After Fredericksburg—Reminiscences

The battle was indeed fought and finished, and although the triumph of victory rested with us, and the enemy was back in his lines, beaten and dispirited, yet it cannot be said that there had been achieved a result so decisive as to bring us near the end of the war.

We were caring for our dead. The enemy was to do so for his. They lay in great numbers on the plain. General Lee wrote Burnside and I carried the letter under a flag of truce through the town to the ferry, where was found a pontoon, and my men took me across. It was pitiful riding through the town, considerably damaged as it was by the artillery fire from Stafford Heights, but more still from the plundering and looting that had gone on while in possession of the United States troops. Furniture, bedding, mattresses, carpets, china, domestic utensils, indeed all that went to make up those comfortable homes, were strewn helter skelter, broken and ruined about the streets. The streets were filled with distressed women and children, both black and white. But we passed on—"C'est À la guerre comme À la guerre!" My pontoon landed me at the foot of a steep road that ascended the hill and I was immediately met by a number of officers in brilliant uniforms. For myself I must have been awfully shabby; never at any time given to military finery, while campaigning, I think I was worse off than usual here at Fredericksburg. The weather had been atrocious, and mud and I were closely acquainted day and night. There was, too, so much to do that one had no time for repairing damages.

But my reception by the Federal officers was extremely courteous while awaiting an answer to General Lee's missive, now on its way to Burnside, whose headquarters were near by.

There were Major-General Park, chief of staff to the army; Major-General Wadsworth (whom I was to see in eighteen months at the "Wilderness" under different circumstances); Brig.-Gen. Jim Hardie, and many others, all having some inquiries to make for friends on our side. General Wadsworth asked me how many dead I thought lay on our front. "I ask, Major," he said, "so as to make my burying parties strong enough."

I said: "I cannot possibly guess with any approach to accuracy. I have only ridden through the slain in front of Marye's Hill, and it seemed that there must be at least 800 there awaiting burial." "My God, my God!" groaned the old officer, deeply impressed by such mortality. Instead of 800, they buried nearly 1,200 men in that small front, besides some 300 in front of Jackson's position. General Burnside's answer soon came, and saluting my Federal acquaintances I was quickly on our own side of the river and the Federal commander's letter in Lee's possession.

Strong burial parties immediately came across for their ghastly duty. General Wadsworth was a wealthy, middle-aged man from the lovely Genesee Valley, New York, owning great tracts of land; but considered it his patriotic duty to raise some battalions for the army and did so, placing himself at their head. The Government showed him all honor, conferring at once high rank.

A day or two later it became necessary to see the Northerners again. Their burying parties were making hideous work with the dead soldiers; throwing them in heaps in shallow trenches, barely covered; filling the country ice houses and wells with them; indeed, doing this work most brutally for themselves, and intolerably for our citizens. General Lee called Burnside's attention to the revolting conduct of the latter's men and I went across the river, with also some verbal details.

The pontoon had been drawn in by the owners and was in the Union rear with the bridge train. There was naught to cross in except a broken, leaky little batteau that was found in a cellar. The river was smooth and one of my men managed to paddle the crazy thing safely across. There I was met by Colonel Brown, commanding a Rhode Island regiment on picket duty, who civilly invited me to the comfort of his camp fire while awaiting the communication from his army headquarters, now quite a distance off. I was detained some time, and the Colonel (a lawyer of high reputation from Providence, Rhode Island), had time for much general talk. At last, making my thanks and farewell, I started back, only to find my man at the river's edge almost frozen and the batteau sunk out of sight with darkness on us! A pretty kettle of fish, indeed! The water rough, wind strong, and already freezing. There was nothing for it but to take my man back with me to the picket and get a message to headquarters of my plight, with request of assistance to cross. After another considerable wait there came an officer and several mounted orderlies leading a good horse; this was for me. The officer brought a civil message from the adjutant-general regretting that they had nothing at hand to float (their pontoons being in the rear), and hoping I could be made comfortable for the night. Leaving my soldier to the good care of the friendly pickets, I mounted and was led to the large house on the hill, at that time in use as a hospital. There my escort left me and I found myself for the night in the great kitchen of the establishment, filled with bright warmth and savory smells of good food.

A blanket or two had to do me for bedding, but I was soon asleep, after the soldier cooks had given me food, always with full respect to rank and authority.

To see what they had, its quality, its abundance, filled one's heart with envy when contrasted with the doled-out, bare necessities of life the lot of our own uncomplaining fellows.

