How Lincoln outfoxed a plot to kill him in Baltimore CHRISTMAS, 1862 with the Army
The Army of the Potomac felt, at the end of that calamitous day, that hope itself was killed...
WELCOME TO THESE MADMEN ABOUT TO DIE
December 13, 1862
By D. Watson Rowe
IN A STIRRING ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG, LT. COLONEL DAVID WATSON ROWE OF THE 126TH PENNSYLVANIA
DESCRIBES THE SHEER TERROR EXPERIENCED BY A NINE-MONTH REGIMENT OF VOLUNTEERS DURING THEIR FIRST
Christmas, CORRESPONDENTS REPORT OF THE FIRST
THE
By Ward Hill Lamon
"Personal Hints to Volunteers"
In the early days of the Civil War, recruits were offered plenty of advice. In 1861, numerous handbooks were published at a low price - some advice was well meaning, others were naive and sentimental in preparing young recruits for nineteenth-century combat.
The Execution of Private John Lanahan, 46th Pennsylvania 10
It is estimated that as many as five hundred military executions occurred during the American Civil War. What makes Private Lanahan's execution unique is that it was conducted as a public spectacle, with newspaper correspondents present to witness the event.
Two weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, a correspondent from the New York Tribune visited the former antebellum estate known as the "Lacy House." He provided a sobering account of the devastation inflicted upon on the manor, which was being used as a hospital for the wounded.
Welcome to HardtackIllustrated
Welcome to the fifth issue of Hardtack Illustrated. It has been a year since we released our first issue, and we are pleased with the positive response. As a digital-only magazine, our primary metric is the number of visits to our site. We're encouraged to report that we reached our 1,000 visitor this quarter, and we continue to see growth in our readership.
The reissue of George Alfred Townsend's memoir Campaigns of a Noncombatant: The Memoir of a Civil War Correspondent by Hardtack Books is available at Amazon. Our edition of Stephen Crane's classic book was released as The Red Badge of Courage: Illustrated Edition is also available at Amazon, our text is from the Appleton version published by Appleton in 1895; each chapter is introduced with ambrotypes of ordinary Union soldiers.
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For those who may not be familiar with Hardtack Books, we focus on republishing timeless narratives from the Civil War. Using modern typography, graphics, and design—
such as those featured in Hardtack Illustrated—we bring these firsthand accounts into the twenty-first century. Our publications illuminate both the experiences of soldiers during the war and the lives of those on the home front during this critical period. Our medium consists of our digital quarterly magazine, Hardtack Illustrated , as well as printed works, distributed through Amazon and other book outlets, which we typically release at least once a year. Hardtack Books is our way of preserving the legacy of the Civil War for future generations, by giving old books a new and modern life.
As winter approaches, this issue features several pieces set in December. During the war, newspaper correspondents often visited military camps, and we have included two 1862 Christmas dispatches from war correspondents reporting from the Army of the Potomac camps. Additionally, we came across the unusual execution of Private John Lanahan from the 146th Pennsylvania, who was executed on December 23, 1861, outside Frederick, MD, in a very public setting. We thank Jake Wynn for kindly allowing us to include his photograph of Private Lanahan's governmentissued headstone at St. John's Catholic Cemetery. Another December reminder is a New York Tribune correspondent who leaves us with the sobering account of a visit to the antebellum estate known as the "Lacy House," which was being used as a hospital from the wounded of Fredericksburg. Our feature article, titled "Welcome to These Madmen About to Die," recounts the harrowing experience of the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. The
author notes that "the Army of the Potomac felt, at the end of that calamitous day, that hope itself was killed." This compelling narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the tragic events of that December battle for the Union.
Finally, we include an excerpt from Ward Hill Lamon's memoir we call "How Lincoln Outfoxed a Plot to Kill Him in Baltimore." Ward Hill Lamon was assigned to personally protect President-Elect Lincoln during the perilous period leading up to the inauguration. In a revealing account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to ensure Lincoln's safe passage to the capital, Lamon describes how a group of individuals successfully transported Lincoln through Baltimore without being detected. It's a timely tale of an incoming new president administration reminding us of the peril that we face with democracy even today.
I would like to extend to readers the opportunity to contact me in case you come across Civil War era material which you think would be great to include in future editions, or if you can think of ways to improve. I can be reached at jeffreybiggs@verizon.net.
JeffBiggs
In the early days of the Civil War, recruits were offered plenty of advice. In 1861, numerous handbooks were published at a low price - some advice was well meaning, others were naive and sentimental in preparing young recruits for nineteenth-century combat.
Choose that branch of serviceinfantry, cavalry, artillery or naval - to which you are best adapted by taste, by physical strength and by desire to excel. Make a solemn pledge not to gamble, not to drink ardent spirits, not to swear no use obscene language if you would preserve you own self-respect, as well as the respect of your officers. A soldier's life is embraced by the vicious man from an inclination to indulge his violent propensities, and it should be the volunteer's aim to elevate the service by frowning down whatever tends to injure and debase the service.
When once enlisted, strive, by all diligence and duty, to attain to perfection in the various exercises of the squad, the company and the regiment. An earnest desire to excel, a close attention to duty, and thoughtful observation will soon render you an expert to be pointed out by the captain as "one of the best men." A soldier's profession can only be learned by practice and observation period many a man goes through an entire season's campaign without attaining a knowledge beyond the
simplest exercises and maneuvers because of indifference to duty, and inattention. As very much of the efficiency of this soldier depends upon the state of his health, particular care should be taken to preserve that health. That the utmost attention be given to habits, to food and drink, to sleeping, this state of the body in regard to cleanliness, so far as circumstances will allow. Even poor food, well prepared, will conduce to health, whereas good food, poorly prepared, will prove delivered deleterious.
Finally, in your entire demeanor and habits, be exemplary, steady, studious. Observe all the regulations of the army to the letter. Be not remiss in your respect of the Sabbath, and all religious exercises of your chaplain. Remember that it's better to die on the field of battle as a Christian should die, than to die as one careless of his relations to the great hereafter. With heart open to generous impulses, be as firm and invincible to the duty as steel dash as true to your cause as the stars of the mariner.
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT IS FROM "PERSONAL HINTS TO VOLUNTEERS," FOUND IN THEMILITARY HANDBOOK &SOLDIERS MANUAL PUBLISHED IN JUNE, 1861.
TheMilitaryHandbook,& Soldier'sManual,p. 26 - 27.
The Execution of Private John Lanahan, 46th Pennsylvania
Frederick,
DecemberMaryland 23, 1861
Itis estimated that as many as five hundred military executions occurred during the American Civil War. The following account of the execution of Private John Lanaham from the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry is not unusual and may even be considered one of the most deserving of cases.
Private Lanaham admitted that, following an alcohol-fueled altercation with another soldier, he directed his anger towards Major Arnold Lewis. The major had ordered him to be bound to a wheeled cart until tempers cooled. Lanaham managed to free himself, seized a musket, and shot the major once in the chest, killing him instantly.
What makes Lanaham’s execution unique is that it was conducted as a public spectacle, with newspaper correspondents present to witness the event. Several accounts of the execution were published, including one by a correspondent from the NewYorkTimes , who noted Lanaham's stoic demeanor as he faced the hangman's noose.
Here, we present two accounts of the execution of Private John Lanagham: one from the unidentified NewYorkTimescorrespondent and a second account from Corporal Samuel S. Beach of the 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers.
Theapproval of the sentence of CourtMartial in the case of [Private John] Lanaghan for murder, the order for his execution and the date thereof, was forwarded by General McClellan, on Thursday, requiring from General Banks only to name the place and the hour. The gallows was planned and erected by a man from Baltimore, who was experienced in such matters.
The circumstances of the murder were as follows: The Forty-Sixth Pennsylvania was on its way from Washington to Pleasant Hill. At Rockville, several of the soldiers procured liquor, had a quarrel, and Major [Arnold C.] Lewis ordered him to be tied to the rear of a wagon. During the progress of the march, Lanaghan got untied, and taking a loaded musket from one of his comrades, swore he
Frederick, Monday, Dec. 23 from the NewYorkTimes, December 26, 1861 edition OPPOSITE: Library of Congress
would shoot the Major. The latter being in advance, heard of his release, and rode to the rear, where he met Lanaghan and ordered him to give up the gun. Lanagham took aim and shot Major Lewis through the heart as he was in the act of dismounting.
During his confinement, before and after the trial, your correspondent had free access to the prisoner, and paid him frequent visits. From the first he was calm and resigned to his fate, being fully sensible of the enormity of his crime, and equally willing to expiate it by his death. By the ministrations of Father Dougherty, of Rockville, he avowed his faith, and said he had assurances that he would be forgiven in Heaven. I visited him an hour before his execution. His confessor was with him. On my entering he advanced, smiling, and reached out his manacled right hand. Lanagahn-"Good morning, Mr. _______, I
am glad to see you. You have not been here for a long time."
