We crossed the Rappahannock River in mid-afternoon, under heavy sharpshooter’s fire. Our cannons had blasted them heavily, but the rabble stood their ground until late afternoon. We took them street by street and house by house, each block contested, as if it held the capital building itself. We chased and captured several shooters amongst the gardens, now filled with giant craters dug by our cannon fire. Buildings were ablaze and men began to loot, others loitered about, content to cheer our easy victory. Some time had passed since we’d seen such luxuries as soap, clean cloth, fruit, and fancy dishes. The officers did not put forth any effort to control the men, allowing them to crash alabaster vases, paintings, mirrors, books, and glassware into the streets. Some of us got to thinking; it was too easy taking the town. Shaking from the deep cold in our worn uniforms, we speculated; why did the enemy want us on this side of the river?
While we squandered ten days waiting for the Union pontoon boats to float down the Potomac, and men to haul them overland, the field situation changed. When General Burnside requested them, the heights above, lightly fortified by four companies of Rebels, with a light cavalry and some little artillery were manageable. While the boats traveled to us and as we crossed the river, under harassment, Lee put his 75,000 man, Army of Northern Virginia on good hills. We didn’t know it at the time, but we would soon feel the sting of every one of his reinforcements. While some men looted and the Union band played; Lee moved divisions, fortifying his front and flanks. As antique furniture fueled fires for warmth in town, two of Stonewall’s divisions moved up to join A. P. Hill and Longstreet positioned himself dead center in the field.
Another new commander was in charge of the Union Cause and we were in some despair over all the changes. It seemed Lincoln could not find one good, brave man to command his army. Too much pondering, stalling, planning, and ditch digging. In the first year, men empty of gumption and fearful of battle led us, now we waited to see what Burnside would do.
Finally, a decision of sorts was made and a division was sent out to seize the high ground beyond the town. If we’d been able to use our spying balloon, we could have seen the 30,000 men guarding the 3,000 yard-wide section of the field to the south, but we didn’t have the eyes of the eagle, or cavalry to inform us.
We common soldiers of the 88th New York could see the lay of the land and many of us wanted to run, even desert, but cowardice wasn’t in us, even then. I thought, “Let us fight, and let us prove ourselves Burnside, but not here, not on ground like this.” Facing high ground was always an undesirable sight, not to mention the bogs of swamp and tangled woods. The Rebels had taken the high ground and with it, the stone wall. The early morning fog thankfully protected our vision from the worst features of the field. Artillery had been set along the front lines and they could shoot ball or canister at us from a good range. Old Bobby Lee himself would not think our commander was foolish enough to order such a charge; but he did. Longstreet’s division was dug in left and we had met his boys before; they would not run. Directly in front, flew the colors of the Georgia brigade and to the north, Ransom’s 24th North Carolina boys sat entrenched.
The field, lined with twisted oaks and a large expanse of exposed space, held a flooded ditch with three narrow bridges, open tunnels we would be ordered to crowd through. Under cover of the town, we formed rows of blue men, rifles gleaming in the sunlight made stronger by the blazing glare of the new snow beneath; the thin air carried the beat of the young drummer boys, and the stench of our sweat mixed with the wool of our uniforms.
The terrible order came, “Forward,” and the color guard stepped ahead, honored souls carrying the stars and strips; perfect targets. Then, “March,” and we stepped a quick pace towards the dug in rows of the devil’s legions. We could not fire, too soon, too far. We walked only as targets, as the cannons cleared their voices of doom.
“Onward men,” the order came from a blur on a galloping horse, swiftly passing. “Hold your fire,” Kimball added down the line. Some boys, calmly optimistic, believed they would reach the wall. Others feeling disaster, were glad they mailed their final letters to loved ones last night. I, speculating the previous night on what was too come, had never conceived that I would feel this unimaginable terror.
