Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

CIVIL WAR AMERICA

Gary W. Gallagher, editor

Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

George C. Rable

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

Chapel Hill & London

© 2002

The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Designed by Richard Hendel

Set in Charter and Champion types

by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rable, George C.

Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! / by George C. Rable.

p. cm. — (Civil War America)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8078-2673-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Fredericksburg (Va.), Battle of, 1862. I. Title. II. Series.

E474.85.R24 2002

973.7′33—dc21         2001027915

06 05 04 03 02 5 4 3 2 1

For, as always,

Kay, Anne, and Katie,

and with deep gratitude

for colleagues at

Anderson University (1979–1998)

and the

University of Alabama (1998– )

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1. Armies

Chapter 2. Politics

Chapter 3. Strategy

Chapter 4. Marching

Chapter 5. Delay

Chapter 6. Camp

Chapter 7. History

Chapter 8. Discontent

Chapter 9. Preparations

Chapter 10. Crossing

Chapter 11. Orders

Chapter 12. Artillery

Chapter 13. Breakthrough

Chapter 14. Attack

Chapter 15. Perseverance

Chapter 16. Futility

Chapter 17. Retreat

Chapter 18. Carnage

Chapter 19. Wounds

Chapter 20. News

Chapter 21. Recrimination

Chapter 22. Winter

Chapter 23. Freedom

Chapter 24. Morale

Chapter 25. Mud

Epilogue

Order of Battle

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Maps & Illustrations

MAPS

Fredericksburg battlefield, dawn, December 13 xvi

Theater of operations 10

March to Fredericksburg 67

The armies on December 10 149

Meade’s attack and breakthrough, December 13, noon–1:00 P.M. 206

The Confederates stop Meade’s and Gibbon’s attacks, December 13, 1:00–2:00 P.M. 211

French’s and Hancock’s assaults against the Confederate left, December 13, noon–1:00 P.M. 223

Howard, Sturgis, and Griffin support the attacks on the Confederate left, December 13, 2:00–3:00 P.M. 240

Confederate counterattack against the Federal left begins, December 13, 2:00–3:00 P.M. 245

ILLUSTRATIONS

President Abraham Lincoln and Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan meet after Antietam 8

Gen. Robert E. Lee 21

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet 22

Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson 23

Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside 51

Burnside profile, American Phrenological Journal, March 1862 54

Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck 58

Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner 59

Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin 60

Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker 61

Aquia Creek and Fredericksburg Railroad, construction crew at work 65

Aquia Creek Landing, Virginia, wharf, boat, and supplies 66

Confederate president Jefferson Davis 76

Fredericksburg, Virginia, from the east bank of the Rappahannock River 85

Thanksgiving in Camp 120

Fredericksburg, Virginia, showing destroyed railroad bridge and Confederate troops 148

Alfred Waud, 50th [N.Y.] Engineers Building Pontoon Bridge at Fredericksburg 159

Destruction in Fredericksburg 163

David English Henderson, Departure from Fredericksburg before the Bombardment 167

Stone wall at the base of Marye’s Heights 220

Secretary of State William H. Seward 331

Christmas Eve 369

Alfred Waud, The Mud March 416

David English Henderson, The Return to Fredericksburg after the Battle 428

Acknowledgments

Any project that began so many years ago—in 1992, to be precise—is bound to accumulate a host of debts. It is not surprising that my first research stop was the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where Robert K. Krick has assembled a superb collection and equally valuable staff. The red and blue bound volumes in one corner of Bob’s office contain copies of innumerable documents related to the important battles fought in the area and much more. Bob is unfailingly generous in making these treasures available to researchers, and as an extra bonus, visitors standing at the copy machine receive a steady stream of acerbic Krickian observations on all manner of things. Donald Pfanz also shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the collections, encouraged me to look at unprocessed documents in his office, and conducted an invaluable tour of the Marye’s Heights area, including a successful search for the railroad cut where so many Federals faced, as they would have said, galling Confederate fire. Once my writing was under way, Donald kindly agreed to read the battle-related chapters and made many useful suggestions. Noel Harrison enthusiastically shared his wonderfully detailed knowledge of the local area and sites. Frank O’Reilly conducted an excellent tour of the area occupied by the Federal left and Confederate right that he so expertly treated in the best tactical study available on any phase of the campaign.