Correspondent-"I have been absent on the Upper Potomac."
Lanagahan-"I thought you were away (smiling), my time has come."
Correspondent: So I am sorry to hear, John. I wish it could be otherwise. Are you all right here? (Placing my hand on his heart)
Lanaghan-"By the love of God, I am. I am not sorry to die now. I owe it to god and man, and cannot be better prepared. Death is only a change from one state to another, and takes but a moment."
Correspondent- "is there anything you wish to say to the world through the Press?"
Lanaghan-"But very litte. I committed the murder, and am willing to die for it. Say to the people I pray for peace. Tell the soldiers to abstain from liquor. I pray for them as I hope they do for me. I die in peace."
After requesting me to be present at the execution, I bade him a final adieu. During the whole interview he spoke in a firm tone. Not a nerve or muscle quivered.
At noon Lanaghan was placed in a covered wagon, with his spiritual adviser and his
A HARPER'SWEEKLY WOODCUT OF A 1865 MILITARY EXECUTION NEAR CITY POINT, VIRGINIA. THE DRAWING UP OF TROOPS IN THE HOLLOW SQUARE IS CONSISTENT WITH S.S. BEACH'S DESCRIPTION OF THE MARTIAL APPEARANCE OF JOHN LANAHAN'S 1861 EXECUTION.
preparations without the slight apparent emotion, and ascended the scaffold with an unfaltering step.
The Adjutant of the Provost Marshal, read aloud the charges and specifications on which he was tried, the finding of the sentence of the Courtmartial, the approval and the order for his execution by the commander-in-chief. The Assistant Provost Marshal inquired if he had anything to say. He replied, "No, I have nothing to say. I am ready to die." The cap was drawn over
The Assistant Provost Marshal inquired if he had anything to say: "No, I have nothing to say. I am ready to die."
coffin. He walked out with a firm step, and took his seat with but slight assistance. The procession was formed as follows:
1. The Provost Marshal and Assistant Marshal;
2. Band of the Third Wisconsin;
3. A platoon of the Provost Guard;
4. Wagon with the prisoner and priest;
5. Platoon of the Provost Guard;
6. Hack, with the executioner, in disguise;
7. The Wisconsin Third;
The Third Brigade, General Williams, to which Lanagham's regiment is alloted, was upon the ground. Landaghan viewed the
his face and the rope adjusted on his neck by the executioner. Those on the platform descended, and on the usual signal by the Provost Marshal, the executioner pulled the string, and the drop fell. A slight contraction of the muscles of the arms and legs, was the motion, that indicated the departure of life. His neck was broken.
So calm was his death, and so systematically had all the arrangements been perfected and executed, that the solemn scene was divested of its usual attendant horrors. Not a shudder was noticed in the vast crowd of spectators and soldiers.
From early in the forenoon until an hour after the execution, and particularly at the solemn moment the heavens seemed waging war upon the earth. A freezing wind, with snow and hail, chilled the bodies and almost blinded the eyes of all present.
Lanaghan's body was taken charge of by his Catholic friends, to await arrival of his relations.
From the BerkshireEagle, January 2, 1862 by Corporal Samuel S. Beach, 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers.
Atabout 12:30 p.m., the solemn music of the funeral march could be heard as the different regiments of the 3rd Brigade marched toward the field upon which the execution was to
take place. General Williams and his staff went to the scene of the execution at about 1:30 p.m. Very soon after we arrived there, the 3rd Regiment Mass. Volunteers and a division of the Provost Guard, came up, under arms, and headed by the Colonel and his staff, immediately in the rear of which was the wagon containing Lanaghan and his coffin, with the chaplain in attendance. The regiment, upon its in the field, formed in a hollow square about the gallows, and the wagon containing the prisoner was driven up to the staircase. Without the square formed by the 3rd Mass. Regiment, were the regiment attached to this brigade, in line of battle, without arms, according to the orders. As soon as the wagon was driven up to the foot of the staircase, the Chaplain alighted with Colonel Ruger, the Provost Marshal, followed by the doomed Lanaghan, with his hands tied, and a rope about his body, confining his Harper'sWeekly, February 18,1865.
THE GOVERNMENT ISSUED HEADSTONE IDENTIFIES THE EXECUTED MAN AS "JOHN LANAHAN." THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS REFER TO HIM AS "LANAGHAN." THE DATE OF DEATH IS ALSO MISTATED AS DECEMBER 24TH INSTEAD OF THE 23RD. PRIVATE JOHN LANAHAN'S HEADSTONE CAN BE FOUND AT ST. JOHN'S CATHOLIC CEMETERY IN FREDERICK, MD. THE EXECUTION WAS CONDUCTED AT CAMP WHITE, SOME THREE MILES WEST OF FREDERICK.
arms. He was dressed in the usual uniform of the regiment, a dark blue-coat and pants, and the military cap, and under the cap was a sort of covering of the head with veal attached to cover the face. Lanaghan mounted the staircase with a human's steady step, followed by the Chaplain and Colonel Ruger. When he got to the top of the steps on the scaffold, he walked unassisted to the centre of the trapdoor, and stopped directly under the noose of the rope, by which he was to be hung. The Chaplain then spoke a few words with him, and the Colonel read the order by which he was to be executed in a loud and clear tone, so that all present could hear. When he finished reading it, the hangman adjusted the noose about his neck, the Colonel said he did not wish to say anything, and all descended the staircase, leaving Lanaghan alone upon the scaffold, after having his legs tied together at the ankles and adjusted the cap over his face. The hangman then stood
ready at the rope which secured the trap door, and the word being given it was pulled, the floor fell under him, and the man launched into eternity. He dropped about two feet. The rope was drawn at just 2:10 p.m. He died without a struggle, with the exception of a slight muscular contraction of the knees. He was allowed to hang about twenty minutes, and then pronounced dead by the surgeon in attendance; upon which he was lowered into his coffin and borne away in an ambulance to his final resting place. The day has been an exceedingly stormy, cold, uncomfortable day, and strange to say, no sooner had the ill-fated man dropped through the scaffold, than the sun shone out clear and bright upon the scene as the Almighty would smile upon justice under any circumstances. The regiments were one by one marched off, and gradually the crowd dispersed. Not a sound was heard - not a murmur of disapprobation during the whole affair, from the thousands present, for all felt that justice along was done.
A visit to chatham, 1862
Two weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, a correspondent from the New York Tribune visited the former antebellum estate known as the "Lacy House." He provided a sobering account of the devastation inflicted on the manor, which was being used as a hospital the wounded.
Fredericksburg, Tribune known sobering the for
the fine mansion has for weeks been employed as a hospital for union soldiers - the grounds were utterly defaced and destroyed - the cellars and storehouses of the mansion were long since gutted and completely emptied -
the fences were long since converted into fuel to feed the watch-fires of Union sentinels - the rare and costly exotic trees and shrubs have long since contributed their scanty fiber to feed the same fires to warm the same soldiers, any one of whom would doubtless have been shot like a dog by the aristocratic proprietor or his overseer, at the earliest opportunity, had not there been too great an array of union bayonets in the immediate vicinity to render such a manslaughter experiment a safe one.
The house I speak of is known as the “Lacy House.” It stands on the left bank, the Falmouth side of the river, on the bluff that immediately overlooks the river for miles each way, where the town of Fredericksburg lies spread out immediately before it, only the narrow breadth of the muddy Rappahannock intervening. The house itself is spacious and convenient, its architectural pretensions being by no means contemptible, though built so many years ago.
The Lacey House, as it is now called, was once known as the “Chatham Place," and was a small part of the celebrated “Fitzhugh Estate,” which was held by virtue of a grant from the English crown, dated in 1690. The bricks of which the house is built were brought from England and were laid by English Masons. The sight is most lovely, and before this ruthless war crushed out the landscape, all of beauty that was susceptible to destruction, the earth estate compromising the Lacy House was one of the most attractive, elegant, and lovely in all of Virginia.
After the battle of Fredericksburg, it became necessary to provide instant accommodations for our suffering troops period until the field hospitals were erected, every house within reach was instantly required for the use of the surgeons, who were ever working so nobly for the relief of our suffering soldiers. Under this order the Lacey house was taken, by the order of Doctor Watson, the chief medical director of Sumner's Grand Division, and converted at once into a large hospital.
