The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Battle of Fredericksburg, Dec. 1862

In several ways, Marye's Heights offered the Federals their most promising target. Not only did this sector of Lee's defenses lie closest to the shelter of Fredericksburg, but the ground rose less steeply here than on the surrounding hills.

Nevertheless, Union soldiers had to leave the city, descend into a valley bisected by a water-filled canal ditch, and ascend an open slope of 400 yards to reach the base of the heights. Artillery atop Marye's Heights and nearby elevations would thoroughly blanket the Federal approach. "A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it," boasted on Confederate cannoneer.

Sumner's first assault began at noon and set the pattern for a ghastly series of attacks that continued, one after another, until dark. As soon as the Northerners marched out of Fredericksburg, Longstreet's artillery wreaked havoc on the crisp blue formations. The Unionists then encountered a deadly bottleneck at the canal ditch which was spanned by partially-destroyed bridges at only three places. Once across this obstacle, the attackers established shallow battle lines under cover of a slight bluff that shielded them from Reel eyes.

Orders then rang out for the final advance. The landscape beyond the canal ditch contained a few buildings and fences, but from the military perspective it provided virtually no protection. Dozens of Southern cannon immediately reopened on the easy targets and when the Federals traversed about half the remaining distance, as sheet of flame spewed forth from the Sunken Road. This rifle fire decimated the Northerners. Survivors found refuge behind a small swale in the ground or retreated back to the canal ditch valley.

Quickly a new Federal brigade burst toward Marye's Heights and the "terrible stone wall," then another, and another, until three entire divisions had hurled themselves at the Confederate bastion. In one hour, the Army of the Potomac lost nearly 3,000 men; but the madness continued.

Although General Cobb suffered a mortal wound early in the action, the Southern line remained firm. Kershaw's Brigade joined North Carolinians in reinforcing Cobb's men in the Sunken Road. The Confederates stood four ranks deep, maintaining a ceaseless musketry while the gray artillerists fired over their heads.

More Union units tested the impossible. "We came forward as though breasting a storm of rain and sleet, our faces and bodies being only half- turned to the storm, our shoulders shrugged," remembered one Federal. "Everybody from the smallest drummer boy on up seemed to be shouting to the full extent of his capacity," recalled another. But each blue wave crested short of the goal. Not a single Union soldier laid his hand on the stone wall.

Lee, from his lofty perch on Telegraph Hill, watched Longstreet's almost casual destruction of Burnside's divisions as Jackson's counterattack repulsed Meade. Turning toward Longstreet, Lee confessed, "It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it."

Burnside ordered Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Center Grand Division to join the attack in the afternoon, and late in the day, troops from the Fifth Corps moved forward. Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys led his division through the human debris of the previous assaults. Some of Humphreys' soldiers shook off well-meaning hands that clutched at them to prevent their advance. Part of one brigade sustained its momentum until it drew within 25 yards of the stone wall. There, it too melted away.

The final Union effort began after sunset. Colonel Rush C. Hawkins' brigade, the fifteenth such Federal unit to charge the Sunken Road that day, enjoyed no more success than its predecessors. Darkness shrouded the battlefield and at last the guns fell silent.

The hideous cries of the wounded, "weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear," echoed through the night. Burnside wrote orders to renew the assaults on December 14, wishing to lead them personally, but his subordinates dissuaded him from this suicidal scheme. On the evening of December 15-16, Burnside skillfully withdrew his army to Stafford Heights, dismantling his bridges behind him. The Fredericksburg Campaign had ended.

Grim arithmetic tells only a part of the Fredericksburg story. Lee suffered 5,300 casualties but inflicted more than twice that many losses on his opponent. Of the 12,600 Federal soldiers killed, wounded, or missing, almost two-thirds fell in front of the stone wall.

Despite winning in the most overwhelming tactical sense, however, the Battle of Fredericksburg proved to be a hollow victory for the Confederates. The limitless resources of the North soon rectified Burnside's losses in manpower and materiel. Lee, on the other hand, found it difficult to replenish either missing soldiers or needed supplies. The Battle of Fredericksburg, although profoundly discouraging to Union soldiers and the Northern populace, made no decisive impact on the war. Instead, it merely postponed the next "On to Richmond" campaign until the spring.

