78. Bridging the Rappahannock
By CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN (1862)
[_]
This episode preceded the terrible battle of Fredericksburg, December, 13, 1862, in Which
1200 Union troops were killed and 9600 wounded.
AT five o'clock on the morning of the 11th of
December two signal-guns were fired on the heights
of Fredericksburg. Deep and heavy their roar, roll-ing along the valley, echoing from hill to hill, and
rousing the sleepers of both armies. We who listened
upon the Falmouth hills knew that the crossing was
not a surprise, but that the Rebels were ready for
battle. And now as the day dawned there came a
rattling of musketry along the river. The Rebel
pickets opened the fire. The gunners at the batteries
we were quick to respond, and sent grape and canister
across the stream. The Rebel pickets at the lower
bridges soon retired, and the engineers completed
their work. But in the town the Mississippians took
shelter in the buildings, and poured a deadly fire upon
the bridge-builders. Almost every soldier who at-tempted to carry out a plank fell. For a while the
attempt was relinquished.
"The bridge must be completed,"said General Burnside.
Once more the brave engineers attempted it. The fog still hung
over the river. Those who stood on the northern bank could
only see the flashes of the rifles on the other shore. The
gunners were obliged to fire at random, but so energetic was
their fire that the engineers were able to carry the bridge
within eighty or ninety feet of the shore, and then so deadly in
turn was the fire of the Rebels that it was murder to send men
out with a plank.
General Burnside stood on the piazza of the Phillips
House, a mile from the pontoons. General Sumner and General
Hooker were there. Aids and couriers came and went with
messages and orders.
"My bridge is completed, and I am ready to cross,"was
Franklin's message at half-past nine.
"You must wait till the upper bridge is completed,"was the
reply to Franklin.
Two hours passed. A half-dozen attempts were made to
complete the upper bridge without success. Brave men not
belonging to the engineers came down to the bank, surveyed
the scene, and then volunteering their services, seized planks
and boards, ran out upon the bridge, but only to fall before
the sharpshooters concealed in the cellars of the houses not
ten rods distant. Captain Brainard of the Fiftieth New York,
with eleven men, volunteered to finish the nearly completed
work. They went out upon the run. Five fell at one volley, and
the rest returned. Captain Perkins of the same regiment led
another party. He fell with a ghastly wound in his neck. Half
of his men were killed or wounded. These were sacrifices of
life with nothing gained.
General Burnside had no desire to injure the town, but under
the usages of war he had a right to bombard it; for the Rebels
had concealed themselves in the houses, making use of them
to slaughter his men.
"Bring all your guns to bear upon the city and batter it
down,"was the order issued to General Hunt, chief of
artillery. There were in all thirty-five batteries, with a total of
one hundred and seventy-nine guns, all bearing upon the
town. The artillery men received the orders to prepare for
action with a hurrah. They had chafed all the morning, and
longed for an opportunity to avenge the death of their gallant
comrades.
The hour had come. They sprang to their pieces. The fire ran
from the right to the left,—from the heavy twenty-four
pounders on the heights of Falmouth to the smaller pieces on
the hills where Washington passed his boyhood. The air
became thick with the murky clouds. The earth shook beneath
the terrific explosions of the shells, which went howling over
the river, crashing into the houses, battering down walls,
splintering doors, ripping up floors. Sixty solid shot and
shells a minute were thrown, and the bombardment was kept
up till nine thousand were fired. No hot shot were used, but
the explosions set fire to a block of buildings; which added
terrible grandeur to the scene.
The Rebel army stood upon the heights beyond the town and
watched the operations. Lee's Rebel artillery was silent, and
the Mississippians. concealed in the houses were alone
participants in the contest.
The fog lifted at last and revealed the town. The streets were
deserted, but the houses, the churchsteeples, the stores were
riddled with shot ; yet no impression had been made on the
Mississippians.