The splendid furniture was put to strange uses - the sideboard of solid rosewood, made in those honest days before cabinet makers had learned the rogue's tricks of veneering, instead of being crowded with generous wines or with good spirits that had mellowed for years in the cellars, was now crowded in every shelf with forbidding looking bottles of black droughts; with packages of salt and senns, and with ill-omened piles of raking pills, perhaps not less destructive in their way than shot and shell of a more explosive sort. The butler's pantry and store rooms had their shelves and drawers and boxes filled, not with jellies and marmalades, and preserves, and boxes of lemons, and preserved ginger, and drums of figs, and all sorts of toothsome and satisfying to the palette - but every here scammony and gamboge, and alloes and Epson salts and other dire weapons, only wielded by the medical profession, had attained exclusive sway.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Wikipedia Commons
on many a retired sHelf, and in many odd corners, too, I saw neglected cartridge boxes, cast-off belts, discarded caps, etcetera, which told not of the careless and Heedless soldier,
who had lost his accouterments, but of the dead soldier, who had gone to a land where it is to be hoped he will have no further use for minie rifle balls or pipe-clayed cross belts. I saw, too, with these other land-aside trappings, dozens and hundreds of many and other cartridges, never to be fired at an enemy by the hand that had placed them in the now discarded cartridge box.
The walls of the various rooms of the Lacy House, like those of most of the old houses in Virginia, are sealed up to the top with wood, which is painted white. There is a heavy cornice in each room; There are the huge old-fashioned fireplaces, the marble mantle over the same, and in the main dining room, where it was the custom for the men to remain after dinner and after the ladies had retired, was a curious feature to be observed, that I have never seen but once or twice. Over the marble mantle, but quite within reach, runs a mahogany framework intended for the reception of the toddy glasses after the various guests shall have finished the generous liquor therein contained.
There are still some vestiges of the family furniture remaining - some rosewood and the hog any side boards, tables, bedsteads etcetera which the family have not been able to remove, in which the occupying soldiers have found no use for. The most notable of these articles is a musical instrument which may be described as a compound harp-organ. It is, in fact, an upright harp, played by keys which strike the wires by a by a piano-forte action, which has an ordinary piano keyboard. This is, in fact, the earliest form of the modern piano-forte. Then, in the same instrument is an organ-bellows and pipes, the music from
which it is evolved by means of a separate keyboard, the bellows is worked by a foot treadle, like that most detestable abomination known to modern as a melodeon. Thus, in the same instrument, the performer is supposed to get the powers and effect both of an upright piano and a small organ, it is, perhaps hardly necessary to say that this instrument, which doubtless originally cost at least $3,000, is now utterly useless, the wires, many of them being broken, and the whole machine being every way out of order. The maker’s name is set down as "Longman & Broderap, 26 Cheapside, No. 13 Maymarket, London” The poor old thing has doubtless been in the Lacy House for more than a 100 years. It has been rudely dragged from its former place of honor, and now stands in the middle of the floor; the spot formerly occupied has been lately filled by a hospital bed, on which a capital operation was performed. The spouting blood from the bleeding arteries of some poor patient has covered the wall with crimson marks. In fact, everywhere all over the house, every wall and floor is saturated with blood, and the whole house, from an elegant gentlemen's residence, seems to have been suddenly transformed into a butcher's shamble. The old clock has stopped; The child's rocking horses riding away in a disused balcony, the costly exotics in the garden are destroyed, or perhaps the hardiest are now used for horse post. All that was elegant is wretched; all that was noble is shabby; all that once told of civilized elegance now speaks of ruthless barbarism. NewYorkTribune , January 1, 1863
In late December Fredericksburg with the army, helping by he wrote travels throughout
"Began my the Army of the day in of the Rappahannock, the battlecases. Outdoors, yards of the of amputated load for a lie near, blanket. In fresh graves, pieces of
in the dirt...the upstairs and system, all best that can some frightful,
December 1862, the poet Walt Whitman made an unexpected visit to the Fredericksburg battlefield in search of his brother, George Whitman. During his time army, he provided assistance to many wounded soldiers at the Lacy House, by writing letters and offering support for their recovery. On December 21st, a description of the Lacy House in his notebook, which he kept during his throughout the war.
my visits among the Camp Hospitals in of the Potomac. Spend a good part of a large brick mansion, on the banks Rappahannock, used as a Hospital since Seem to have received only the worst Outdoors, at the foot of a tree, within ten the front of the house, I notice a heap amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, &, a full one-horse cart. Several dead bodies each cover'd with its brown wollen In the door-yard, toward the river, are graves, mostly of officers, their names on barrel-staves or broken board, stuck dirt...the large mansion is quite crowded, and down, everything impromptu, no bad enough, but I have not doubt the can be done; all the wounds pretty bad, frightful, then men in their old clothes, unclean and bloody."
Christmas, 1862
The Winter of 1862 was an incredibly challenging time for the Army of the Potomac. This period marked the replacement of their favored leader, George B. McClellan, and included the humiliating defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Additionally, many officers left the army, facing the prospect of enduring a harsh winter in quarters along the Rappahannock River. The Christmas holiday of 1862 was the first one spent under difficult field conditions. Several war correspondents were present to remind the Northern public of the deprivations and hardships experienced by soldiers who, for the first time, faced the holidays away from home and loved ones.
THE FOLLOWING ACCOUNTS WERE PUBLISHED IN THE
WOppositeFredericksburg December24,1862
hether or not the chief officers in command of the Army of the Potomac have received any instruction from the still higher powers that "Winter Quarters" is now to be the order, none but themselves can positively say; certain it is that the soldiers are everywhere setting upon the supposition that the "Rebs" are to be permitted peacefully to enter their occupation of the Fredericksburg Heights for some time yet. Everywhere is heard the sound of axes cutting down the sparse pine and cedar, and still scantier oak trees, that make up the thin forests of this part of the Old Dominion. Everywhere goes constantly on the work of building log huts,
time of year than any other - for the soldier there is little Christmas cheer: "hard tack" and "salt junk" tastes no different on Christmas Day than before or after, and if he can get a canteen of whiskey to make an evening toddy he is only too happy - let us not be too hard on him, for even such a celebration is better than none. I have, however seen pinned on one or two tents a spring of holy, in humble remembrance of the holiday which should draw all men closer together, and when loving kindness should rule over all the earth.
General Hooker's Central Grand Division, with which my duties specially [rise], are encamped in the same position, or very nearly so, as it occupied before crossing the river
"Many officers have procured leaves of absence for a length of time that will enable them to spend the holidays among their friends at home."
of putting up turf chimneys, of sealing up and roughly flooring the interior of huts, and of erecting stables for officers horses, in short, all things show that the men have resolved to make themselves comfortable in their present quarters for the rest of the winter. From headquarters, too, come floating certain straws which are universally accepted as significant of the direction in which the official wind is blowing. Many officers have commands, and many other staff officers indispensable in case of a renewal of active operations, are said to have procured leaves of absence for a length of time that will enable them to spend the holidays among their friends at home. For the soldier there is no leave of absence, no visit with friends, except such vicarious visiting as may be carried on in the guise of cheery, comforting love letters, which are, let us hope, more plenty at this
- the officers, like all the others, who can, getting leaves of absence - the men like all the others, those who must staying in camp and making themselves as comfortable as possible for the rest of the winter. No movement, and no present signs of one.
The only thing that I have observed that might possibly be construed into an indication of a speedy advanced in some direction, was a simultaneous movement of the pontoon train; but it appeared to be only in obedience to an order of General Woodbury to concentrate the trains, that they may be put in perfect order, and be ready the minute they chance to be called for.
There being a camp rumor that J.E.B. Stuart was about making another "raid" by crossing the Rappahannock somewhere near Deep Run, I went out of my special dominions, invaded the territory held by
Winter camp near Stoneman's Swith, Falmouth, VA, Library of Congress
General Summer's Grand Division, and took a twenty mile ride up the river to the United States Ford, and thereabout. I found the fords all guarded, and the shores of the river are vigilantly picketed by some of the regiments of General Pleasanton calvary brigade, which consists of the 8th Illinois, 3rd Indiana, 8th Pennsylvania, 6th Regulars, 8th New York, and 6th New York Cavalry, and Pennington's Battery of Horse Artillery. The other side is just as vigilantly guarded by the Rebels, Hampton's Legion doing their duty.
Of course, as the events of the terrible battle of Fredericksburg are canvassed, hundreds of instances come to light of individual gallantry daring and coolness.
Colonel [Byrnes]'s regiment of the Irish Brigade went into the fight with about 700 men and came out with 150. One after another the standard bearers were shot down, until twenty men had been killed at the duty, and the colors were torn their rags by the storm of fire through which they were so gallantly born. Seven different times did the Colonel himself seize the colors from the ground, and hand them to the nearest man.
And at the last, even after all this, the colours were lost, after 500 men had fallen in their defence. After the battle, it is said the colonel sat down and wept bitter tears.
The case of a lieutenant of the same regiment is a most melancholy nature. In the advance of his regiment he was struck down by a ball, which shattered at the same time a leg and an arm; he fell between the lines of sharpshooters; he lay there for a long time suffering intolerable agony, and at last, unable to endure it longer, he drew, with his unshattered hand, his revolver, and deliberately blew out his brains.
And of many such terrible scenes in this terrible war productive, in which we are engaged, today, the holy Christmas day of the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixtytwo. Eldridge .
