Chapter 22: crossing the river at Fredericksburg.
The bridge, half completed, stretched out into the river, while the pontoons lined the bank. The artillery on the hill above and to the rear kept throwing shells over the city and now and then one could be seen making its way into the side or roof of a house. Once or twice a terrible shriek was heard, as though a woman had been hit or was bewailing the loss of husband or lover. The poor cow was seen to fall. Flames and smoke burst from many buildings in various parts of the city. The crackling of flames and the crashing of falling walls sometimes broke the monotony of the cannonade, the echoes of which beat up against the Falmouth bluff, rolled back beyond the town and then from the distant hills once more swelled over as though the heavens were rent asunder.The instant the batteries ceased firing, the men of the Seventh Michigan and the Nineteenth Massachusetts took to the boats, twenty in each, and poled across the river under a heavy musketry fire from the enemy.
Crack! Crack! Crack! from a hundred lurking places went the rebel shots at the brave fellows, who, stooping low in the boats, sought to avoid the fire. The murderous work was well done. Lustily the men pushed on the poles, however, and presently, having passed the middle of the stream, the boats and their gallant freight came under the cover of the opposite banks.
Two companies of the Seventh Michigan were the first to make a landing as they had used the boats which were nearest to the end of the uncompleted bridge. They were led by Lieut. Col. Baxter who was struck by a shell as he climbed the bank on the Fredericksburg side. As the men appeared above the bank, the rebels emerged from cellar, rifle pit and stone wall, like so many rats and by the hundreds scampered off up the [168] streets of the town. As the two companies of Michigan troops marched up Fauquier street, in a direct line with the bridge, they were immediately hotly engaged.
The two boats bearing Companies K and C of the Nineteenth Massachusetts, with the National and the state colors (the first ones to be carried across) landed near those containing the two companies of the Seventh Michigan, and the men went forward to their assistance eagerly and swiftly. Capt. John C. Chadwick, of Company C was the first man of the Nineteenth to land.
The next boat to touch the bank bore the colors of the Seventh Michigan, and, a few seconds later, the remainder of both regiments having crossed, they formed in line on the banks of the river, the left resting on Fauquier street, and advanced, deploying as skirmishers in order to drive the enemy back from the western part of the city.
One can imagine with what interest the crossing of the first two boatloads was watched by the troops on the shore, and with what enthusiastic shouts their landing on the opposite side was greeted. It was a display of heroism, which moves men as nothing else can. The problem was solved. This flash of bravery had done what scores of batteries and tons of metal had failed to accomplish.
One man from Company B of the Nineteenth had jumped into the first boat with the Seventh Michigan and, as the rest of his regiment dashed up the bank, he was seen coming from a house with two tall ‘Rebs’ at the point of his bayonet and he proudly marched them to the rear as prisoners. Many of the other men captured rebels as they ran from the houses and the pontoons as they returned took more than a hundred of these fellows.
The city was held by Gen. Barksdale's Brigade, consisting of the 13th, 17th, 18th and 21st Mississippi regiments, with the 8th Florida and the 3rd Georgia of Anderson's Division. The men of the Nineteenth were by no means novices in hard fighting on the open field or in the woods and dense underbrush, but attacking an entire brigade with only a thin line of skirmishers for a distance of half a mile, concealed as they were in the attics, [169] chambers and cellars of the houses, was not only novel but a great strain upon the moral and physical courage. The most dangerous and trying part of the action was that the enemy could fire a volley at such close range without being seen.
The fierce work went on,—from street to street, from house to house, from yard to yard, amid smoke and blaze, the crash of shot, the whirr of shell, the shrieks of women and the moans of children. Men sorely wounded, fought on and added wound to wound. Officers and men fell fast. Company B lost ten men out of thirty in less than five minutes, and other companies suffered similarly.
In one of the houses were captured five men, who less than two minutes before had, with others, crossed the street and given the men of the Nineteenth a volley at close range.