Burnside's artillery men could not depress their guns
sufficiently to shell them out. A working party went out upon
the bridge, but one after another was killed or wounded.
The time had come for a bold movement. It was plain that the
Mississippians must be driven out before the bridge could be
completed, and that a party must go over in boats, charge up
the hill, and rout them from their hiding-places. Who would
go? Who attempt the hazardous enterprise? There were brave
men standing on the bank by the Lacey House, who had
watched the proceedings during the long hours. They were
accustomed to hard fighting: they had fought at Fair Oaks,
Savage Station, Glendale, Malvern, and Antietam.
"We will go over and clean out the Rebels,"was the cry of
the Twentieth Massachusetts.
"You shall have the privilege of doing so,"said General
Burnside.
There were not boats enough for all,—not enough for one
regiment even. A portion of the Seventh Michigan was
selected to go first, while the other regiments stood as a
supporting force.
The men run down the winding path to the water's edge, jump
into the boats, and push out into the stream. It is a moment of
intense anxiety. No one
knows bow large the force opposing them. The Rebel
sharpshooters are watching the movement from their hiding-places. They have a fair view and can pick their men. The men
in the boats know it, yet they move steadily onward, steering
straight across the stream, without a thought of turning back,
though their comrades are falling,—some headlong into the
river, others dropping into the boats. The oarsmen pull with
rapid strokes. When one falls another takes his place. Two
thirds the distance over ,— the boats ground in shoal water.
The soldiers wait for no word of command, but with a common
impulse, with an ardor which stops not to count the cost, they
leap into the water, wade to the shore, and charge up the bank.
Some fall to rise no more, but their surviving comrades rush up
the slippery ,,lope. A loud hurrah rings out from the soldiers
who watch them from the Falmouth shore. Up, up they go,
facing death, firing not, intent only to get at the foe and win
victory with the bayonet! They smash the windows, batter
down doors, driving or capturing the foe.
Loud and hearty the cheers of the regiments upon the other
shore. The men of the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Massachusetts would give anything to be there. All the while
the cannon are roaring, hurling solid shot and shell into the
doomed city.
When the bridge-builders saw the soldiers charge up the hill,
they too caught the enthusiasm of the moment, and finished
their work. The other regiments of the brigade, before the last
planks were laid, rushed down the bank, ran out upon the
bridge, dashed up the bank, joined their comrades, and drove
the Rebels from the streets nearest the river.
History furnishes but few records of more daring exploits than
this action of the Seventh Michigan. Their work was thorough
and complete. In fifteen minutes they cleared the houses in
front of them, and took more prisoners than their own party
numbered!
But now the Yankees were there, marching through the
streets. The houses were battered, torn, and rent. Some were
in flames, and a battle was raging through the town.
As soon as the bridge was completed, the other brigades of
General Howard's division moved across the river. The Rebel
batteries, which till now had kept silence, opened furiously
with solid shot and shell, but the troops moved steadily over,
and took shelter along the river bank. The Rebels were falling
back from street to street, and the men from Michigan and
Massachusetts were pressing on.
I stood upon the bank of the river and watched the scene in
the deepening twilight. Far up the streets there were bright
flashes from the muskets of the Rebels, who fired from cellars,
chamber windows, and from sheltered places. Nearer were dark
masses of men in blue, who gave quick volleys as they moved
steadily on, demolishing doors, crushing in windows, and
searching every hiding-place. Cannon were flaming on all the
hills, and the whole country was aglow with the camp-fires of
the two great armies. The Stafford hills were alive with men,—
regiments, brigades, and divisions moving in column from
their encampments to cross the river. The sky was without a
cloud. The town was lighted by lurid flames. The air was full of
hissings,—the sharp cutting sounds of the leaden rain. The
great twenty-pounder guns on the heights of Falmouth were
roaring the
while. There were shouts, hurrahs, yells, and groans from the
streets. So the fight went on till the Rebels were driven wholly
from the town to their intrenchments beyond.