On The Civil War Trail

“The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.”

~ Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative

Unharmed he reached the nearest sufferer. He knelt beside him, tenderly raised the drooping head, rested it gently upon his own noble breast, and poured the precious life-giving fluid down the fever scorched throat.

This done, he laid him tenderly down, placed his knapsack under his head, straightened out his broken limb, spread his overcoat over him, replaced his empty canteen with a full one, and turned to another sufferer. 

~ Excerpt of Confederate Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s account of the Angel of Marye’s Heights.

“And let the perpetual light shine upon them.”

~ My wife Cora.

We left Washington DC for a driving tour of Virginia.  Our drive crisscrossed Virginia's Civil War trails.  You can't hardly drive for a few hours in Virginia without coming across a site related to the Civil War.  If it isn't a building or a battlefield it might simply be a sign describing a particular spot as being some general's headquarters or a place where a skirmish took place.  The white signs are along highways, on country roads, near schools and on the fringes of shopping malls. 

Confederate cannons on the hills above Fredericksburg

We spent our first two Virginia nights at Fredericksburg.  I'm a history buff and specifically a Civil War buff so I've read enough accounts to know what transpired in that riverside town in December of 1862.  And so it was a sort of pilgrimage when I got up at sunrise while the wife slept and I headed out to the Fredericksburg Historic Park.  I walked through the dew damp grass and found the stone wall on Marye’s Height’s and looked back towards town.  Today the view of the town and the Rappahannock River is so shielded by trees that you wouldn't know that there are a town and a river just below. 

Cannons on Marye's Heights

In December of 1862 the river and the town were all in plain view from Marye’s Heights.  General Ambrose Burnside sent his army across the river into the town, unchallenged by Robert E Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.  Just west of the town was a short plain and just to the west and above the plain was a sunken road and stone wall on the high ground of Marye’s Heights where James Longstreet waited with 35,000 Confederates.  The Union Army assaulted the dug in Confederates and the attack failed.  Burnside would order five more attempts, each as fruitless as the first.  In the end Burnside's army abandoned Fredericksburg but not before it sustained over 13,000 casualties.

There is a Union cemetery at Fredericksburg.  Its the final resting place for 15,000 Federal soldiers who perished at Fredericksburg and other battles in the surrounding areas. In a sad bit of irony the cemetery is above the stone wall on Marye’s Heights meaning that the only Union soldiers to cross the wall were those who did so posthumously.  About 80 percent of the graves bear the single word “unknown.”

Union Cemetery at Fredericksburg

Just downslope from the stone wall is a small house, parts of which are original from the time of the battle; the building is pockmarked by bullet holes.  I asked the proprietor of a Civil War memorabilia store in town if any of the brick buildings in town show the scars of the battle such as at Gettysburg.  He told me that the town itself was devastated by shelling from both sides and from pillaging by Union soldiers before they assaulted the high ground.  Much of the old town, he said, had to be rebuilt.  He told me that some clever building owners embedded cannon balls in some brick walls; counterfeit war damage to dupe camera toting tourists. 

Today the historic district of Fredericksburg is dotted with Irish themed businesses; a few taverns and at least one shop.  One of the taverns is called The Colonial Tavern; Home to the Irish Brigade.  I visited the Irish tavern next door to our hotel and over a beer I learned a few things about the historic old town.  I asked the barkeep about the Irish connection.  Was the town a magnet for Irish immigrants during the early settlement or is the connection through the Irish Brigades?  The connection, he said, comes from the Civil War and so I did some research.  Both sides, Union and Confederate had Irish Brigades; units made up almost entirely of Irish-Americans and newly arrived immigrants.  Both brigades served with distinction but had never encountered each other.  That ended when the two Irish Brigades clashed at Marye’s Heights. 

General James Longstreet's Confederate corps was entrenched behind the stone wall on the heights. On the right of Longstreet’s line was General Thomas Cobb’s 24^th Georgia regiment, flying regimental flags that bore a golden Irish harp. The Union’s storied Irish Brigade (made up of the 63rd, 69th and 88th New York regiments and the 116^th Pennsylvania and the 28^th Massachusetts) had left for war with bright green silk banners that also bore the golden harp.  By the time that they’d reached Fredericksburg the Union flags had all been reduced to tatters with the exception of the one flown by the 28^th Mass.  The Union Irishmen would make their charge across the plain and up the slope on the Federal left – right in the face of the 24^th Georgia. 

At some point during the Union advance there was recognition. Georgian Colonel Robert McMillan (himself an Irishman) recognized the flag of the 28^th Mass and called out “That’s Meagher’s Brigade.”  One of the Confederate Irishmen would later write; “The last charge was made … o’er the bloody field by Meagher’s celebrated Irish Brigade which was almost destroyed. The gallant fellows deserved a better fate.” The American Civil War has often been described as“brother against brother."  It may be a reach to think that Irish brothers squared off on Marye’s Heights, but its almost certain that men from both sides shared relations or friends that hailed from the same towns in Ireland.  The Union's Irishmen got to within 50 yards of the wall before it was finally shattered. It left Fredericksburg with 45 percent casualties and never really was the same again. 