The Angel of Marye's Heights
Donald C. Pfanz

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1862, with the memories of Fredericksburg still fresh in his mind, Gen. Robert E. Lee wrote his wife lamenting the hardships of war: "What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world."

And yet, amid the killing, there were individuals whose kindness and compassion lifted the spirit and reminded soldiers of their common humanity. Richard Rowland Kirkland was one such individual. On Dec. 14, 1862, Kirkland risked his life to comfort soldiers who lay wounded in front of Marye's Heights. It is not uncommon for a soldier to risk his life for a friend. What makes Kirkland's story so compelling is that he risked his life to help his enemies.

Kirkland was born in 1843 on his father's farm near Flat Rock, S.C. Like many boys in the rural South, Kirkland grew up learning to shoot rifles and ride horses. An even-tempered, religious lad, he attended Flat Rock Baptist Church and obtained a rudimentary education. Kirkland's mother died when he was just 2 years old, leaving his father to raise five sons and a daughter by himself. Richard was the youngest boy, but he grew up fast. By 1861 he was 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed a lithe 150 pounds. A photograph taken of him at this time shows him as having a thin face, brown eyes, dark hair, and a neatly trimmed moustache.

As a young man growing up in the South, Kirkland followed the events leading to the Civil War with interest. On April 9, 1861, he enlisted in Company E of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers. Three days later, South Carolina forces opened fire on a small United States garrison that had taken refuge inside Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, and forced it to surrender. In response, President Abraham Lincoln called upon states loyal to the Union to suppress the rebellion. The war was on.

Kirkland and his comrades initially joined other state troops gathering at Charleston, but when Virginia later joined the Southern Confederacy, the 2nd South Carolina was sent north to protect the Old Dominion from Northern invasion. The war was still in its infancy then, and anyone in uniform was seen as a patriot and a hero.

As Kirkland's regiment moved north, it received an enthusiastic welcome wherever it went. "We was received with [a] warm reception," the eager young soldier wrote his brother from Petersburg, "& glee every where through the state." Everywhere they stopped, citizens welcomed them with food, hugs and flowers. It was heady stuff for a man not yet 19 years of age.

All too soon, however, war's reality set in. In July, Kirkland got his first taste of combat at Bull Run, outside Manassas. Other battles followed: Savage's Station, Malvern Hill, Antietam. Suddenly war did not seem like such a glorious endeavor. Kirkland, however, did his duty and did not miss a battle. By December 1862, he was a seasoned veteran.

The 2nd South Carolina Regiment was in the thick of the fighting at Fredericksburg. When Union troops launched their attacks against Marye's Heights on Dec. 13, Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw to reinforce Confederate troops fighting there. Kershaw led the 2nd South Carolina and the other units of his brigade across the plateau and into the Sunken Road below to join regiments from North Carolina and Georgia in repulsing the Union attacks.

The Confederates did their work well: By day's end 1,000 Union soldiers lay dead in front of the Heights. Seven thousand more had been wounded. Unable to move, most of the injured soldiers still lay between the lines when the sun rose the next day. No one could rescue them: to expose oneself on the plain even for an instant meant certain death. "The Yankees were literally piled in our front," remembered one South Carolinian, "dead and dying together, the living crying, water, water!"

The cries of one Union soldier were particularly piteous. After calling in vain for his friends to succor him, he cried out: "If my friends cannot give me water, will my enemies give me some?"

Richard Kirkland could not ignore such pleas. As a Christian, he may have remembered the Apostle Paul's injunction: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink." Bounding up the stairs of the nearby Stephens house, Kirkland asked Gen. Kershaw for permission to take water to his wounded enemies. Kershaw tried to talk him out of it. "Kirkland, don't you know that you would get a bullet through your head the moment you stepped over the wall?"

"Yes, sir," the young man replied, "I know that; but if you will let me, I am willing to try it." Kershaw could not refuse the noble request. Reluctantly, he gave Kirkland permission to go, trusting that God would protect him.

Kirkland hurried back down the stairs, but a moment later he returned. Kershaw assumed the well-intentioned sergeant had had second thoughts, but he was wrong: Kirkland simply wanted to perform his deed under a flag of truce. "General, can I show a white flag?" he inquired. Unfortunately, the general could not grant the request. The two sides were locked in combat; only the commanding general could negotiate a truce. Kirkland was undeterred. "All right," he replied, "I'll take the chances."