At the United States Army Military History Institute, Richard Sommers kept hauling out manuscript boxes and patiently worked with this neophyte military historian. A Mellon Fellowship from the Virginia Historical Society allowed for a very productive week of research in Richmond, where Nelson Lankford, Frances Pollard, and Graham Dozier made working with their collections easy and pleasant. As usual, the staffs in Special Collections at Duke University and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina provided outstanding service. I also received excellent assistance at the William L. Clements and Bentley Historical Libraries at the University of Michigan. At the Library of Congress the staff efficiently answered questions and kept the manuscripts coming, despite being flooded with historians in town for a professional meeting. All across the country, archivists and librarians proved almost unfailingly helpful in responding to requests for information and photocopies.

Eric Walther proved to be a boon companion on a research trip to North Carolina, where he almost always chose good restaurants. At Anderson University two student secretaries, Kim Baker and Lori Miller, helped compile information on regimental casualties. As always, my great friend and former department chair at Anderson, J. Douglas Nelson, took a great interest in this project and in me. Doug knows very little about Civil War history, but this did not prevent him from commenting on this book or sending a few gentle barbs in my direction. I suppose the infamous Lunch Bunch at Anderson University deserve some acknowledgment for their fellowship and good cheer, but they are—both present and former members—a strange group of human beings. Nancy Leonard, Robert Kenzer, and Guy Hubbs kindly supplied some helpful research materials. A good friend, Phil Lambooy, provided much encouragement over the years as well as some valuable citations on religious materials. Three old LSU buddies, Marius Carriere, Chip Dawson, and Frank Wetta, asked some stimulating and often irreverent questions as we gathered each year for the Southern Historical Association annual meeting. Daniel Sutherland generously shared notes and photocopies from his own research on the Fredericksburg campaign. As is his wont, T. Michael Parrish kept my mailbox filled with fugitive sources and citations that I would never have found without his sharp eye and warm interest. Gretchen Schneider and her staff at the East Central Indiana Library Services Administration cheerfully and efficiently handled numerous interlibrary loan requests. William Marvel—a fine historian and generous friend—shared much Burnside material and answered many questions about the campaign. Bill will not entirely agree with my interpretation of Burnside, but his efforts have shaped my thinking on the entire project.

Financial support from the Falls Faculty Development Fund at Anderson University and the Summersell Fund in Southern History at the University of Alabama helped defray travel and photocopying expenses.

Several talented people provided useful readings. Carol Reardon carefully critiqued the prologue. Three friends and colleagues at the University of Alabama lent their expertise to the project. Forrest McDonald offered some shrewd and invaluable advice on the Freedom chapter and introduced me to the Bowers Park tennis crowd. Howard Jones read the diplomatic history sections and always took a great interest in the project. Lawrence F. Kohl set me straight on the Irish Brigade and shared many insights on the Civil War in general. Lectures at Ohio State University and Pennsylvania State University provided early opportunities to test ideas about developing a new kind of campaign study. A shortened version of the chapter on the sack of Fredericksburg appeared in North and South magazine, edited by Keith Poulter. An invitation from James Marten to deliver the Frank L. Klement Lecture at Marquette University—parts of which appear in Chapters 20 and 21—forced me to rethink the question of how battle news was communicated and interpreted.

A number of years ago Gary W. Gallagher asked me to do an essay on the battle’s carnage for the Fredericksburg volume in his renowned Military Campaigns of the Civil War series. Since then his steady encouragement, valued friendship, and most recently, careful reading of the entire manuscript has helped bring this project to fruition. An anonymous reader for the University of North Carolina Press provided positive and helpful suggestions for one last round of cuts. At the University of North Carolina Press David Perry offered much support and encouragement from the beginning and did not wince too much over the manuscript’s length. As the book moved through editing and production, Ron Maner managed all the nagging details with friendly patience and remarkable efficiency. Stephanie Wenzel expertly copyedited the manuscript. Two old friends performed yeoman service. A. Wilson Greene read every page and offered sound advice on matters large and small. His recommendations forced me to tighten many chapters and to explain better the purpose of the entire manuscript, though his unfailing friendship and entertaining letters have been even more appreciated. In addition, Will and Maggie Greene warmly welcomed me to their home during several research trips. Thomas E. Schott dragged me into the age of electronic editing, but more importantly, his incredible editorial skills and willingness to plow through hefty manuscripts continue to amaze me and far exceed the obligations of even a long friendship.