Companies B, D, E and K of the Nineteenth were posted along Caroline street, and it took about an hour and a half of of the severest fighting before they secured the north side of the street. A few minutes later when the left was furiously attacked by the enemy, who had concentrated at this point for the purpose of regaining the avenue leading down to the pontoon bridge, they were forced down Fauquier street for some distance. The men of Company K turned into a corner lot and took shelter behind a fence. There they received a volley which killed Private Penniman and wounded another. This fire was returned, but the enemy proved too strong and too well posted so that the men were driven back to the river.
As the men of the Nineteenth fell back toward the river, the Twentieth Massachusetts marched up Fauquier street. Upon reaching Caroline street, the latter regiment wheeled to the right, but before the full line had reached the street, the enemy from their snug retreats poured such a deadly fire upon them that they were forced to retire with great loss.
Over the completed bridge rushed the divisions of Hancock, French and Howard, the old Second Corps, followed by the columns of the glorious Ninth. As the men of the Nineteenth Massachusetts lay upon the bank of the river they recognized and received the plaudits of the heroes of other days. Palfrey, with the Twentieth Massachusetts, Farnham, with the First [170] Minnesota; Owens, with his ‘regulars;’ Meagher, with the ‘Irish Brigade,’ the Fifteenth Massachusetts and Rickett's battery recalled the Dunker Church and the terrible cornfield at Antietam; Hancock's old brigade recalled the glorious day of Williamsburg and Fort Magruder; Van Valkenburg and the Fourteenth Indiana told of Hatteras and Fort Clarke; the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-seventh Massachusetts of Roanoke Island. Then came Hawkins with the gallant heroes of the ‘Stone Bridge’ of Sharpsburg; the Fourth and the Eighth Ohio, who cleared the way at South Mountain pass, and the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts, who led the old Ninth Corps through the bloody gorge of Crampton's Gap.
All, all were heroes. No color flouted the winter air but recalled some glorious day.
During the brief interval of searching the houses in the city, companies E, F and B had been ordered to surround a certain dwelling and search it thoroughly. Capt. Mahoney, as senior officer of the left flank company, took command. Capt. Mahoney, with Lieut. McGinnis, of Co. F, and Lieut. Elisha W. Hinks, of Co. B, attempted to enter, but found the door locked. Capt. Mahoney, in his rich brogue, pounded on it and cried ‘Open the dure.’
There being no response, he said to a sergeant; ‘Joost lave me yure gun.’
Then, to any possible inmate of the house he said: ‘Now will ye lave the door be shut when I tells ye to open it!’ Clubbing the piece, he brought the butt of the gun with a mighty swing down upon the offending planks. Bang went the musket and in went the door just as the bullet from the inverted gun went singing through the long, jet black beard of Lieut. Hinks. The Lieutenant jumped as though he had been shot, as, in truth, every one near thought he had been.
Capt. Mahoney was startled and turned around with a ludicrous expression on his face, which instantly changed to one of wrath when he heard the torrent of angry words which Lieut. Hinks was hurling at him.
‘How dare ye, sorr?’ roared back the Captain, relieved to find that the Lieutenant was not killed through his carelessness,—‘How [171] dare ye, sorr, address such language to yure supayrior officer,—I'll rayport ye, sorr.’
‘Yes,’ shouted Lieut. Hinks, ‘And I'll prefer charges against you.’
This passage at arms was kept up for some time, to the amusement of the men and resulted in an estrangement between the two officers which lasted for some time.
From one of the houses where a girl had declared there was no one but her ‘poor, old blind father’ a rifle was fired and on investigation a rebel was caught with a gun, hot from the discharge. He was taken out just as the Twentieth Massachusetts regiment was marching rapidly up the street and was forced to march directly ahead of their leading file. As the regiment reached Caroline street and received the terrible volley from Barksdale's brigade this man fell dead.
The arrival and engagement of the Twentieth Massachusetts enabled the Nineteenth's left to regain its position on Caroline street, which was maintained, with a constant exchange of shots, for more than an hour after sunset. Here was found the body of private Michael Redding, of Company D, who had fallen at the charge of the regiment up the street and when the line was forced back, he was left lying where he fell. A comrade had offered to take him on his back on the retreat, but he said, ‘No, you'll be back again shortly and I'll sit here and wait for you.’ When the men returned, however, his body was found to have been pierced in seven places with bayonet wounds, he having been killed in this manner while lying there wounded.
