Vermont riflemen in the war for the union, 1861 to 1865 / A history of Company F, First United States sharp shooters

by William Young Warren Ripley

Whether they were right or wrong, they regretted the change most deeply, and in this general feeling the sharp shooters stood with the great mass of the army.

While they were always ready with a prompt obedience and hearty support of their later commanders, the regiment never cheered a general officer after McClellan left the head of the Army of the Potomac.

After a few days of rest at Warrenton to allow Gen. Burnside to get the reins well in hand, the army was put in motion towards Fredericksburgh where they arrived on or about the 23d of November. While at Warrenton Gen. Burnside effected a complete reorganization of the army, on a plan which he had been pressing upon the notice of his superiors for some time. The entire army was divided into three Grand Divisions, the right under Sumner, the center under Hooker, and the left under Franklin. The Fifth Corps formed part of the Center Grand Division under Gen. Hooker, and at about the same time Gen. F. J. Porter, who had been its commander since its organization while the army lay before Yorktown during the preceding April, was relieved from his command and was succeeded by Gen. Dan'l Butterfield.

Gen. Burnside, having been disappointed in finding his ponton trains, on which he depended for a rapid passage to the south bank of the Rappahannock, ready on his arrival at Falmouth, was constrained to attempt to force a passage in the face of Lee's now concentrated army. The position was one well calculated to dampen the ardor of the troops now so accustomed to warfare as to be able to weigh the chances of success or failure as accurately as their commanders, and to judge quickly of the value to their cause of that for which they were asked to offer up their lives, but they undertook the task as cheerfully and as willingly as though it had been far less uncertain and perilous. The Rappahannock at this point is bordered by opposing ranges of hills; that on the left bank, occupied by the troops of the Union and called Stafford heights, rising quite abruptly from the river bank; while on the southern shore the line of hills, called Marye's heights, recedes from the river from six hundred to two thousand yards, the intervening ground being generally open and, although somewhat broken, affording very little shelter from the fire of the Confederate batteries posted on Marye's heights. On the plain and near the river stands the village of Fredericksburgh.

During the night of the 10th of December Gen. Burnside placed in position on Stafford heights a powerful array of guns, under cover of whose fire he determined to attempt the passage of the river at that point, while to the Left Grand Division under Franklin was assigned the task of forcing a passage at a point some two miles lower down. On the night of the 11th attempts were made to lay the ponton bridges at a point opposite the town. The enemy, however, well warned, posted a strong force of riflemen in the houses and behind the stone walls bordering the river, whose sharp fire so seriously impeded the efforts of the engineers that they were forced to retire. The guns on Stafford heights were opened on the town, and for nearly two hours one hundred and fifty guns poured their shot and shell upon the devoted town. Each gun was estimated to have fired fifty rounds; but at the close of the bombardment the annoying riflemen were still there. Three regiments were now thrown across the river in ponton boats, and after a severe fight in the streets of the town, and after heavy loss of men, succeeded in dislodging the enemy, and the bridges were completed. Of course a surprise, upon which Burnside seems to have counted, was now out of the question; but urged on by the voice of the North, whose sole idea at that time seemed to be that their generals should only fight—anywhere, under all circumstances and at all times—he threw Sumner's Grand Division over the river and determined to try the issue of a general battle.

The Center Grand Division, under Hooker, were held on the left bank of the river and were thus unengaged in the earlier portion of that terrible day; but from their position on Stafford heights, the sharp shooters were eye witnesses to the terrible struggle in which their comrades were engaged on the plain below—where Hancock's gallant division, in their desperate charge upon the stone wall at the foot of Marye's height, lost two thousand men out of the five thousand engaged in less than fifteen immortal minutes, and where a total of twelve thousand, three hundred and twenty-nine Union soldiers fell in the different assaults; assaults that every man engaged knew were utterly hopeless and vain; but to the everlasting honor of the Army of the Potomac be it said that, although they well knew the task an impossible one, they responded again and again to the call to advance, until Burnside himself, at last convinced of the hopelessness of the undertaking, suspended further effort.