Here in this great kitchen were huge swinging vessels of odorous real coffee; immense chunks of fat, fresh beef of all parts of the animal; great slabs of dessicated vegetables, which, when thrown with knuckles of meat and good flesh into the boiling cauldron, puffed out, swelling each vegetable into something like freshness, and then with free dashes of salt and pepper, behold, a soup of strength and tastiness fit for Faint Heart to fight on. They gave me of it all and I tasted all, sleeping well and early up. My man, who had fared well too, was soon at hand, and the boat raised, bailed out, landed us safely on our own bank. The soldier with me was Jesse Beall, private from Milledgeville in a Georgia regiment. I was disposed at first to be vexed by such rough lodgings (a parlementaire being entitled to the best), but Colonel Kip explained that there was really nothing else to be done at that hour of night. Of course they could not carry me through the lines to their own comfortable staff quarters in the rear.

Many years after, hearing that there was in Savannah, passing through, a Colonel Brown, of Rhode Island, with his wife, I called on him. It proved to be my friend of the picket fire, and his wife, with much enthusiasm, declared he had spoken of the incident fifty times. Colonel Brown had some more talk this time, quite free, and like very many Union officers marveled why they were not attacked after a repulse so bloody and disastrous. He said that want of ammunition could only explain it to him. Brown was a middle aged, delicate man, a member of the well-known Brown family of Rhode Island.

He said he had raised his regiment from patriotic convictions and carried it through the battle of Fredericksburg; then he gave way to younger, stronger men and resigned. He was a broad, fair-minded man, with no deep prejudices against the South. Next year he died, his townsmen showing in every way the honor and respect in which he was held.

The First Georgia Regulars were posted at Hamilton's Crossing, near Fredericksburg, and had its ranks much thinned by the casualties of several campaigns. It could not be recruited like other regiments, being enlisted from all parts, and the Department therefore ordered it home to fill its ranks.

I rode myself, orders in hand, to its camp. I had many friends among the officers and knew how delighted they would be; and so it was, a wild shout of happiness at seeing old Georgia again, and the skeleton battalion began packing almost immediately for the route. After doing some enlistment it took an honorable part in the battle of Olustee, fought in Florida. Lieutenant Sorrel was with them until a captain's commission in the Adjutant-General's Department sent him to report in Virginia to Gen. John Bratton's South Carolina Brigade.

I was in Europe in the summer of 1860, and traveled on the continent a few weeks with George Cuthbert, of Beaufort, South Carolina. He was a pleasant fellow, and handsome, of good height and figure, and the fairest blonde, with beautiful blue eyes. Even in fair-haired Saxony, people turned to look at him.

The war broke out and I did not know where Cuthbert would be serving. One day, however, in the winter of 1862-63, riding by the lines of one of our South Carolina regiments, up rose Cuthbert, and I was immediately on my feet beside him. He was a line captain, had been wounded, and was at the moment as shabby a Confederate soldier as could be found anywhere. Razors had been discarded, and the German girls who liked to look at the handsome Southerner would not have deigned him a glance. I resolved to do something for his advancement, but the channels were such that I could not get him out of them. Soon after, however, an order came from Richmond to detail 160 shoemakers for the use of the Quartermaster-General—such was the stress we were in for shoes. Half the detail was ordered from Jackson's corps and half from Longstreet's. I sent out orders for our eighty crispins, and when they were picked out of the whole corps, word was given to Captain Cuthbert to report at corps headquarters and a brief colloquy opened.

"I say, Cuthbert, would you like to go to Richmond?" "Wouldn't I!—clean clothes, soap, a bath and a shave!" "Eighty shoemakers are to be taken there by rail and then turned over to the Quartermaster-General, and an officer must take the detail. Will you have it?" "My dear Sorrel, give it to me; for God's sake, give it to me—such a change after my long trench service. I'd land them safely with the Q. M. G. if they were eighty raving demons instead of the happy fellows they doubtless are in getting such a detail." "All right, old chap, take your fellows off by train to-morrow; here are the orders. And I say, Cuthbert, while you are in Richmond don't hurry too much; you can make the duty last you a week or ten days."

He was very grateful for being thought of, performed his work satisfactorily, and then enjoyed himself hugely.

I was glad to think of this later, since he was one of many personal friends who gave up his life in battle. The incident also illustrated the great straits the Confederate supply department was in to keep the troops equipped for the field. This was especially the case with shoes.