LEFT: COLONEL RICHARD BYRNES, AN IRISH-BORN REGULAR ARMY OFFICER, WAS ASSIGNED TO THE 28TH MASSACHUSETTS IN OCTOBER 1862. ON DECEMBER 13, 1862, THE REGIMENT DECISIVELY PARTICIPATED IN THE AFTERNOON ASSAULT ON MARYE'S HEIGHTS, WHERE IT WAS REPULSED AND NEARLY WIPED OUT, ENDURING NEARLY FORTY PERCENT CASUALTIES. HE LATER FELL MORTALLY WOUNDED ON JUNE 3, 1864 AT COLD HARBOR.
Iam again near my old friends, the gunboats. Every time I visit them, I am obliged to go further down the Rappahannock, and I am afraid that when I am again required to seek them out, they will take me to the Chesapeake.
Searching for these little men of war in such a beautiful valley as the Rappahannock is, however, a very pleasant duty, especially as the monotony of camp leave around headquarters has again become wearisome since the late battle.
Since my last visit to Port Conway the fleet has been increased from five to nine of the largest gunboats floating upon inland waters. The guns they carry are all of the largest caliber and have been thoroughly tested in many engagements.
General Lee, either fearing so formidable a foe, or desiring to capture them all in some bold night attack, concentrated a large force near Port Royal, and a few days after the battle brought two batteries to bear upon them, supported by at least one division of infantry. The weather at the same time
TOP: THIS WOOD ENGRAVING WAS SHARED IN THE DECEMBER 11, 1886 EDTION OF HARPER'S WEEKLY, SOME FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE. IT'S ENTITLED "ON THE REPPAHANNOCK, CHRISTMAS DAY, 1862," AND WAS ACCOMPANIED BY THE PIECE BY A PRIVATE OF THE 140TH PENNSYLVANIA RECALLING THE INCIDENT OF A SHORT HOLIDAY TRUCE AMONG PICKETS.
"For the soldier there is little Christmas cheer: "hard tack" and "salt junk" tastes no different on Christmas Day than before or after"
turning excessively cold, Captain McKray, commanding the fleet, fearing that he might be frozen in, and be in danger of attack from the great superior force of infantry, fell down the river ten miles below Port Royal, to Tobago Bay, where the river is very wide, and is seldom frozen over. He is now where his transports can easily reach him throughout the entire winter and also where he can be of service to General Burnside whenever it is thought best to again move the army.
The Rebel force, stretched from five miles above Port Royal to Tobago Bay, is variously estimated at from ten to twenty thousand. The troops are nearly all from North Carolina, and under command of one of the Hills, but
Harper'sWeekly , December 11, 1886
from which one I have been unable to learn.
These Rebel generals, I have been informed, have changed their commands lately, so that it is quite difficult to tell exactly where they are. When I left the right wing day before yesterday, I was told by a deserter that they were in front of General Sumner. Today I've been told by one of the same trustworthy persons that they are in front of General Franklin's extreme left. It is but little consequence, however, who commands these ubiquitous fellows, so long as it is certain that they are always in front of somebody and ready to fight upon the first good opportunity.
Having successfully repulsed the attack upon his center, General Lee now, undoubtedly,
The January 3, 1863, issue of Harper'sWeeklyfeatured two Christmas illustrations that captured the effort to celebrate the holiday despite the nation’s struggles. On the left, there is a camp scene where the editors of the illustrated newspaper sought to idealize the hardships endured during the winter of 1862:
"In the foreground you see a little drummer boy, who, on opening his Christmas box, beholds a jack-in-the-box spring up, much to his astonishment. His companion is so much amused at so interesting an phenomenom that he forgets his own box, and it lies in the snow, unopened, beside him. He was just going to take a bite out of that apple in his hand, but the sight of his friend's gift has made him forget all aobut it. He has his other hand on a Harper'sWeekly . Santa Claus has brought lots of those for the soldiers, so that they, too, as well as you little folks, may have a peep at the Christmas number. One soldier on the left, finds a stocking with all sorts of things. ANother, right behind him, has go a meerschaum pipe, just what he has been wishing for ever so long. Santa Claus is entertaining the soldiers by showing them Jeff Davis's future. He is tying a cord pretty tight round his neck, and Jeff seems to be kicking very much at such a fate. He hasn't go to the soldiers in the background yet, and they are still amusing themselves at their merry games. One of them is trying to climb a greased pole, and, as he slips down sometimes faster than he goes up, all the other who are looking at him have a great deal of fun at his expense. Others are chasing a greased boar. One fellow thought he just had him; but he is so slippery that he can't hold him, but he is so slippery that he can't hold him, and so he tumbles over on his face, and the next one that comes tumbles over him. In another place they are playing a game of footbal, and getting a fine appetite for their Christmas dinner, which is cooking on the fire."
The illustration at the top was created by Thomas Nast, who would go on to have a successful career in cartoons and engravings after the war. The wreath scene depicts vignettes of a praying wife and her husband who is missing their children. Additionally, the corner scene showcases various winter army settings.
contemplates a movement on his right, near where General Burnside made his first feint. Rebel pickets, thinly posted, extend as far down as Urbana, and undercover of the night, cross over to this side and examine our lines. The night before last, information was received from a trusty black, who came over the river on a frail raft, that the Rebels contemplated another dash upon a squadron of the 8th Pennsylvania Calvary, who now guard the extreme advance on the left. Major Keenan had his men properly posted and would have captured the whole party had not some of them, without orders, fired their guns before the party was fairly within range. Upon discovering that their enterprise had been divulged by someone, they sprang to their rafts and boats and reached the other side with a loss of but two or three, who were seen to drop in the river.
One hundred head of fine, fat cattle, which had been selected with great care and purchased for the rebel army by Phelan Lewis, a wealthy planter in Westmoreland County, were yesterday seized and appropriated to the use of our own soldiers. Mr. Lewis strongly protested against the seizure, and wrought himself up to a terrible pitch of indignation on account of it, and demanded, with a very pompous manner, immediate payment or a good receipt for what he termed his private property, he received the usual receipt, with these words written and underscored beneath it: “I believe Phelan Lewis to be a disloyal man and a traitor to the government of the United States.” What would that receive be worth to those who speculate in them in Washington?
Four thousand calvary, now guarding the river from six miles below Fredericksburg to Topega Bay, are subsisting entirely upon the rich planters in the valley. Not an ounce of food of any kind has been brought to them from the depot at Falmouth. Men and horses are living upon the very best the valley can
TOP: THE FITZHUGH FAMILY WERE AMONG THE WEALTHIEST OF PLANTATION ELITE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA. WILLIAM FIZHUGH COMPLETED CHATHAM IN 1771. BY THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR THE PLANTATION WAS OWNED BY THE LACY FAMILY AND SERVED AS THE FEDERAL ARMY HEADQUARTERS FOR MUCH OF THE WINTER OF 1862. THIS IMAGE WAS TAKEN IN DECEMBER 1862.
RIGHT: CHRISTMAS OF 1862 WOULD BE THE FINAL CELEBRATION WITH GENERAL AMBROSE BURNSIDE IN COMMAND OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. THE RHODE ISLANDER WAS RELIEVED OF HIS DUTIES ON JANUARY 26, 1863.
produce, and I doubt if there is a table in New York on this Christmas Day covered with a greater variety of dishes than many beneath the tents and booth huts of our calvary officers. The sailors, too, upon the gunboats are really getting tipsy upon the domestic wine they have managed to get hold of by some underground transportation.
In the general pillage of hen-roosts and Cellars the faithful servants, of which we hear so much, or by no means mere idle spectators. They have always been accustomed to having at least a full week for their Christmas sports and being fully aware that the 1st of January is rapidly approaching, and many of the negro huts are jubilant beyond description. Our soldiers are dining finally today, but I doubt if they are faring more sumptuously than their colored brethren.
I passed a long row of negro huts upon one of old Fitzhugh’s plantations this morning and found the blacks enjoying themselves hugely, some were singing and dancing, others were eating and drinking, a few old crones, ugly as Satan, were lying in the warm sun, seemingly indifferent whether the world moved or not, but the great majority evidently knew that a better day was dawning to them and that the presence of the national army in their midst would hasten its approach.
lines upon the approach of our army. Alone he sat by his fireside, cursing his negros, the Yankees, and the world generally.
But all these wealthy planters are not traders to the government of the United states. Several members of the old and numerous Taylor family I believe to be at heart still with us, although they have not the courage to openly avow their loyalty. Where nearly all their neighbors shipped all their slaves, who did not run away, to the South, they have not sent away a single one and have told them they were free to go north whenever they desired to. And one or two instances wages have been offered them, and the negros have promised to remain, whether the army fell back or not. What many of these planters most desire is protection. Said one of them to me today, estimated to be worth a million; “I care not under what government I live if I am only protected in the enjoyment of my property. Mr. Lincoln may emancipate all my slaves, but while doing so, he should certainly protect me from the persecution and the despotism of the southern rulers. Once assure us in this valley that your authority is to be permanent, and 2/3rds of the old Whigs will soon be with you, as they have always been .”