During the day Griffin and Humphrey's divisions of the Fifth Corps, and Whipple's of the Third, all belonging to the Center Grand Division, were ordered over the river to renew the attack which had been so disastrous to the men of the Second and Ninth Corps. Hooker in person accompanied this relieving column, and after a careful personal inspection of the field, convinced of the uselessness of further effort in that direction, sought to persuade the commanding general to abandon the attack.

Burnside, however, clung to the hope that repeated attacks must at last result in a disruption of the enemy's line at some point, and the brave men of the old Fifth were in their turn hurled against that position which had been found impossible to carry by those who had preceded them. Griffin and Humphrey's divisions fought their way to a point farther advanced than had been reached in former attempts, some of the men falling within twenty-five yards of the enemy's line, but they were unable to reach it and were compelled to retire. It was clearly impossible to carry the position. Hooker's educated eye had seen this from the first, hence his unavailing suggestion before the useless slaughter. His report contains the following grim lines: "Finding that I had lost as many men as my orders required me to lose, * * * I suspended the attack." With his repulse the battle of Fredericksburgh substantially closed. The sharp shooters were not ordered to cross the river on the thirteenth, and thus had no share in that day's fighting and no casualties to report. On the early morning of the fourteenth, however, the remainder of the Center Grand Division crossed to the south bank, remaining in the streets of the town until the night of the fifteenth, when the sharp shooters relieved the advanced pickets in front of the heights, where considerable firing occurred during the night, the opposing lines being very near each other. The ground was thickly covered with the bodies of the gallant men who had fallen in the several assaults, lying in every conceivable position on the field, gory and distorted. How many of the readers of this book will make it real to themselves what gore is? A familiar and easily spoken word, but a dreadful thing in reality, that mass of clotted, gelatinous purple oozing from mortal wounds.

Such things are rarely noted in the actual heat of the battle, but to occupy such a field after the fury of the strife is over is enough to unman the stoutest heart, and many a brave man, who can coolly face the actual danger, turns deathly sick as he looks upon the result as shown in the mangled and blood stained forms of those who were so lately his comrades and friends. During the night the army was withdrawn to the north bank, and just before daylight the sharp shooters were called in. So close were the lines that great caution was necessary to keep the movement from the sharp eyes of the peering rebel pickets. To aid in deceiving the enemy the bodies of the dead were propped up so as to represent the presence of the picket line when daylight should appear. The ruse was successful, and the sharp shooters were safely withdrawn to the town. They were the last troops on this portion of the field, and on arriving at the head of the bridge found that the planking had been so far removed as to render the bridge impassable. They had, therefore, to remain until the engineers could relay sufficient of the planks to enable them to cross. In their retreat through the town they picked up and brought away about one hundred and fifty stragglers and slightly wounded men who had been left behind by other commands. The Army of the Potomac was again on the north bank of the Rappahannock. They had fought bravely in an assault which they had known was hopeless; they had left behind them twelve thousand of their comrades and gained absolutely nothing. The loss which they had inflicted bore no proportion to that which they had suffered; what wonder, then, if for a time officers and men alike almost despaired of the cause of the Union? This feeling of depression and discouragement was, however, of short duration. The men who composed the Army of the Potomac were in the field for a certain well defined purpose, and until that purpose was fully accomplished they intended to remain. No reverse could long chill their ardor or dampen their splendid courage. Defeated to-day, to-morrow would find them as ready to do and dare again as though no reverse had overtaken them.

Thus it was that after a few days of rest the army was ready for whatever task its commander might set for it. The sharp shooters remained quietly in their camp until the 30th of December, when they accompanied a detachment of cavalry on a reconnoissance northwardly along the line of the Rappahannock to Richard's Ford, some ten miles above Falmouth. The cavalry crossed the river at this point, covered by the fire of the sharp shooters; a few prisoners were taken, and on the 1st of January, 1863, the command returned to their comfortable camp near Falmouth, where they were agreeably surprised to find the Second Regiment of Sharp Shooters, and among them, two other companies from Vermont. The little band of Green Mountain boys composing Co. F had sometimes felt a little lonesome for the want of congenial society, and hailed the advent of their fellow Vermonters gladly.