Near here was found the dead body of the lonely cow, previously mentioned, and she was rapidly cut up into steaks which were greatly enjoyed.
In the houses were found eggs and other articles of food which the men ‘borrowed.’
During the progress of the fighting, John Thompson, of Company F, whose request to be allowed to go into action with the men is already chronicled, came to Lieut. Hill and asked permission to go a short distance to the rear and get the musket of a wounded man who was lying there, his own having been fired so [172] much that it had become choked with grease. Permission being given, he went back and was met by a lieutenant who cried out to him, ‘Here! Where are you going, you—shirk? Go back to your company.’
‘I'm no shirk and no coward,’ replied Thompson, ‘I got leave to get this man's gun’ stooping to pick it up.
‘Well you can't have it,’ said the lieutenant, ‘Get out of here and get back to your company.’
In a moment, Thompson,—black with smoke and powder and panting from excitement and exertion, limped up to Lieut. Hill, with his hand upon a wound in his thigh. He was so angry that he could hardly speak.
‘Didn't you tell me that I might have that man's gun?’ he asked, wrathfully, “Well, that—back there wouldn't let me have it and,—him, he ran me through the leg with his sword and said I was a shirk and a coward.”
‘Well, well, John,’ responded Lieut. Hill, considerably surprised, ‘you're wounded, go to the rear.’
‘Not by a—sight,’ shouted the enraged hero, fiercely, ‘I came out here to fight, and I'm not through yet,’ and he sprang forward into the fray.
（Thompson had a splendid record. He was later commissioned Second and then First Lieutenant and was killed in the trenches at Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864.)
The Nineteenth Massachusetts held the north side of Caroline street during the night, and the enemy the south side, defended with the most formidable barricades which ingenuity could invent, consisting of barrels and boxes filled with earth and stones and placed between the houses, so as to form a continuous line of defense. The Division Commander, Gen. O. O. Howard, inspected the line of defence at about 11 P. M. and was greatly pleased to learn that the men had secured the city after such a desperate defence. The Second and Ninth Corps passed to the outskirts of the town as the enemy retired, and there and in the fields beyond bivouacked for the night. The Nineteenth Massachusetts and the Seventh Michigan were permitted to remain in the town.
The pickets of the regiment had an opportunity to look [173] behind the fences running parallel to the river and there a horrible sight met their gaze. The rebels lay thick along the fence, just as they had fallen, killed by round shot and shell. Some lay with their heads severed, others with arms and legs gone and still others mutilated in a terrible manner.
It was freezing cold that night. The river was skimmed over with ice and the men had to keep moving to prevent their freezing to death.
Gen. McLaws, in his report of the defence of Fredericksburg says:
‘On the 25th of Nov., my division marched into the city. Detachments were immediately set at work digging rifle pits close to the edge of the river bank, so close that our men, when in them, could command the river and shores on each side. The cellars of the houses near the river were made available for the use of rifle men, and zig-zags were constructed to enable the men to get in and out of the rifle pits under cover. All this was done at night, and so secretly and quietly that I do not believe the enemy had any conception of the minute and careful preparations that had been made to defeat any attempt to cross the river in my front.’
There were many remarkable escapes during the day. Private O'Connell, one of the recruits who had joined Co. C at Bolivar, had seven bullet holes in his overcoat collar, some of the bullets having gone deep enough to cut his shirt collar, but not harming him.
At daybreak on the morning of the 12th the right of the Union line was withdrawn from the warehouse and the regiment stacked arms and remained on Caroline street until noon of the 13th. This period of inaction gave the men an opportunity to look around at the ruin which had been caused by the Union artillery. The city had suffered heavily,—in one house nine cannon shot holes were counted and fragments of shells, broken plaster and demolished roofs everywhere greeted the eye. Some members of Company D entered a fine house and found the table in the dining room just as the family had left it,— the food untouched and the coffee cups full. Some of the chairs were tipped over, others were pushed back. The cause of the evidently hasty departure was plain. A cannon ball had come in at one side of the room, passed directly over the table and [174] gone out through the opposite wall into the street. The men at once sat down and enjoyed a good dinner, even though it was cold. The occupants of this house were apparently wealthy people, the furnishings were elegant and a fine piano, an organ, violin, flute and several other musical instruments were found in it. An interesting concert (?) was enjoyed. In the cellar there was an ample supply of wines and liquors.
