CHAPTER XI.
BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.
Dec., 1862.
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, rolling 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 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 attempted 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 their fire 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 are killed or wounded. These were sacrifices of life with nothing gained. It was soul-inspiring to witness such heroic devotion, but heart-sickening to stand on the bank and see them slaughtered,—their blood turning to crimson the turbid waters of the Rappahannock.
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.