In these negro huts, all was joy, and mirth, and gladness, but in the big old mansion not far off, all was darkness, discomfort, and gloom.
The proprietor was at home, but no Christmas dinner was being prepared for him. Two sons were in the Rebel army, and one in a Rebel hospital, wounded and dying. His daughters had gone within the Rebel
The weather is mild and pleasant, and the troops seem to be in the best spirits. General Burnside's letter has had a most happy effect. He is more popular than ever, and whenever the soldiers catch a glimpse of him, they cheer vociferously until he has passed out of sight. I have begun to have faith in General Burnside and believe he will accomplish something great for his country.
One of the hardest fighting regiments
To the right, to the left, cannon were answering to each other in a tremendous deafening battle-chorus, the burden of which was:
"WELCOMETO THESE MADMEN ABOUT TO DIE"
IN A STIRRING ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG, LT. COLONEL DAVID WATSON ROWE OF THE 126TH PENNSYLVANIA DESCRIBES THE SHEER TERROR EXPERIENCED BY A NINE-MONTH REGIMENT VOLUNTEERS DURING THEIR FIRST BATTLE TEST.
THESE DIE"
ROWE SHEER REGIMENT OF TEST.
Everyone remembers the slaughter and the failure
at Fredericksburg; the grief of it, the momentary pang of despair. Burnside was the man of the 13th of December; than he, no more gallant soldier in all the army, no more patriotic citizen in all the republic. But he attempted there the impossible, and, as repulse grew toward disaster, lost that equal mind, which is necessary in arduous affairs. Let us remember, however, and at once, that it is easy to be wise after the event. The Army of the Potomac felt, at the end of that calamitous day, that hope itself was killed — hope, whose presence was never before wanting to that array of the unconquerable will, and steadfast purpose, and courage to persevere; the secret of its final triumph. I have undertaken to describe certain night-scenes on that field famous for bloodshed. The battle is terrible; but the sequel of it is horrible. The battle, the charging column, is grand, sublime. The field after the action and the reaction is the spectacle which harrows up the soul.
Marye's Hill was the focus of the strife. It rises in the rear of Fredericksburg, a stone's throw beyond the canal, which runs along the western border of the city. The ascent is not very abrupt. A brick house stands on the hillside, where you may overlook Fredericksburg, and all the circumjacent country. The Orange Plank road ascends the hill on the right-hand side of the house, the telegraph road on the left. A sharp rise of ground, at the foot of the heights, afforded a cover for the formation of troops. Above Marye's Hill is an elevated plateau, which commands it. The hill is part of a long, bold ridge, on which the declivity leans, stretching from Falmouth to Massoponax Creek, six miles. Its summit was shaggy and rough with the earthworks of the Confederates, and was crowned with their artillery. The stone wall on Marye's Height was their "coigne of vantage," held by the brigades of Cobb and Kershaw, of McLaws' Division. On the semi-circular crest above, and stretching
far on either hand, was Longstreet's Corps, forming the left of the Confederate line. His advance position was the stone wall and rifletrenches along the telegraph road, above the house. The guns of the enemy commanded and swept the streets which led out to the heights. Sometimes you might see a regiment marching down those streets in single file, keeping close to the houses, one file on the right-hand side, another on the left. Between the canal and the foot of the ridge was a level plat of flat, even ground, a few hundred yards in width. This restricted space afforded what opportunity there was to form in order of battle. A division massed on this narrow plain was a target for Lee's artillery, which cut fearful swaths in the dense and compact ranks. Below, and to the right of the house, were fences, which impeded the advance of the charging lines. Whatever division was
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT BY D. WATSON ROWE APPEARED AS "ON THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG," IN ANNALSOFTHEWAR IN 1879.
assigned the task of carrying Marye's Hill, debouched from the town, crossed the canal, traversed the narrow level, and formed under cover of the rise of ground below the house. At the word, suddenly ascending this bank, they pressed forward up the hill for the stone wall and the crest beyond.
From noon to dark Burnside continued to hurl one division after another against that volcano-like eminence, belching forth fire, and smoke, and iron hail. French's Division was the first to rush to the assault. When it emerged from cover, and burst out on the open, in full view of the enemy, it was greeted with a frightful, fiery reception from all his batteries on the circling summit. The ridge concentrated upon it the convergent fire of all its enginery of war. You might see at a mile the lanes made by the cannon balls in the ranks. You might see a bursting shell throw up into
the air a cloud of earth and dust, mingled with the limbs of men. The batteries in front of the devoted division thundered against it. To the right, to the left, cannon were answering to each other in a tremendous deafening battlechorus, the burden of which was :
"Welcome to these madmen about to die."
The advancing column was the focus, the point of concentration, of an arc — almost a semi-circle — of destruction. It was a centre of attraction of all deadly missiles. At that moment that single division was going np alone in battle against the Southern Confederacy, and was being pounded to pieces. It continued to go up, nevertheless, toward the stone wall, toward the crest above. With lips more firmly pressed together, the men closed up their ranks and pushed
LT. COLONEL DAVID WATSON ROWE, 126TH
forward. The storm of battle increased its fury upon them; the crash of musketry mingled with the roar of ordnance from the peaks. The stone wall and the rifle-pits added their terrible treble to the deep bass of the bellowing ridge. The rapid discharge of smallarms poured a continuous rain of bullets in their faces; they fell down by tens, by scores, by hundreds. When they had gained a large part of the distance, the storm developed into a hurricane of ruin. The division was blown back, as if by the breath of hell's door suddenly opened, shattered, disordered, pellmell, down the declivity, amid the shouts and yells of the enemy, which made the horrid din demoniac. Until then the division seemed to be contend ing with the wrath of brute and material force bent on its annihila tion. This shout recalled the human agency in all the turbulence and fury of the scene. The division of French fell back — that is to say, one-half of it. It suffered a loss of near half its numbers. Hancock immediately charged with five thousand men, veteran regiments, led by tried commanders. They saw what had happened; they knew what would befall them. They
advanced up the hill; the bravest were found dead within twenty-five paces of the stone wall; it was slaughter, havoc, carnage. In fifteen minutes they were thrown back with a loss of two thousand — unprecedented severity of loss. Hancock and French, repulsed from the stone wall, would not quit the hill altogether. Their divisions, lying down on the earth, literally clung to the ground they had won. These valiant men, who could not go forward, would not go back. All the while the batteries on the heights raged and stormed at them. Howard's Division came to their aid. Two divisions of the Ninth Corps, on their left, attacked repeatedly in their support.
It was then that Burnside rode down from the Phillips House, on the northern side of the Rappahannock, and standing on the bluff at the river, staring at those formidable heights, exclaimed, "That crest must be carried tonight."' Hooker remonstrated, begged, obeyed. In the army to hear is to obey. He prepared to charge with Humphrey's Division; he brought up every available battery in the city. "I proceeded," he said, "against their barriers as I would against a fortification, and endeavored to breach a hole sufficiently large for a forlorn hope to enter." He continued the cannonading on the selected spot until sunset. He made no impression upon their works, " no more than you could make upon the side of a mountain of rock." Humphrey's Division formed under shelter of the rise, in column, for assault.
LEFT: AN ALFRED WAUD DRAWING OF GENERAL BURNSIDE VISITING GENERAL FRANKLIN GIVING HIM ORDER TO EVACUATE HIS POSITION ON THE RIGHT.
To the right, to the left, cannon were answering each other in a tremondous deafening battle chorus, the burden which was: "Welcome to These Madmen About to Die."
RIGHT: THE RUINS OF THE PHILLIPS HOUSE WHICH SERVED AS ARMY HEADQUARTERS DURING THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG. THE BUILDING WAS SET ON FIRE IN FEBRUARY 1863.
They were directed to make the attack with empty muskets; there was no time there to load and fire. The officers were put in front, to lead. At the command they moved forward with great impetuosity; they charged at a run, hurrahing. The foremost of them advanced to within fifteen or twenty yards of the stone wall. Hooker afterward said: "No campaign in the world ever saw a more gallant advance than Humphrey's men made there. But they were put to do a work that no men could do." In a moment they wrere hurled back with enormous loss. It was now just dark; the attack was suspended. Three times from noon to dark the cannon on the crest, the musketry at the stone wall, had prostrated division after division on Marye's Hill.