Flags of the 28th Massachusetts and 24th Georgia. 

In front of the wall on Marye’s Heights there is a large statue of a Confederate soldier holding a canteen to the lips of a fallen soldier. The statue is called The Angel of Marye’s Heights, dedicated to Sergeant Richard Kirkland.

Accounts say that between assaults, wounded Union soldiers cried out for water.  Kirkland, touched by their pleas asked his commander, General Kershaw, for permission to bring water to the wounded.  Kershaw refused, telling Kirkland that once over the wall Union soldiers below would surely kill him.  Kirkland insisted and Kershaw finally acquiesced with the condition that there would be no white flag. Kershaw later wrote an account about how Kirkland went over the wall and gave water to the first Union soldier and tried to make him more comfortable.  When both sides saw what Kirkland was doing all shooting was stopped.  According to Kershaw the young Sergeant tended to the Union wounded for an hour and a half.  Kirkland, barely 20 years old would later be killed at Chickamauga, his dying words, “…please tell my pa I died right.” 

Monument to Sergeant Kirkland

Later work by historians has thrown doubt onto Kershaw’s account of Kirkland’s selfless deed.  As for myself, as I looked up at the statue of Kirkland I decided that I don’t need to be so sophisticated and jaded as to disbelieve the story.  The assault on Marye’s Heights was a horrific disaster that should never have been ordered.  I’d like to think that there was some small good in the midst of the horror. 

You can read about these battles in history books and see them drawn on maps but until you actually hike on one of those fields you have no perspective of the size and magnitude of those contests.  To see the Chancellorsville Battlefield you drive a loop and then cross the highway and drive for a couple miles to drive another loop and then cross the highway again and drive more miles back the same way you came, past the initial loop to drive yet another loop.  And that doesn't even include the walking trails that you can take at many stops. 

After my visit to the Fredericksburg site I picked up the wife and we drove 15 miles to the Spotsylvania Battlefield.  Like Chancellorsville this isn't a battlefield that you can cover on foot, unless you pack provisions and allow a long day of walking.  It’s spread out; you drive it and get out of your car and explore it by sections.  Many of the battlegrounds are simply large sections of green meadow with signs describing the events of 150 years ago.  At some sites there are monuments erected in honor of a particular unit that fought there or to commemorate a particular action.  You stand there in the green grass and try to imagine lines of blue and gray clad soldiers; lines stretching as far as you can see.  You look out and in your mind’s eye try to envision the bright ribbon of gleaming bayonets undulating over the rolling meadow.  You try but there is no way to conjure such a sight in the mind.  It must have been a vision that was at once magnificent, terrible and strangely beautiful. 

As we walked along the trails at Spotsylvania I was struck by the beauty and serenity.  It’s a patchwork of forests and meadowlands splashed with the multi-colors of wildflowers.  And it is so very quiet.  There are few visitors and so you all that you hear are chirping birds, singing cicadas and the occasional movement of the wind.  And so the other thing that you try to imagine is the roar of combat and idyllic landscapes turned into burned, cratered charnel houses, given names that belie their peaceful beauty; Devil’s Den, Bloody Angle. 

Peaceful dawn mist of Chancellorsville

By 1864, Lee was no longer being pitted against timid Union commanders.  He was now facing the bulldog tenacity of Grant and that tenacity was evident at Wilderness/Spotsylvania which lasted for a bloody 15 days.  Much of the fighting was concentrated at a place at Spotsylvania called the Mule Shoe, a bulging salient in the Confederate line.  It was the site of some of the fiercest hand to hand combat in the war and it was no more desperate than at a bend in the Confederate trenches that came to be known as The Bloody Angle.  For 16 hours at the angle the two armies literally shared one parapet; blue on one side and gray on the other – fighting at arms’ length. 

At Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle an oak tree 22 inches thick was felled by the volume of bullets that struck it (we saw that very stump at the Smithsonian Museum of American History).  What was done to the flesh of horse and man is described in any history of the battle that you pick up.  I’ll leave it at the words of a sergeant with the 149^th Pennsylvania who wrote to his wife, “Kiss the boys, tell them that I think of them often and hope that they may never see what I have.”

Cora and I were the about the only tourists at Spotsylvania. Maybe it was the season – kids back in school.   Maybe it was because it was mid-week.  I don't know, maybe these places hold no interest unless you already have an interest.  After all what do you see but a few monuments and some cannons and signs to explain and commemorate what happened at some given spot.  Beyond that they could be any ordinary meadow or hillock, or forest, or overlook.  But they aren't ordinary.  Those meadows, forests and hillocks during the 15 days of the back to back battles of The Wildnerness and Spotsylvania resulted in 60,00 casualties.  It's 2014 now and in over a decade of the Iraq war the American casualty count is around 37,000.  Can Americans fathom 60,000 casualties in half a month?