The Rebel cannon continued their shots, now 300 yards close, and men fell to the right and left of me. Men I knew, boys I’d played cards and shared bad meals with, disappeared as if they had stepped off the edge of the earth and fallen into Lucifer’s pit. “Fill in,” the brigadier general yelled, and we stepped into the shadowy places of those fallen men, gaps twenty-foot wide. The strategy of war now surpassed by the art of new weaponry. We infantry were left with nothing, but to march forward. Knees shaking, I glanced around me. Shoulder to shoulder, I was encased in brave men, the braver for continuing this suicide charge. Pride filled me, to serve with such men.
The cannons so loud, we at first could not hear the screaming of men whose legs and arms had blown into the air. Some decapitated bodies fell forward, useless with no brain to control them. We stepped over body parts, slipped on gore, and still we marched forward. Our minds refusing to acknowledge what our eyes could see.
Horses fell hard and fast, their screams high-pitched, terrifying; hooves kicking out a final thrust of pain and energy, before their body understood that all was lost. They began to form a row of carcasses and presented a barrier to our goal, the wall, the wall. We regrouped, kept our line, and rushed forward, feeling a surge of energy and hope whispered to us, “almost there, almost there.”
Now the Rebels loaded the cannon with canister fire and shot rained down on us like a heavy hailstorm. The smell of shot filled our lungs, while the smoke stung our eyes, giving us an excuse for the wetness, swimming in our eyes. We turned our bodies, to make a smaller target and pulled our hats down low, to avoid the flying shells. An action as useless as closing your coat against a dragon’s blazing breath. My hands, numb with panic and the cold, unshouldered my rifle as the order rang, “Fix bayonets.” On we marched, fewer of us now, our lines thinning, we heard the order, “Doublequick,” and we sped up, rushing into hell.
To my right a gap opened and men were fighting man to man, pushing through knotted branches; shellfire everywhere, hitting the bark of trees and biting out chunks. Grunts of pain, moans of agony followed me as I stepped over human corpses wearing shocked faces. Now, 125 yards to the Confederate line, we faced the muddy slope, our boots slipping, sticking. I whispered a hurried prayer, “Lord, let me live.”
I heard an order shouted ahead of me, the Rebels stood from behind the four-foot high wall, four rows deep, their rifles shinning like an angel’s sword, and death aimed its power at me. Balls hit the air and men in front and behind me spun into the ground. Rifle smoke choked us, shouts unnerved us, and the hail of shot cut us down like a plow over wheat. A nick through my hat, a shot tore open my shoe, and a punch hit me in the gut. As I fell, another shot tore open my sleeve and blood flew out of me, spraying my face. I glanced up to see what my soldiers were achieving; they were gaining death, like me. I hit the ground and could feel the shock waves of cannon fire, and men’s rushing feet. The dirt was cold and covered with red snow. The freezing air helped to numb the pain, but not for long. I could not raise my head, the fire so thick above me, as to hit again the crown of my hat and send it off my head. The Sunken Road filled with bodies until we were stacked like cordwood. The lead so rained on us, dead bodies jerked and moved in a horrid dance of death. I wept then, my resolve to be a courageous soldier no longer necessary. I was not a menace to my enemy, but a human step for my brave boys that followed. Had I known the truth of the battle, that fourteen charges had failed that day after our first attempt, and that the Union quit only when General Burnside himself, weeping, was talked out of a final charge; I would not have stayed sane.
I came to; not sure what time had passed. The firing had stopped and the sun had set. Frost covered my uniform, making me appear a silvery figure of a grotesque stature. I rolled over; thinking the blood would stay in me longer face up, not realizing I was also bleeding from the back. My shirt was red and stiff and my right arm was useless. I franticly tried to move my other arm, searching for my wound. I undid my belt and opened my trousers, then felt under my shirt. The blood flowed from my left side, above the waist, and I knew no surgeon could fix this gut wound. I’d known the truth hours ago, but I could accept it now.
I raised my head and the ground was as a moving thing, like an ocean with waves thrashing over it. At first, I thought I was on a lake, wet, and floating. Then I turned my head and reason descended, I understood that the battlefield was so thick with wounded, it crawled. I looked to right, left, and was amazed to see we all lay in rows, neat and in a file, cut down in the formation we had charged in.