And now the sun had set; twilight had stolen out of the west and spread her veil of dusk the town, the flat, the hill, the ridge, lay under the "circling canopy of night's extended shade." Darkness and gloom had settled down upon the Phillips House, over on the Stafford Heights, where Burnside would after awhile
hold his council of war. The shattered regiments of Tyler's Brigade of Humphrey's Division were assembled under cover of the bank where they had formed for the charge. A colonel rode about through the crowd with the colors of his regiment in his hand, waving them, inciting the soldiers by his words to reform for repelling a sortie. But there was really little need for that. Longstreet was content to lie behind his earthworks and stone walls, and with a few men, and the con verging fire of numerous guns, was able to fling back with derision and scorn all the columns of assault that madness might throw against his impregnable position. The brick house on the hill was full of wounded men. In front of it lay the commander of a regiment, with shattered leg, white, still, with closed eyes. His riderless horse had already been mounted by the general of the division; about him, in rows, the wounded, the dying, a few of the dead, of his own and other commands. The fatal stone wall was in easy musket range; in a moment, with one rush, the enemy might surround the building. Beyond the house, and around it, and on all the slope below it, the ground was covered with corpses. A little distance below the house, a general officer sat on his horse — the horse of the wounded colonel lying above. It was the third steed he had mounted that evening. The other two lay dead. lie wras all alone ; no staff, not even an orderly. His face was toward the house and the ridge. lie pointed to the stone wall. "One minute more," he said, "and we should have been over it." PhotographicHistoryoftheCivilWar,V.2
He did not reflect that that would have been but the beginning of the work given him to do. He praised and blamed, besought and even swore; to be so near the goal, and not to reach it. When he saw a party of three or four descending the hill, he ordered them to stop, in order to renew the attack. After little they did what was right, quietly proceeded to the foot of the hill and joined their regiments. All the while stretcher bearers were passing up and down. Descending, they bore pitiable burdens. A wounded man, upheld by one or two comrades, haltingly made his slow way to the hospital, followed by another and another. The colonel was conveyed by four men to the town, in agony, on a portion of a panel of fence torn down in the progress of the charge. The stretcher bearers, not distinguishing between persons, had taken whatsoever one they first saw that needed their assistance ; moreover, there was no time for selection. The next minute all the wounded en the hillside might be in the hands of the Confederates.
numbers denoted the regiment. Whatsoever man of their regiment they discovered, him they bore off, if wounded ; if dead, they took the valuables and mementos found on his person, for his friends, and left him to lie on the earth where he had fallen, composing his limbs, turning his face to the sky. They found such all the way up; some not far from the stone wall, a greater number near the corners of the house, where the rain of bullets had been thickest.
"No campaign in the world ever saw a more gallant advance than Humphrey's men made there. But they were put to do a work that no men could do."
- Joe Hooker
There was the darkness which belongs to night. The regiments had re-formed around their respective standards. They presented a short front compared with the long lines that had gone up the steep, hurrahing. The Southerners were quiet and close behind their works. It seemed that they would not sally forth. Then from each regiment a lieutenant, with a small party, went up the ascent, and sought in the darkness what fate had befallen the missing, and brought succor to the wounded. They went from man to man, as they lay on the ground. In the obscurity it was hard to distinguish the features of the slain. They felt for the letters and numbers on the caps. The letters indicated the company, the
At nine o'clock at night, the command was withdrawn from the front, and rested on their arms in the streets of the town. Some sat on the curbstones, meditating, looking gloomily at the ground; others lay on the pavement, trying to forget the events of the day in sleep. There was little said; deep dejection burdened the spirits of all. The incidents of the battle were not rehearsed, except now and then. Always, when any one spoke, it was of a slain comrade — of his virtues, or of the manner of his death ; or of one missing, with many conjectures respecting him. Some of them, it was said, had premonitions, and went into the battle not expecting to survive the day. Thus they lay or sat. The conversation was with bowed head, and in a low murmur, ending in a sigh. The thoughts of all were in the homes of the killed, seeing there the scenes and sorrow which a day or two afterward occurred. Then they reverted to the comrade of the morning, the tentsharer, lying stark and dead up on Marye's Hill, or at its base. A brave lieutenant lay on the plank road, just where the brigade crossed for the purpose of forming for the charge. A sharpshooter of the enemy had made that spot his last bed. It was December, and cold. There was no camp fire, and there was neither
blanket nor overcoat. They had been stored in a warehouse preparatory to moving out to the attack. But no one mentioned the cold; it was not noticed. Steadily the wounded were carried by to the hospitals near the river. Some one, now and then, brought word of the condition of a friend. The hospitals were a harrowing sight; full, crowded, nevertheless patients were brought in constantly. Down stairs, up stairs, every room full. Surgeons, with their coats off and sleeves rolled up above the elbows, sawed off limbs, administered anaesthetics. They took off a leg or an arm in a twinkling, after a brief consultation. It seemed to be, in case of doubt — off with his
limb. A colonel lay in the middle of the main room on the first floor, white, unconscious. When the surgeon was asked what hope, he turned his hand down, then up, as much as to say it may chance to fall either way. But the sights in a field hospital, after a battle, are not to be minutely described. Nine thousand was the tale of the wounded — nine thousand, and not all told.
After midnight — perhaps it was two o'clock in the morning — the brigade was again marched out of the town, and, filing in from the road, took up a position a short distance below the brick house. It was on the ground over which the successive charges had been
LibraryofCongress
made. The fog, however, obscured everything; not a star twinkled above them; nothing could be discerned a few feet away. The brick house could not be seen, though they were close to it. Looking back toward the town, lying on the river bank, over the narrow plain which lay below, one could not persuade one's self it was not a sheet of water unruffled in the dim landscape. Few lights, doubtless, were burning at that hour in the town. None could be seen. You would not have supposed that there was a town there. A profound stillness prevailed, broken by no other sound than the cries of the wounded. On all the eminence above, where Longstreet's forces lav, there was the silence
of death. With the night, which had brought conviction of failure, the brazen throats of Burnside's guns had ceased to roar. It was as if furious lions had gone, with the darkness, to their lairs. Now and then an ambulance crept along below, without seeming to make any noise. The stretcher-bearers walked silently toward what ever spot a cry or a groan of pain indicated an object of their search. It may not have been so quiet as it seemed. Perhaps it was contrast with the thunder of cannon, and shriek of shell, and rattle of musketry, and all the thousand voices of battle.
When, on the return to Marye's Heights, the command first filed in from the road, there
Harper'sWeekly , December 27, 1862
AN EARLY DEPICTION OF THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG APPEARED IN THE DECEMBER 27TH EDITION OF HARPER'S WEEKLY. IT IS MEANT TO REPRESENT A GENERAL VIEW OF THE FIELD AS SEEN BY THE RESERVE, THE LINE OF BATTLE IN THE DISTANCEE, NEXT TO THE ARTILLERY AND SECOND LINE OF INFANTRY.
appeared to be a thin line of soldiers sleeping on the ground to be occupied. They seemed to make a sort of row or rank. It was as if aline of skirmishers had halted and lain down; they were perfectly motionless; their sleep was profound. Not one of them awoke and got up. They were not relieved, either, when the others came. They seemed to have no commander— at least none awake. Had the fatigues of the day completely overpowered all of them, officers and privates alike? They were nearest the enemy, within call of him. They were the advance line of the Union army. Was it thus that they kept their watch, on which the safety of the whole army depended, pent up between the ridge and the river? The enemy might come within ten steps of them without being seen. The fog was a veil. No one knew what lay, or moved, crept a little distance off. The regiments were allowed to lie down. In doing so, the men made a denser rank with those there before them. Still those others did not waken. If you looked closely at the face of one of them, in the mist and dimness, it was pallid, the eyes closed, the mouth open, the hair was disheveled; besides, the attitude was often painful. There were blood-marks, also. These men were all dead. Nevertheless, the new comers lay down among them, and rested. The pall of night concealed the foe now. The sombre uncertainty of fate enveloped the morrow. One was saved from the peril of the charge, but he found himself again on Marye's Hill, near the enemy, face to face with the dead, sharing their couch, almost in their embrace, in the mist and the December night. Why not accept them as bed-fellows? The bullet that laid low this one, if it had started diverging by ever so small an angle, would have found the heart's
blood of that other who gazed upon him. It was chance or Providence, which to-morrow might be less kind. So they lay down with the dead, all in line, and were lulled asleep by the monotony of the cries of the wounded scattered everywhere.
Some sat on the curbstones, meditating, looking gloomily at the ground; others lay on the pavement, trying to forget the events of the day in sleep.
