.62 But their enemy was well concealed; the men of the regiment had little to shoot at, flashes from Reb muskets being the only hint of their enemy’s position. Confederate riflemen enjoyed the protection of the trees and the occasional wall, but the New Yorkers struggled on a bare field. James Dean remembered that he and his comrades were exposed to fire with “not as much as a straw to cover us.”63 To present as small a target as possible, Dean and the rest attempted to fire as they lay on their bellies. In awkward convolutions, the boys struggled against the cold and gravity as they attempted to place powder and bullets down the barrels of their Springfields. But struggle they did, Dean being sure any man who rose up would become the target of at least 30 or 40 Rebs.64 Even with the New Yorkers lying low, Confederate infantry kept up a blistering fire. Dean wrote that the enemy musketry “put one in the mind of a swarm of bees which had just hived,” and recalled, “I came off very lucky although the bullets came as close to me as they could come without hurting me; one burnt my hair and I got one in the pants below the knee and one in the coat tail.”65 The Excelsiors held their ground throughout the afternoon waiting for orders to advance. Chaplain Twichell had not initially moved forward with the regiments but now rode across the river to see his boys:
They were standing in the field, waiting to be sent, with a coolness and quietude that became veterans. Several of the officers remarked to me, “Chaplain, if we have to go into the woods, you will never see many of us alive after it.”66
The din of battle began to quiet as night settled over Fredericksburg. The Excelsior men were relieved that the order to advance never came. It was now that the men of the regiment were subject to the agonized groans of the wounded and dying. Moving about in the freezing dark, Dean and his fellows tended as best they could to those around them:
The wounded commenced to get cold [and] it would melt a heart of stone to hear the cries and mones [sic]. There were about a dozen of them within 10 yds of me and as soon as it got dark I went and gave them water and covered them up with blankets…. One orderly sergeant asked me my name that I gave water and covered during the night and he commenced calling my name and some of the others commenced to and it was awful to hear the moans and asking for us to carry them off the field.67
While his men held their positions throughout the night, Gen. Burnside held a council of war with his subordinates. Initially, the despondent Burnside contemplated renewing the attacks in the morning, leading the troops himself. But officers eventually convinced Burnside that further attacks would be fruitless and the campaign had failed. The Army of the Potomac must now be withdrawn.68
As dawn broke on Sunday the 14th, firing resumed between the Excelsiors and an enemy that had been reinforced during the night, much of it taking place between Rebel skirmishers and Col. George Sharpe’s 120th New York. During the afternoon of the previous day, the detached portions of Sharpe’s regiment had rejoined the brigade and the full 120th was held in reserve. Now, as morning came, the full ranks of the previously un-bloodied 120th found themselves on the brigade’s right and “briskly” engaged. In a show of bravado never seen among veteran troops, some 120th man proposed three cheers for the first shot that “sternly saluted” the regiment. Just as the untimely outburst was beginning, it was checked for fear of attracting further notice of the enemy.69
As the morning dragged on, it became clear to both sides that the anticipated attacks each expected were not materializing. Frontline commanders, colonels and majors began to strike their own informal cease-fire agreements with their opposite number. By noon, most firing died away and ambulance crews with other medical teams circulated among the Federal dead and wounded. Col. Hall described the situation, “Sharp skirmish firing was commenced … and continued till toward afternoon, when they followed the example of this brigade by an agreement with the enemy’s skirmishers to stop the desultory firing along the line.”70 Sickles in his official report witnessed, “by a tacit, though informal, understanding, no more picket firing occurred along my lines. The ambulance men, frequently assisted by the enemy in pointing out our wounded and placing them on stretchers, brought off all of our men who had been left on the field along my front.”71
That night and early the following Monday night, the rebels continually improved their positions, still anticipating a renewed Federal attack. “The enemy resumed their industrious efforts to strengthen their position in front. Without ceasing, their axes and other implements were heard at work from the base to the crest of the heights,”72 reported Sickles. Throughout Monday, 72nd N.Y. men and the whole of the Excelsior Brigade held their positions. When First Brigade came to relieve Hall’s men at 5 p.m. the New Yorkers had been under arms for 50 hours.73 Sickles received orders at 9:30 that night from corps commander Stoneman to withdraw his division. Under a driving rainstorm, Hall’s brigade was moving to the rear by 10:00 and a short time later re-crossed the very bridges they had marched across two days earlier. After marching for another two miles or so, the New Yorkers laid down and slept.74
When the Rebel defenders awoke the next morning, they were amazed to find that the entirety of the Union Army had disappeared silently during the night. Burnside and his generals had withdrawn the army under cover of rain and darkness, going so far as to lay straw and dirt on the pontoon bridges to muffle the noise of caissons, hooves and brogans. So complete was the retreat that it was said not one living Federal soldier was left on the far side of the Rappahannock.75
News of the Yankee retreat was hailed in the South as a “stunning defeat to the invader, a splendid victory to the defender of the sacred soil.”76 When the gloom of defeat fell upon the North, President Lincoln, upon hearing reports of the battle, commented, “If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it.”77
Losses had been very light for Steven’s regiment with only four men slightly wounded, and losses throughout the brigade were equally light. But losses for the rest of the army were another matter. Federal casualties topped 12,500 while Confederate losses were well below half that number.78
With the failure at Fredericksburg, disgust among the ranks could no longer be contained, as Emerson Merrell expressed soon after the battle:
Old abe is bound to save the niggers and let the union go to hell—The papers say that we are in the best condition that we were ever in and all eager for a fight—but it is all humbug this army has been growing more and more demoralized since the 2d battle of Bull run and this battle (or rather this slaughter) has put on the finish—we have always wrote to our friends the best side of the story but it is played out—I will not hesitate at all to telling the truth any longer—for the last two years people have not been allowed to express his opinion and the Editors of the papers have not been allowed to print the truth and there by the people of the north have been mesmarised [sic] and their pockets picked.79