These places require some effort.  You have to employ your imagination and try to put yourself in a place 150 years ago on a steamy afternoon when it seemed like God’s final cataclysm is coming down around you.  It’s important for all Americans to know what their country went through 150 years ago.  It’s the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, a seminal period in America yet far too many Americans start with the same question, "Which side was for slavery, the blue or the gray?"

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In honor of the 15th New Jersey Volunteers

At the site of the Bloody Angle there is a long hump in the landscape.  Signs every few yards ask that visitors stay on the path and on the bridges that cross over the hump.  That long hump is what is left of the Confederate trenches of 150 years ago.

We came upon locals walking their dogs on paths that wind through the battleground.  I envied them for not only having such a beautiful place to walk but also for their being able to come and contemplate the history of their country.

The hump in the background - what remains of Rebel trenches

As we left the site of the Bloody Angle we met a woman walking her small dog.  She had hair dyed a sort of copper and a hairstyle that reached back to the sixties.  As the sweat trickled down my face she told us that the weather was mild for this time of year.  We told her that you couldn't prove it by us; “We’re from San Francisco.”  She reacted as if we’d told her we were from Jupiter.  We talked a lot about the weather; ours and hers but we never touched on the subject that I wished I had.  What’s it like to walk here every day?  As we parted she warned us to watch out for the snakes.  They were particularly active – especially the copperheads.  That was almost enough to send Cora to the car.

Each of these fields has its own visitor’s center with displays and descriptions of the battles.  I breezed through much of it having read books about Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Yeah, four major battles in a relatively small area of Virginia.  The two armies had at it and then left, leaving the locals to deal with the damage and the dead.  Cora was riveted by the descriptions.

The Wilderness was a battle fought in a deep thick forest.  The smoke and thickets made visibility an impossibility and men often fired blindly.  It wasn't uncommon for the flammable black powder to ignite fires in dried growth often trapping the wounded.  Cora would read the narratives and then say to nobody in particular, “Oh my God, it’s so sad.” 

On the morning of April 9^th, 1865 Lee made one last attempt to avoid the entrapment of his Army of Northern Virginia by Federal forces.  When it was clear that the attempt had failed and that his army was surrounded Lee said, "Then there is nothing left for me to do but go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths."  At 1:30 in the afternoon at the home of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia the two commanders met.  Lee wore a clean dress uniform and Grant a muddy field tunic.  For three hours the two generals met, most of the time consumed in the writing out of terms that were easily and quickly agreed upon.  As the scene was described, the terms were nearly all settled when Grant glanced down at Lee’s dress sword and added that the side arms of officers would not be turned over.  As Lee left the building he put on his hat and returned the salutes of Union officers.  In an ironic twist it turned out that Wilmer McLean had previously owned a farm at Manassas Junction the site of the first major engagement of the war.  A shell went through one of his windows and so he moved his family to Appomattox where he hoped “the sound of battle would never reach them.”

Today the village of Appomattox Court House is a National Historic Park.  We walked the grounds on a steamy, humid Sunday.  We visited the courthouse itself and went down a dirt lane to the McLean house.  On the ground floor a park service guide was in a lively discussion with a visitor about the war.  It’s hard to say what furnishings and implements in the McLean house are authentic to that day.  Probably few.  After the surrender was signed and the home abandoned by Lee and Grant, Union officers pillaged the place for souvenirs.  As you stand at the edge of the parlor where the signing took place you can almost feel the walls exuding a mixture of sadness, joy and relief that must have filled that room. 

McLean House at Appomattox.  Site of Lee's surrender

In the end they were all of them Americans; as they were in the beginning. Like young men of every generation before and since, they joined for the glory, the chance to wear a fancy uniform; to embark on the great adventure.  For those who went into combat, the notion of adventure disappeared in the face of horror, destruction and death.  The uniforms, particularly those of the Confederates, lost their luster; in time they became tatters and worn out, sole-less shoes. They came from every walk of life; farmers, shopkeepers, politicians, educators.

There were ironies on the Confederate side.  Rebels closely tied to the revolutionaries who founded the nation they had now sundered. Before the American Revolution, Patrick Henry declared, "Give me liberty or give me death." His grandson, Thomas McLelland served as a captain in the Confederate 5th Virginia regiment. Another grandson Thomas Yullie served in the Confederate legislature.  George Randolph, the Confederate Secretary of War, was Thomas Jefferson's grandson. Robert E. Lee's grandfather was the American Revolution's hero, "Light -Horse" Harry Lee.

At the edge of the village of Appomattox Court House, in a tiny little yard surrounded by a wrought iron fence is a small Confederate cemetery.  Interred are 18 Confederate soldiers and one Union soldier. Thirteen months after the surrender was signed at Appomattox a ladies association was formed to insure the internment of soldiers who had not had a proper burial.  The land was donated by a Mr. John Sear and the men of the town built the coffins out of donated wood.  

Of the 19 graves, 11 headstones are marked “Unknown.”  As we drove out I felt compelled to get out and pay respects. Cora stayed in the car; “I’ll pray for them.”

Later Cora told me that at every battleground we visited she said a prayer and ended each with the words, “And let the perpetual light shine upon them.”