Borrowing canteens from several friends, Kirkland took a deep breath, jumped over the protective wall bordering the Sunken Road and dashed out onto the deadly plain. Bullets struck the mud around him, but he was not hit. Reaching the nearest soldier, Kirkland knelt down and, placing the man's head on his chest, poured the cooling liquid down the man's throat. He then took the soldier's knapsack and placed it under his head for a pillow, at the same time laying the man's overcoat across him for a blanket.

By now, the Union riflemen understood Kirkland's mission and had ceased firing at him. Some even cheered his bravery. For the next 90 minutes, Kirkland moved slowly about the field, giving aid to all he could reach. Who knows how many men benefited from his mercy?

As a result of his actions, Kirkland became known as "The Angel of Marye's Heights." He died just nine months later at the Battle of Chickamauga, but his deed at Fredericksburg was not forgotten. In 1965, local citizens led by Dr. Richard Nunn Lanier petitioned the state legislatures of Virginia and South Carolina to construct a monument to Kirkland's memory. Today it stands at the northeast corner of Mercer Street and Sunken Road, a rare testimony to man's humanity to man. Additional Sources:

www.fredericksburg.com
www.nps.gov
www.framery.com
www.spotsylvania.va.us
www.historypoint.org
www.army.mil
civilwarprints.com
www.multied.com
www.pbs.org
www.wesleyan.edu

'Lee ask Barksdale if he needs assistance...... No...tell General Lee that if he wants a brigade of dead Yankees, I can furnish him with one.'

-- Gen. Barksdale

'An Aide questions the enemies strength.... Major, my men have sometimes failed to take a position, but to defend one, never! I am glad the Yankees are coming.'

-- Gen. Jackson

'We lost color bearer after color bearer, I picked up the colors three times myself. The flagstaff was shot off and the flag perforated in 19 places by Rebel bullets.'

-- Lt. D.R. Coders, 11th Penn. Reserves

'On the Rebel yell...... I have never, since I was born, heard so fearful a noise as a rebel yell. It is nothing like a hurrah, but rather a regular wildcat screech'

-- A Federal Surgeon

'As Federals form another attack on Marye Heights... General, they are massing very heavily and will break your lines, I am afraid.'

-- Gen. R.E. Lee

'..... General, if you put every man on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me of plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line...Look to your right ; you are in some danger over there- But not on my line.'

-- Gen. James Longstreet's reply

Good morning SAM, snippy and everyone.

.......FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!

.......Good Sunday Morning Everyone!

If you would like added or removed from our ping list let me know.

Good Morning, Snippy. How's it going?:-D

Richard Rowland Kirkland, the angel of Marye's Heights.

I've sat here now for 1/2 hour trying to comment but can't find the right words. It's just a wonderful story to be reminded of and I'm thankful it was recorded and a monument built.

We read often about this type of spirit throughout our history, the bravery and heroic deeds of our people. It makes you proud.

Reading the letter from Lee to his wife I'm reminded of how beautiful the writing was in those days.

Thanks for the history lesson today.

Good morning feather.

Good morning E.G.C., it's going well.

Nice cool morning for coffee on the deck - soon to heat up though, have to enjoy it while I can.

And you?

We have some storms to the West of us moving this way so I'm going to be unplugging the computer shortly. I did wake up with a stomach ache which I apparently caught from my sister-in-law from our guest visit this past week but it's calmed now.:-D

Glad to hear you're better. If you're going to get storms I guess I better check my forecast, it's bound to be headed my way after you.

See you later. :)

Reporting as ordered, ma'am. Pups are still doing great.

Good morning chew toy! lol. Glad to hear the pups are well. Give 'em a couple kisses for me, they are sooo cute.

So far, I'm not a chew toy this morning. They're mainly chewing on each other this morning.

LOL. Good!

Good Morning Feather.

Hi Snippy. Good Sunday morning to you.

Good morning.

I've lived your tagline! lol.

You're welcome Snippy.

War brings out the worst in man, but at the same time it brings out the best of man. Strange isn't it?