My wife, Kay, patiently listened to many tales of Fredericksburg without getting too bored. Many of the more obscure titles cited in the notes and bibliography are there because of her superb skills as an interlibrary loan librarian. Daughters Anne and Katie briefly visited the Fredericksburg battlefield once, without much enthusiasm. They along with Kay have often reminded me over the years about what is truly important. The dedication expresses only a small part of my debt to them as well as to many colleagues over the years who have enriched the lives of students while offering their friendship and example to an appreciative historian who has often needed their guidance and encouragement.

Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!

Fredericksburg battlefield, dawn, December 13

Prologue

About three in the afternoon on that hot July day, the men in gray and butternut emerged from the woods and hollows near Seminary Ridge. With skirmishers in advance, they moved out smartly, confident they could once again whip the Yankees. They marched toward the Emmitsburg road and would converge on a clump of trees and a sharp angle in a stone wall on Cemetery Ridge. Only 13,000 they were, and yet they would have to cross three-quarters of a mile of gently rolling land to assault a formidable and well-prepared enemy.

Those soldiers, the men of Winfield Scott Hancock’s Second Corps—resting a bit after an earlier Confederate artillery barrage—beheld a stunning and magnificent and unforgettable sight: lines of troops moving across the undulating fields and climbing over fences, stopping to realign where the ground offered protection. Federal batteries began ripping the oncoming Rebs with shell and shrapnel. As the Confederates neared the Emmitsburg road, canister tore holes in the lines. Under this intense fire, the troops of James J. Pettigrew’s and George E. Pickett’s Divisions along with Isaac Trimble’s two brigades began losing their formations. Yet they continued to advance, their objective now in sight and seemingly in reach.

Most of the veterans on Cemetery Ridge knew how to prepare for what they termed hot work. As Pettigrew’s men crossed the Emmitsburg road and headed straight toward the stone wall north of the angle, soldiers from the 14th Connecticut poured a withering fire into them. Give them Hell, Sgt. Benjamin Hirst hollered. Now We’ve got you. Sock it to the Blasted Rebels. Fredericksburg on the other Leg.¹ To the south, Pickett’s men also closed in on their objective. Except for a few sporadic shots, Alexander Hays’s and John Gibbon’s divisions held their fire until the Rebels got to within 300 or 400 feet of their line. With some skillful maneuvering and improvisation, they then poured their rounds into the front and both flanks of the still-advancing Confederates. As New Yorkers and Ohioans curled around Pettigrew’s left and some Vermont troops swept down on the Confederate right, brigades from Pickett’s Division became badly intermingled. The swirling mass nevertheless pushed toward some rocky ground just south and west of the clump of trees, a section of the Union line held by two brigades of Gibbon’s division. With the Confederates no more than 100 feet away, men from the 20th Massachusetts rose and fired. We were feeling all the enthusiasm of victory, Capt. Henry L. Abbott reported, the men shouting out, ‘Fredericksburg,’ imagining the victory as complete all along the line. The moment I saw them [the Confederates] I knew we should give them Fredericksburg, Abbott later told his father.²

It seems curious that in the midst of this desperate struggle, with the issue still in doubt, soldiers would suddenly invoke memories of a battle fought more than six months earlier. But both Federal regiments had good reason for recalling Fredericksburg. On December 11, 1862, Abbott’s 20th Massachusetts had crossed the Rappahannock River under fire to secure a bridgehead for the army’s long-delayed pontoons. The regiment had taken more casualties in street fighting with some tenacious Mississippians than it would suffer at Gettysburg. On December 13 Hirst’s 14th Connecticut, among the first regiments to charge the Confederate defenses on the outskirts of Fredericksburg, got cut to pieces. For these New England boys, Fredericksburg had been far bloodier work than Gettysburg.³ On the afternoon of July 3, 1863, both regiments could exact revenge on the Rebels, visiting upon them the same horrors the bluecoats had experienced at Fredericksburg.

Too often historians operating largely from hindsight have treated Fredericksburg as a large, costly, but not especially significant battle. Contemporaries viewed this engagement much differently, in ways ranging from the mundane to the metaphysical. For the Army of the Potomac and for the whole northern war effort, Fredericksburg was a nadir. The shouts of Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg did not merely reopen old wounds or relieve old frustrations; these cries summoned a host of memories for both sides. Fredericksburg had come to signify both courage and carnage, a costly and, some might say, meaningless valor. Recriminations, exultation, and most of all death dominated recollections of what had happened back in December.