The pain was in my side and arm, but my heart held the worst misery. There, the agony of helpless cries filtered through me: “Water,” “Sweet Jenny,” whispers close: “Mercy,” “Mother,” cried around me, and I pleaded too, while knowing it was useless. I shivered and noticed I could see my breath freezing above me. I lay between two fallen sons of the Union. I edged in-between them, and made a bed surrounded by dead soldiers. One wore a heavy wool coat, reaching up with my one good hand; I flipped his lapel over a part of me. The other poor soul wore no such luxury and was of little use to me. I refused to gaze upon his face, afraid I would recognize him, sorrow heavy on me, I turned my head. Sandwiched between this cold stack of lifeless bodies, I wondered how long it would take, to bleed to death. I welcomed release from the agony and I prayed for it to come. I shouted, “Finish me!” but mercy denied me and my smothered cry blended with the thousands of others to form an unholy chorus of suffering.
The Union, was that what I was dying for, I couldn’t seem to remember. Visions visited me; my inscription from the state of New York, a march, a tent, a rotten biscuit, my recent twenty-first birthday, and a battlefield charge. I could not recall anything else. Oh, the slaves, were they free? I'd never seen one. I didn’t free anyone today, but my own tortured soul from its vented body. Did we save the Union? Was my family safe and my son guaranteed a free life, under one united country? Did we take that hill? What was it in that land that was worth this great amount of dying around me? Thank God, the truth a mystery to me, I did not know that with over 12,500 Union dead, not a single Union soldier reached that wall.
Not sure, losing control of both arms now, wet, I’m wet upon my face and out my toes, I’m flowing liquid. Mercy has answered my pleas after all.
Josh Cory knelt on the dusty attic floor, a look of awe lighting his face. He had found an old chest that was his dads, inherited from his father. It contained several interesting items. Old newspapers and magazines, some about President Kennedy’s death, some older, about the World Wars and at the bottom of the trunk lay copies of the Daily Journal from 1861 and 1862. Josh had never seen newspapers that old. Beside the stack of papers, wrapped around a Confederate States of America twenty-dollar bill, was a crusty piece of paper. Josh carefully opened it and in surprisingly neat handwriting the note said, “The enemies’ currency.” In a small wooden box lay an initialed pocketknife with a, “JC” neatly carved in the handle. It felt warm in Josh’s hands and it looked well used.
Josh moved the sliding papers aside and found a richer treasure, a stack of photos. Several groups of men, smoking cigars, holding tin cups, standing by tents, some sewing while others wrote letters. One photo was of a single man, sitting on a campstool, dressed in a Union uniform, staring back at Josh. The man’s coat had rows of shiny buttons and he held a fine Enfield rifle over his chest. His face was stern, as if he were trying to look fierce for the camera, but his eyes sparkled and his hair curled about his forehead. Josh turned the cardboard photograph over and it read: “Me,
1862". Under it, in pen, someone had written: “Granddad-Private Joshua Cory.”
“He has my name,” Josh whispered in awe.
“Josh, are you up there?” Mrs. Cory called.
“Yes, mom.”
“Well come down, its time to go,” she ordered.
Josh ran down the stairs, the photo still in his hands, “Mom look, I found an old picture and he has my name!”
“Let’s see, oh that’s your grandfather’s granddad. Your father named you after him. Were you in that old trunk?”
“Yea, there’s lots of cool stuff in there. Tell me about him, this man,” Josh said, holding up the photo.
“All I know is he died at Fredericksburg during the Civil War. Now get your coat, we’re going to be late,” she said.
“But mom, what else do you know about him?” Josh asked, disappointed.
“Nothing else, I never liked history.”
“Where is Fredericksburg and how did he die?” Josh asked.
“Down south and he was probably shot; now that’s enough. He was just an ordinary soldier, nothing special. He’s not famous and I never heard that he did anything important,” Mrs. Cory finished. “Now get in the car, we’re late for the game.”
“Well, I wish he’d lived through the war, I wish he had told someone his story,” Josh said, slamming the car door.
