Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town. Goolrick John Tackett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to give promise of its brilliant future, a time when the country was young and weak, but when manhood was strong and courage held high the torch of hope, Fredericksburg looks forward to the future with eager longing, confident that in the mirror of its past is the story of the time to come.

      War’s Worst Horrors

Shelled by 181 guns for hours, the town becomes a crumbled ruin

      Fredericksburg is the point through which the railway and the roads to Richmond pass, and is half way between Washington and the Southern city. During the Civil war the possession of the town was an advantage not to be despised, and so from the beginning the two great armies of the North and South were contenders for the town.

      The first attempt toward Fredericksburg was made June 1, 1861, when Federal gunboats and a small cavalry force were defeated, in an attempt to land troops at Aquia Creek, by General Daniel Ruggles, C. S. A., in command of the Department of Fredericksburg. This was the first skirmish of the war, in Virginia, and occurred nine days before “Big Bethel” and seven weeks after Virginia seceded.

      On the nineteenth of April, 1862, the Stafford hills were taken by the Federals, and on April 27th General Marsena R. Patrick marched troops into the town and placed it under military rule. General Patrick treated the citizens with consideration and under his rule there was but little complaint of oppression. He was, in fact, generally admired for his fair treatment of the populace.

      But with the coming of the conceited and inhuman General Pope, who followed McClellan in command of the Federal army, all that was changed. From that time forward this quiet old city between the hills, with its splendid homes, its old silver and china and tapistry and paintings, its great trees and broad streets, was to know every cruelty, horror, and depredation of war.

In the Enemy’s Hands

      General Pope, driven back by the Confederates, moved through Fauquier and Culpeper counties to Fredericksburg, and immediately upon securing the town, his subordinates scoured the city and arrested nineteen of the most prominent men, alleging no crime but stating frankly that it was done in reprisal for the arrest by the Confederates of Major Charles Williams of Fredericksburg, who was held in Richmond to prevent him from aiding the enemy. These men were sent to the old Capital Prison at Washington, where they were held from early in August to late September in 1862, and were then released in exchange for Major Williams and others. There were Rev. W. F. Broaddus, D. D., James McGuire, Charles Welford, Thomas F. Knox, Beverly T. Gill, James H. Bradley, Thomas B. Barton, Benjamin Temple, Lewis Wrenn, Michael Ames, John Coakley, John H. Roberts, John J. Berrey, Dr. James Cooke, John F. Scott, Montgomery Slaughter, (Mayor), George H. C. Rowe, Wm. H. Norton, Abraham Cox.

      Fredericksburg was evacuated in August, 1862, when the Northern soldiers were drawn up in line and marched out of town. A great burden was lifted from the community. Heavy explosions marked the blowing up of the two bridges. On September 4th, an advance guard of Confederate cavalry rode into the town amid shouts of welcome.

      The relief was but for a short period. On November 10th, Captain Dalgren’s (Federal) dragoons crossed the river above Falmouth and clattered down Main street and met a small force of Confederates under Col. Critcher, who drove them back. But General Burnside’s whole army was following and in a few days held the Stafford hills.

      Fredericksburg and the country immediately about it was fought over, marched over, shelled and ravaged and desolated. The town became a dreary military outpost of battered, falling walls and charred timbers, of soldiers, now in gray, now in blue. Under its streets and in yards hundreds of dead were buried to be now and again, in after years, unearthed. No other American city ever suffered as did this formerly prosperous town.

      The situation, from a military standpoint, was this: Southeastward of the city the Rappahannock broadens, so that it is not easily bridged, and if an army crossed, it still would have to get to Richmond. Northwest (and much nearer west than north) of the city, the Rappahannock is fordable, but its course is away from Richmond, and the roads to Richmond again lead back toward the rear of Fredericksburg.

      There were, therefore, but two feasible plans for the North to accomplish its “on to Richmond” purpose. One was to take Fredericksburg and with it the roads and railway to Richmond; Burnside tried this. The other, to cross the river just above, and get in the rear of Fredericksburg, thus getting the roads and railways to Richmond; Hooker and Grant tried this.

Threats of Bombardment

      On November 20th, General Sumner peremptorily demanded the surrender of the town, under threat of immediate bombardment, but on receiving a request from Mayor Slaughter, he consented to extend the time twenty-four hours and sent General Patrick across the river with a message, as follows:

      “Gentlemen: Under cover of the houses of your town, shots have been fired upon the troops of my command. Your mills and factories are furnishing provisions and materials for clothing for armed bodies in rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States. Your railroads and other means of transportation are removing supplies to the depot of such troops. This condition of things must terminate; and by direction of Major-General Burnside, commanding this army, I accordingly demand the surrender of this city into my hands, as a representative of the Government of the United States, at or before five o’clock this afternoon (five o’clock P. M. to-day). Failing an affirmative reply to this demand by the time indicated, sixteen hours will be permitted to elapse for the removal from the city of women and children, the sick, wounded, and aged; which period having elapsed, I shall proceed to shell the town.

      “Upon obtaining possession of the town, every necessary means will be taken to preserve order and to secure the protective operation of the laws and policy of the United States Government.”

      While General Patrick waited from 10:00 A. M. until 7:00 P. M. (November 21) in a log house at French John’s Wharf, the note was passed through the hands of a civic committee who had previously met General Lee at “Snowden,” (now the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Baldwin) on which were: Mayor Slaughter, William A. Little and Douglas H. Gordon. A note from General Lee was then transmitted to the town officials by General J. E. B. Stuart. This Mayor Slaughter, Dr. Wm. S. Scott and Samuel Harrison delivered late in the afternoon to General Patrick. General Lee simply said the town was non-combatant; that he would not occupy it, nor would he allow any one else to occupy it.

The Citizens Driven Out

      Advised by General Lee, the inhabitants of the town now began to refugee to the rear. They went in the dark, in a snow storm, afoot, in vehicles and some in a railway train, upon which the Northern guns opened heavy fire. They slept in barns, cabins and the homes of country people, and left behind their silverware and fine old china, their paintings and portraits and every kind of property, all of which was doomed to destruction.

      But the town was not shelled and a few at a time many of the old men and the women, the boys and girls, crept back from impossible shelters in the country to their homes in the town.

      Then, twenty-two days later, at dawn of December 11th, at a signal from the “Long Tom” on Scott’s Hill, at Falmouth, Burnside opened on the town, now half full of residents, with one hundred and eighty-one guns. The guns were placed along Stafford Heights from the Washington Farm to Falmouth, and the whole fire was concentrated on the town, where walls toppled, fires sprang up and chaos reigned.

      Frequently the Union gunners fired a hundred guns a minute, round shot, case shot and shell. The quick puffs of smoke, touched in the center with flame, ran incessantly along the hills and a vast thunder echoed thirty miles away. Soon the town was under a pall of smoke, through which lifted the white spires of the churches.

      “The scenes following the bombardment,” says John Esten Cooke, in “Jackson,” “were cruel. Men, women and children were driven from town. Hundreds of ladies and children were seen wandering homeless over the frozen highways, with СКАЧАТЬ