The influence of the departed George B. McClellan remained with the Army of the Potomac; his most ardent friends, including a number of high-ranking officers, were still convinced that only Little Mac could effectively lead them. On the Confederate side, Robert E. Lee and his army seemed nearly invincible after their easy victory at Fredericksburg. There was also the hapless Ambrose E. Burnside, modest and likable, to be sure, and perhaps a victim of military and political intrigue. Doubts about his ability to command an army grew and festered, leaving deep demoralization and political trouble in their wake. Heavy questions of responsibility weighed down the army and the entire North.

For the soldiers, thinking about Fredericksburg and its aftermath stirred up painful memories of a winter campaign: hard marches in cold rain, wet clothes and blankets and shelter tents, smoky shanties, short rations, and cheerless holidays. There had been temporary logistical problems in the northern army, and more intractable and ominous shortages among the Confederates. Snow, sudden freezes, rapid thaws, and mud had only aggravated the loneliness of camp life and worries about home. For the Federals, massive bloodshed wedged between Thanksgiving and Christmas raised troubling doubts about God’s will and, for the Confederates, prompted cock-sure assertions of divine favor.

The agony, suffering, uncertainty, regrets, and assessments of defeat and victory extended far beyond the battlefield. Dead officers were sent home for burial. The wounded crowded the Washington hospitals, while Richmond received its own share of sufferers along with many refugees from Fredericksburg itself. It would be a tough winter in the Confederacy. Signs of civilian disaffection and political unrest became more evident, while manpower and supply problems refused to go away. Across the northern states, news of yet another disastrous defeat spread like a great smothering blanket. Republicans had fared poorly in the recent state and congressional elections; Abraham Lincoln had grown depressed, his leadership uncertain and tentative. Even his seemingly deft handling of a cabinet crisis only a few days after the battle and the final Emancipation Proclamation could not quiet nagging doubts about the administration. The rising price of gold in New York, talk of a negotiated settlement, the growing confidence of Peace Democrats, and nervous reactions in London, Paris, and even Vienna and St. Petersburg made the repercussions of Fredericksburg hard to exaggerate but also tricky to gauge. Were the Army of the Potomac and the northern public really so demoralized as they appeared? Was Burnside finished? Would McClellan return? Would Lincoln’s government collapse?

Battles are never isolated events, and the rippling effects of Fredericksburg respected few boundaries.⁴ Herman Melville wrote a poem, Louisa May Alcott tended the wounded, Walt Whitman visited the Union camps near Falmouth, and in London Karl Marx fumed over Burnside’s failure. Generals and common soldiers alike worried about the future as they shivered in winter quarters. Rumors, speculation, orders issued and canceled, and late or no pay all sapped morale. The Confederates fared no better in their equally squalid camps, but they exuded optimism to the point of overconfidence.

Whatever the despair over the carnage or the celebration of victory, the ways of God remained inscrutable. Who could look back on recent events without sadly noting the frightening costs of what at one time had seemed to both sides a glorious crusade sure to end in a quick, nearly bloodless victory? Perhaps patriotism was, in the common parlance of the camp, played out, though soldiers and civilians alike could be remarkably resilient. One thing was certain: despite some Confederate hopes for peace, the suffering and dying seemed destined to continue as if the war had escaped all bounds of human control.

It was not surprising, then, that Union soldiers in July 1863 still felt the reverberations of Fredericksburg. So many hard thoughts, so much effort to find meaning in random events... so hard a struggle merely to survive in a world given over to destruction and bloodshed where most of the ordinary joys, pleasures, challenges, and even sorrows of life became overshadowed by that ever present and insatiable demon, civil war.

* * *

The story of Fredericksburg is, of course, much more complex than it appears at first glance. Battle studies, with only a nod toward the political context, all too often concentrate so much on strategy and tactics that they neglect many elements of vital importance to common soldiers and civilians.⁵ Such works often give short shrift to the aftermath of an engagement, especially the carnage and political reverberations. As a general observation—surely a few exceptions could be found—historians interested in political and especially military affairs naturally focus on particular, unique events and changes over time. In contrast, social, cultural, and to some extent economic historians examine patterns and constants.