At this time three officers rode out from the ranks, down the hill, toward the town. They sought to acquire a better knowledge of the locality. They were feeling about in the fog for the foot of the hill, and the roads. After they had gone a little distance, one of them was stationed as a guide-mark, while the two others went further, reconnoitering or exploring. He who was thus left alone found himself amid strange and melancholy surroundings. Meditation sat upon his brow, but to fall into complete revery was impossile. The hour and the scene would intrude themselves upon his thoughts of what had befallen. The dead would not remain unnoticed. The dying cried out into the darkness, and demanded succor of the world. Was there nothing in the universe to save? Tens of thousands within ear-shot, and no footstep of friend or foe drew near during all the hours. Sometimes they drew near and passed by, which was an aggravation of the agony. The subdued sound of wheels rolling slowly along, and ever and anon stopping, the murmur of voices and a cry of pain, told of the ambulance on its mission. It went off in another direction. The cries were borne through the haze to the officer as he sat solitary, waiting. Now a single lament, again voices intermingled and as if in chorus; from every direction, in front, behind, to right, to left, some near, some distant and faint. Some, doubtless, were faint that were not distant, the departing breath of one about
Abe lincoln's midnight ride how lincoln outfoxed a plot to kill him in Baltimore
incoln's ride lincoln plot in Baltimore
Ward Hill Lamon was assigned to personally protect President-Elect Lincoln during the perilous period leading up to the inauguration. In a revealing account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to ensure Lincoln's safe passage to the capital, Lamon describes how an eclectic group of individuals successfully transported Lincoln through Baltimore without being detected.
wasItfinally agreed that about six o'clock the next evening Mr. Lincoln should slip away from the Jones Hotel at Harrisburg, in company with a single member of his party. A special car and engine was to be provided for him on the track outside the depot; all other trains on the road were to be "side-tracked" until this one had passed. Mr. Sanford was to forward skilled "telegraph-climbers," and see that ail the wires leading out of Harrisburg were cut at six o'clock, and kept down until it was known that Mr. Lincoln had reached Washington in safety. The detective was to meet Mr. Lincoln at the West Philadelphia Station with a carriage, and conduct him by a circuitous route to the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Station. Berths for four were to be pre-engaged in the sleeping-car attached to the regular midnight train for Baltimore. This train Mr. Felton was to cause to be detained until the conductor should receive a package, containing important "government despatches" addressed to "E. J. Allen, Willard's Hotel, Washington." This package was to be made up of old newspapers, carefully wrapped and sealed, and delivered to the detective to be used as soon as Mr. Lincoln was lodged in the car.
Mr. Lincoln acquiesced in this plan. Then Mr. Judd, forgetting the secrecy which the spy had so impressively enjoined, told Mr. Lincoln that the step he was about to take was one of such transcendent importance that he thought "it should be communicated to the other gentlemen of the party." Therefore, when they had arrived at Harrisburg, and the public ceremonies and speechmaking were over, Mr. Lincoln retired to a private parlor in the Jones House; and Mr. Judd summoned to meet him there Judge Davis, Colonel Sumner, Major Hunter, Captain Pope, and myself. Judd
began the Conference by stating the alleged fact of the Baltimore conspiracy, how it was detected, and how it was proposed to thwart it by a midnight expedition to Washington by way of Philadelphia. It was a great surprise to all of us.
Colonel Sumner was the first to break the silence. "That proceeding," said he, "will be a damned piece of cowardice."
Mr. Judd considered this a "pointed hit," but
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT IS FROM WARD HILL LAMON'S 2ND EDITION OF RECOLLECTIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1847 - 1865 PUBLISHED IN 1911.
WARD HILL LAMON WAS A CLOSE ACQUAINTANCE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND WAS DEDICATED TO ENSURING THE SAFETY OF LINCOLN AND HIS FAMILY. HE ARRIVED IN THE CAPITAL IN FEBRUARY 1861 TO SERVE AS LINCOLN'S BODYGUARD. LATER ON, HE WAS APPOINTED AS A U.S. MARSHAL FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
FOR ADDITIONAL READING ON THE PLOT TO ASSASSINATE LINCOLN IN BALTIMORE:
Library of Congress
he Museum of Fine Arts, Boston https://collections.mfa.org/objects/269737/arrival-of-mrlincoln-at-camden-station-baltimore); Maryland Center for History and Culture, https://www. mdhistory.org/resources/passage-through-baltimore/; Wikipedia Commons
THE SENSATIONAL NEWSPAPER PRESS QUICKLY CIRCULATED THE RUMOR THAT THE PRESIDENTELECT HAD ARRIVED IN THE CAPITAL IN DISGUISE, WEARING A PLAID CAP, KILTS, AND A MILITARY CLOAK. CLOCKWISE FROM THE TOP: THOMAS NAST'S FANCIFUL ILLUSTRATION DEPICTS LINCOLN AS HE APPEARED AT CAMDEN STATION DEPOT (HE ARRIVED BY HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE), BUT HIS EDITORS ALTERED HIS APPEARANCE TO INCLUDE THE PLAID CAP. THE SECOND ILLUSTRATION, CREATED BY ADALBERT VOLK—A BALTIMORE DENTIST AND SOUTHERN SYMPATHIZER—SHOWS LINCOLN PEERING OUT OF A CATTLE CAR. THE LAST CARTOON APPEARED IN VANITYFAIRSHOWING LINCOLN ARRIVING IN DISGUISE, WRAPPED IN A LONG MILITARY CLOAK.
replied that "that view of the case had already been presented to Mr. Lincoln." Then there was a general interchange of opinions, which Sumner interrupted by saying, "I'll get a squad of cavalry, sir, and cut our way to Washington, sir !"
"Probably before that day comes," I said Mr. Judd, "the inauguration day will have passed. It is important that Mr. Lincoln should be in Washington on that day."
Thus far Judge Davis had expressed no opinion, but had put various questions to test the truthfulness of the story. He now turned to Mr. Lincoln, and said, "You personally heard the detective's story. You have heard this discussion. What is your judgment in the matter?"
"I have thought over this matter considerably since I went over the ground with the detective last night. The appearance of Mr. Frederick Seward with warning from another source confirms my belief in the detective's statement. Unless there are some other reasons besides fear of ridicule, I am disposed to carry out Judd's plan."
There was no longer any dissent as to the plan itself; but one question still remained to be disposed of. Who should accompany the President on his perilous ride? Mr. Judd again took the lead, declaring that he and
Mr. Lincoln had previously determined that but one man ought to go, and that I had been selected as the proper person. To this Sumner violently demurred. " I have undertaken," he exclaimed, "to see Mr. Lincoln to Washington!"
Mr. Lincoln was dining when a close carriage was brought to the side door of the hotel. He was called, hurried to his room, changed his coat and hat, and passed rapidly through the hall and out of the door. As he was stepping into the carriage, it became manifest that Sumner was determined to get in also. "Hurry with him!" whispered Judd to me; and at the same time, placing his hand on Sumner's shoulder, he said aloud, "One moment, Colonel!" Sumner turned round, and in that moment the carriage drove rapidly away. "A madder man," says Mr. Judd, "you never saw."
We got on board the car without discovery or mishap. Besides ourselves, there was no one in or about the car except Mr. Lewis, general superintendent of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, and Mr. Franciscus, superintendent of the division over which we were about to pass. The arrangements for the special train were made ostensibly to take these two gentlemen to Philadelphia.
At ten o'clock we reached West Philadelphia, and were met by the detective and one Mr. Kenney, an under-official of the Philadelphia,
Judd: https://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/norman-judd-1/ index.html; Davis and Sumner: Library of Congress
THREE MEMBERS OF LINCOLN'S ENTOURAGE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE HARRISBURG CONFERENCE ON THE HANDLING OF THE PRESIDENT'S ARRIVAL IN THE CAPITAL: (LEFT) NORMAN B. JUDD, REPUBLICAN DELEGATE AND LATER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM ILLINOIS; (CENTER) JUDGE DAVID DAVIS, LINCOLN'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND LATER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE AND (RIGHT) COLONEL AND SOON-TO-BE GENERAL EDWIN VOSE SUMNER.
Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, from whose hands the "important parcel" was to be delivered to the conductor of the 10.50 p.m. train. Mr. Lincoln, the detective, and myself seated ourselves in a carriage which stood in waiting; and Mr. Kenney sat upon the box with the driver. It was nearly an hour before the Baltimore train was to start; and Mr. Kenney found it necessary to consume the time by driving northward in search of some imaginary person.
As the moment for the departure of the Baltimore train drew near, the carriage paused in the dark shadows of the depot building. It was not considered prudent to approach the entrance.
We were directed to the sleeping car. Mr. Ketaney ran forward and delivered the "important package," and in three minutes the train was in motion. The tickets for the whole party had been procured by George R. Dunn, an express agent, who had selected berths in the rear of the car, and had insisted that the rear door of the car should be opened on the plea that one of the party was an invalid, who would arrive late, and did not desire to be carried through the narrow passage-way of the crowded car. Mr. Lincoln
got into his berth immediately, the curtains were carefully closed, and the rest of the party waited until the conductor came round, when the detective handed him the "sick man's" ticket. During the night Mr. Lincoln indulged in a joke or two, in an undertone; but with that exception the two sections occupied by us were perfectly silent. The detective said he had men stationed at various places along the road to let him know if all was right; and he rose and went to the platform occasionally to observe their signals, returning each time with a favorable report.