While lying on Caroline street that day, the body of a Union soldier was found. He had been wounded in the leg, but had been bayoneted four or five times by the rebels and killed that way. A brother of Lieut. Edgar M. Newcomb arrived that day to visit him, and it was a fortunate occurrence, for he was present to nurse him on the following day when the brave lieutenant received his mortal wound.
While the regiment was engaged at Fredericksburg, Benjamin Falls, of Co. A, who had been assigned the position of company cook, protested to Capt. Boyd against further service in that capacity. ‘If you've no use for Ben Falls,’ said he, ‘send me home. How nice it will look when I write to my wife that the regiment fought nobly and I carried the kettles. I either want a musket or a discharge, and I prefer the musket.’ His request was granted and after that he had his position in the line with the others of his company.
The 12th of December passed, with the exception of a few alarms, very quietly. The night was spent in the different houses, and many were the good things that were found.
There were many amusing spectacles resultant from over indulgence in the various drinkables which were found. Just about dark, one of the men of the regiment was seen to proceed rapidly up Caroline street, by devious lines, toward the enemy's pickets, with a live goose by the leg in one hand and a black bottle by the neck in the other, in pursuit of a particularly lively pig and singing ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’ with the utmost power of a voice not especially melodious at any time and not much improved by his recent potations.
In the beautiful drawing room of one of the most fashionable houses in the town a young officer of the Seventh Michigan, who by reason of the smoke and mud on him would have been [175] scarce recognized by his mother, was giving a performance upon one of ‘Chickering's Best’ for the benefit of an audience composed of an equally presentable crowd of survivors of the ‘Forlorn Hope,’ Confederate prisoners and darkies in about equal proportions, all about equally under the influence of ‘John Barleycorn’ and all attending to the performance with an assumption of studied and dignified gravity surpassingly ludicrous under the circumstances.
Another group ‘on pious thoughts intent,’ was bringing quite a selection of anthems to a close with the old hymn of:
‘When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I'll bid farewell to every fear
And wipe my weeping eyes.’
But they invariably forgot at the close of these lines the remainder of both hymn and air. As a consequence they sang at least twenty times with great unction and with great effect these four lines, and as often finished with ‘Jim Along Josey’ or ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.’ At last, rather suspecting that there was a hitch somewhere in the arrangements, and that it must be in the hymn, they concluded to have one more loving drink all round and then to bed,—probably their usual one, poor fellows, upon their Mother Earth.
Rich furniture became, in the streets, the lounging seat or couch of some tatterdemalions whom one would hardly dream were the heroes of yesterday and were to be among the heroes of the morrow. Rich carpets were cut up for blankets, cooking stoves were carried into the streets for convenience in baking some soldier's dinner, but to the eternal honor of soldiers for the first time in possession of a conquered city, neither child nor woman was insulted or treated with aught but chivalrous respect, not even by the most intoxicated soldier of the great force was any home invaded if defended by woman's presence.
In one house the officers found a bureau filled with articles of women's clothing. It was clean and well done up. They put on some of the articles and masqueraded. It was ‘Good evening, Mrs. Smith,’ ‘How do you do this evening, Miss Jones?’ [176] —etc., for some time. It was a jolly lark, but suddenly a distant report was heard,—whizz—and a crash, as a shell from the rebel works came tearing through the house. Never did anyone get outside of night cap and night gown quicker than did these officers, who were willing to be shot as men but not as women.
Second Lieut. J. G. B. Adams, of Co. I, occupied the room of a young lady whose delicate finery was spread about in it. He went to sleep in her bed, but was awakened by his men who had spread a banquet for him in the dining room below. They had secured roast duck, biscuits and preserves and these were spread on a table set with the best of china. Later, they found a barrel of molasses and filled their canteens with it, but in doing so, it was tipped over and, as Lieut. Adams said, ‘The house was molasses from cellar to attic.)’