Yet all people, and especially soldiers, are creatures of habit who are buffeted by unpredictable events. Campaigns and battles clearly intrude on the commonplace rhythms of military (and civilian) life, but at the same time all the ordinary and expected events shape reactions to the extraordinary and unexpected. In the pages that follow I have tried to illuminate and fuse both aspects of historical experience. Soldiers were never just cogs in the proverbial military machine; before they donned uniforms, they were husbands and sons and brothers, and so they remained. The state of their stomachs was not unrelated to how they assessed the course of the war. Their loneliness, spiritual longings, boredom, and frustration deeply influenced their reaction to military and political developments. Morale thus became a complex intermix of certain universals of camp life along with marching, fighting, carnage, and fear.

The old military history dealt largely with leaders, dissecting strategy and tactics carefully, sometimes brilliantly. The new military history has focused on soldier life and its connections to larger social themes. But gaining a fuller understanding of a battle requires looking at both sides of the equation and mixing the elements. It requires a blending of the everyday and the spectacular, the mundane and the sublime. It involves examining what the privates expected to happen as well as what the generals planned. It means treating the people involved as full human beings.

1 Armies

I can’t offer you either honours or wages; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Anyone who loves his country, follow me.

—Garibaldi

Few people could be neutral about Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. Both loved and reviled, the Young Napoleon—as admirers dubbed him—curiously combined strengths and weaknesses. A superb organizer but cautious fighter, McClellan earned the respect, admiration, and especially affection of countless officers and enlisted men. Yet he was nothing if not deliberate, and he readily produced reams of excuses for inaction. His obsessive secretiveness raised questions about his willingness to fight and even about his loyalty. At once arrogant and insecure, he treated his military and civilian superiors with condescension and occasionally contempt.

McClellan regularly and all too indiscreetly questioned the military and political judgment of President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and Gen. in Chief Henry W. Halleck. McClellan favored a war of maneuver with limited objectives, fought by conventional rules, and even tried to protect civilian property. Whatever his private views on slavery, he opposed forcible emancipation. Nor did he discourage national Democratic leaders from using him as a cat’s-paw against the Lincoln administration. A man of deeply conservative instincts, McClellan sometimes saw himself as God’s appointed agent in the war, and with a conviction bordering on megalomania, he fully believed that the fate of the Union rested in his hands. This egotistic confidence, however, failed to mask deep fears about supposed enemies, whether real, potential, or imaginary.

President Abraham Lincoln and Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan meet after Antietam (Library of Congress)

Had he not saved the Army of the Potomac after the retreat from the Virginia Peninsula and John Pope’s debacle at Second Bull Run? And had not his victory at Antietam been a great masterpiece and a vindication of his generalship? Unfortunately Robert E. Lee’s army had escaped destruction; Lincoln and his advisers failed to recognize McClellan’s genius. Halleck and Stanton had refused to provide the needed men and supplies. Worse, they had plotted to poison the president’s mind against him.

As the warm days of early fall 1862 passed quickly with the Army of the Potomac still immobile, Lincoln abandoned his gingerly approach to the touchy McClellan. You remember my speaking to you of what I called your over-cautiousness, the president wrote on October 13. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? Attack the Rebels’ communications, the president urged. Strike at Lee’s army. Obviously irritated, Lincoln closed his letter with a flippant remark that surely enraged McClellan: It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy; and it is unmanly to say they can not do it.¹

At last prodded to action, on October 26, 1862, McClellan got the Army of the Potomac moving. He required eight days to bring his troops across the Potomac on pontoon bridges and march twenty miles into Virginia. With supply routes established along the Orange and Alexandria and Manassas Gap railroads, McClellan meandered toward Warrenton. Heartened, Lincoln nevertheless fretted over the slow pace. For his part the general was sulking. A sarcastic inquiry from the president about the state of his cavalry horses had made him mad as a ‘march hare.’ McClellan told his wife, Ellen, It was one of those dirty little flings that I can’t get used to when they are not merited. Although more men were still needed to fill depleted regiments, he informed Lincoln that he would push forward as rapidly as possible to endeavor to meet the enemy. But even as McClellan advanced, he kept one eye fixed on his enemies in Washington. If you could know the mean & dirty character of the dispatches I receive you would boil over with anger, he informed Ellen. His customary martyr’s pose degenerated into outright scorn for his superiors: But the good of the country requires me to submit to all this from men whom I know to be greatly my inferiors socially, intellectually & morally! There never was a truer epithet applied to a certain individual than that of the ‘Gorilla.’ McClellan railed against Halleck, vowed to crush Stanton, sparred with Quartermaster Gen. Montgomery Meigs, and argued with Herman Haupt over rail transportation. Yet at least for a few days at the beginning of November he sounded confident to both his wife and the president.²