At thirty minutes past three the train reached Baltimore. One of the spy's assistants came on board and informed him in a whisper that "all was right." Mr. Lincoln lay still in his berth; and in a few moments the car was being slowly drawn through the quiet streets of the city toward what was called the Washington depot. There again was another pause, but no sound more alarming than the noise of shifting cars and engines. The passengers, tucked away on their narrow shelves, dozed on as peacefully as if Mr. Lincoln had never been born, until, they were awakened by the loud strokes of a huge club against a night-watchman's box, which stood within the depot and close to the
track. It was an Irishman, trying to arouse a sleepy ticket-agent comfortably ensconced within. For twenty minutes the Irishman pounded the box with ever-increasing vigor, and at each blow shouted at the top of his voice, "Captain! it's four o'clock! it's four o'clock!" The Irishman seemed to think that time had ceased to run at four o'clock, and making no allowance for the period consumed by his futile exercises, repeated to the last his original statement that it was four o'clock. The passengers were intensely amused; and their jokes and laughter at the Irishman's expense were not lost upon the occupants of the two sections in the rear.
on together. Taking a hack, we drove toward Willard's Hotel. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Washburne, and the detective got out in the street, and approached the ladies' entrance, while I drove on to the main entrance, and sent the proprietor to meet his distinguished guest at the side door. A few minutes later Mr. Seward arrived, and was introduced to the company by Mr. Washburne. He spoke in very strong terms of the great danger which Mr. Lincoln had so narrowly escaped, and most heartily applauded the wisdom of the " secret passage."
Mr. Lincoln soon learned to regret the midnight ride to which he yielded under protest. He was convinced that he committed a grave error...
In due time the train sped out of the suburbs of Baltimore, and the apprehensions of the President and his friends diminished with each welcome revolution of the wheels. At six o'clock the dome of the Capitol came in sight, and a moment later we rolled into that long, unsightly building, the Washington depot. We passed out of the car unobserved, and pushed along with the living stream of men and women toward the outer door. One man alone in the great crowd seemed to watch Mr. Lincoln with special attention. Standing a little to one side, he looked very sharply at him, and, as he passed, seized hold of his hand, and said in a loud tone of voice, " Abe, you can't play that on me!" We were instantly alarmed, and would have struck the stranger had not Mr. Lincoln hastily said, "Don't strike him! It is Washburne. Don't you know him?" Mr. Seward had given to Mr. Washburne a hint of the information received through his son; and Mr. Washburne knew its value as well as another.
The detective admonished Washburne to keep quiet for the present, and we passed
It now soon became apparent that Mr. Lincoln wished to be left alone. He said he was " rather tired ; " and, upon this intimation, the party separated. The detective went to the telegraph-office and loaded the wires with despatches in cipher, containing the pleasing intelligence that "Plums" had brought "Nuts" through in safety.
Mr. Lincoln soon learned to regret the midnight ride to which he had yielded under protest He was convinced that he had committed a grave mistake in listening to the solicitations of a professional spy and of friends too easily alarmed, and frequently upbraided me for having aided him to degrade himself at the very moment in all his life when his behavior should have exhibited the utmost dignity and composure. Neither he nor the country generally then understood the true facts concerning the dangers to his life. It is now an acknowledged fact that there never was a moment from the day he crossed the Maryland line, up to the time of his assassination, that he was not in danger of death by violence, and that his life was spared until the night of the 14th of April, 1865, only through the ceaseless and watchful care of the guards thrown around him.
Rowe
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of shrieks, a call of despair, a prayer to God, a demand for water, for the ambulance, a death-rattle, a horrid scream, a voice, as of the body when the soul tore itself away, and abandoned it to the enemy, to the night, and to dissolution. The voices were various. This, the tongue of a German; that wail in the Celtic brogue of a poor Irishman. The accent of New England was distinguishable in the thin cry of that boy. From a different quarter came utterances in the dialect of a far off Western State. The appeals of the Irish were the most pathetic. They put them into every form — denunciation, remonstrance, a pitiful prayer, a peremptory demand. The German was more patient, less demonstrative, withdrawing into himself. One man raised his body on his left arm, and extending his right hand upward, cried out to the heavens, and fell back. Most of them lay moaning, with the fitful movement of unrest and pain.
At this hour of the night, over at the Phillips' House, Burnside, overruling his council of war, had decided, in desperation, to hurl the Ninth Corps next day, himself at its head, against that self-same eminence. The officer sat on his horse, looking out into the spectremaking mist and darkness. Nothing stirred; not the sound of a gun was heard; a dread silence, which one momentarily expected to be broken by the rattle of tireanus. All at once he looked down. He saw something white, not far off, that moved and seemed to be a man. It was, in fact, a thing in human form. In the obscurity one could not discern what the man was doing. The officer observed him attentively. He stooped and rose again; then stooped and handled an object on the ground. He moved away, and again bent down. Presently he returned, and began once more his manipulations of the former object. The chills crept over one. The darkness and the gloom, and the contrasted
stillness from the loud and frightful uproar of the day, except for the intermittent cries of the wounded and dying, groans intermingled with fearful shrieks, and cries for water, and this thing, man or fiend, hitting about on the field, now up, now down, intent on his purpose, seeing nothing else, hearing nothing, seemingly fearing nothing, loving nothing; the hill all overstrewn with dead and the debris of artillery, and mutilated horses — it was a ghostly, weird, wicked scene, sending a shudder through the frame.
"Who goes there?' at the length the officer said, and rode forward.
"A private," the man replied, and gave his regiment and company.
"What are you doing here at this hour?'' and so questioning he saw that the man was engaged in putting on the clothes of a dead soldier at his feet.
"I need clothes and shoes," he said, "and am taking them from this dead man; he won't need them anymore."
''You, there! you are rifling the dead; robbing them of their watches and money. Begone!'' And the man disappeared into the night like an evil bird that had flown away.
Where he had stood lay the dead man, who had fallen in the charge, stripped of his upper clothing; robbed of his life by the enemy, robbed of his garments by a comrade, alone on the hillside, in the darkness, waited for in some far off Northern home.
The three officers returned to their posts. Toward morning the general commanding the brigade came out, and, withdrawing his troops a little distance to the rear, took up a new position, less exposed than the former line. The captains were cautioned to leave none of their men unwarned of the movement. Nevertheless, a few of them were not distinguished from the dead, and were left where they lay. An orderly sergeant, waking from sound sleep, induced by the fatigues of the day, opened his eyes, and looked about him on all sides with surprise and wonder. His company and regiment were gone. The
advance line, of which they had formed a part, had disappeared. He saw no living or moving thing. He started up and stood at gaze. What to do now? Which way to go? He concluded that the regiment had moved farther forward, and, going first to the left, and then up along a piece of fence, he saw the hostile line a short distance before him. Falling down, he crept on hands and knees, descending the hill again until he reached the road. An officer, anxious when the withdrawal was ordered that no one should remain behind for want of notice, waited until the regiments had moved away, then passed along the line just abandoned. He saw a man lying on his side, reposing on his elbow, his head supported on his hand, his left leg drawn up. You would have been certain he dozed, or meditated, so natural and restful his posture. Him he somewhat rudely touched, and thus accosted : "Get up and join your company. We have moved to the rear." The reclining figure moved not, made no response. The officer bent over him, and looked closely — he was a corpse. At length the dawn appeared — the mist was dispelled. With the coming of morning, the command was again taken into the town.
One with slave
Largely
For a wealth soldier's soldiers
Potomac's
From to the candid flawed
BELLI CIVILIS PRESS an imprint of Hardtack Books
of the hardest fighting regiments in the Civil War, the First Delaware Volunteers battled in virtually every engagement the Army of the Potomac's Second Corps from Antietam to Appomattox. One of only a handful of regiments from a slave state, the First Delaware would pay a higher price than many for the cost of restoring a broken country.
TheyFoughtfortheUnion:AHistoryof theFirstDelawareVolunteersintheArmy ofthePotomacby Jeffrey R .Biggs
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Largely forgotten in post-Civil War memory, TheyFought theUnionrevisits these border state soldiers through wealth of untapped sources, personal accounts and soldier's diaries while always placing these conflicted soldiers into the larger context of the Army of the Potomac's struggles in the Eastern Theatre of the war. From the original recruitment as a three-month regiment the end of the conflict four years later, the author's candid retelling of these extraordinary and oftentimes flawed men is riveting.
ISBN#
Nearly twenty years after the close war, members of the First Delaware Regiment Association requested that its original adjutant, Captain William Penn Seville, prepare a history of the regiment's exploits in the late war. This revised edition of Seville's manuscript, while maintaining the dialogue and prose of the original, adds context to Seville's history by adding new voices to the work from other soldiers letters, diaries and accounts of the battles as they experienced it. New content uncovered during research on this fascinating regiment has been added in the form of footnotes and appendices.
William Penn Seville's History of the First Delaware Volunteers by William P. Seville, ed. by Jeffrey R. Biggs