Many of the troops shared his confidence. The sight of such a magnificent force on the move especially impressed the exuberant new recruits, not yet ground down by the hardships of marches, the dullness of camp, or the horrors of combat. God is on our side, averred a pious Hoosier, and now I believe that the movement is taking place which . . . will terminate this unholy rebellion.³ The men’s letters reported great progress and predicted imminent triumph. The Rebel capital appeared to be within reach, and a New York private offered to give many a good day’s rations to be present at the taking of Richmond.⁴

Delays and defeats had not seriously dampened the army’s spirits, nor had the naïveté of the early war been entirely knocked out of the soldiers. But after more than a year’s hard fighting, it had become clear, at least to most veterans, that victory would not come easily or cheaply. Even men who believed the current campaign would be decisive did not sound that sanguine. I expect a hard fight, Lt. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine admitted, because the Confederates are admirably handled & fight with desperation. A New York surgeon agreed that Blood must flow before the rebellion was finally defeated.⁵ Fearful of carnage yet cautiously hopeful, the Army of the Potomac nonetheless got caught up in the excitement of a campaign that apparently offered such promise of success.

So did the northern public. As the march began, newspapers carried

Theater of operations

glowing reports of McClellan’s advance into Virginia. Sensational dispatches had erroneously predicted certain victory before, but once again the press whipped up enthusiasm for the latest On to Richmond. Echoing confident soldiers, editors claimed that the Rebel capital would be in Union hands by the new year. This campaign, declared the conservative Boston Post, should silence McClellan’s radical Republican critics once and for all. Ironically, the much abused commander of the Army of the Potomac had broader political support than even his Democratic friends recognized. Moderate Republican editors also issued cheerful bulletins and praised McClellan’s generalship. Perhaps this time the results would match the buildup.⁶

Such wishful thinking, however, hardly prepared anyone for a winter campaign, and because McClellan had squandered so many beautiful fall days after Antietam, this new drive against the Rebels began ominously late in the year. The rigors of life in the field during early November doused the Pollyannas with a bracing shower of reality. The weather grew colder each day. When orders got confused and footsore regiments took wrong turns, the prolonged exposure only elicited louder complaints. After a day trudging through mud and finding a key bridge had been burned by the Confederates, the men of the 11th New Hampshire finally settled into camp around midnight. Cold enough to freeze an Icelander, groaned Willard Templeton as the men huddled around fires with the wind blowing rain into their faces. During this toughening, as surgeon Daniel Holt termed it, many men fell ill, and some died.⁷

On November 7, in the Federal camps stretching from Snicker’s Gap toward Warrenton, a winter storm left four inches of sleet and snow on the ground. The next morning at White Plains, Elisha Hunt Rhodes of the 2nd Rhode Island shook the snow off his blanket and almost decided not to write in his diary. He did, however, express one half-frozen, sardonic wish: How I would like to have one of those ‘On to Richmond’ fellows out here with us in the snow.⁸ Keeping warm, especially at night, proved nearly impossible. After sleeping on the cold ground, a young New Hampshire private declared himself completely used up and so tired and stiff that I could scarcely walk. Even with roaring fires the most ingenious soldiers could keep only half their bodies from freezing at any given time. Nor could they avoid the acrid smoke from wet wood. Stoics burrowed into their overcoats and kept their feet near the fires.⁹

Fortunate regiments bedded down in two-man shelter tents. Propped up with sticks or muskets with a pole across the top, they measured a little more than five feet long and a little less than five feet wide. One Rhode Islander thought a shelter tent afforded hardly more room than a good sized doghouse; a Pennsylvanian dismissed it as a mere pocket handkerchief. More reflective soldiers, however, felt thankful for not being among the many who slept with an unimpeded view of the heavens. Besides, a good fire could make those drafty tents feel luxurious on a chilly night.¹⁰

Soldiers humorously recounted their sufferings in letters and especially in memoirs; many prided themselves on surviving the ordeal. In words echoed by scores of other men, New Yorker James Post concluded, It’s really astonishing how much the human system can endure, but he still asked his wife to send some thick underwear immediately. Although much better supplied than their opponents, the soldiers in the Army of the Potomac occasionally suffered from clothing shortages, especially when Rebel cavalry raided supply trains. Some Federals also went barefoot. As the 131st Pennsylvania approached Middleburg, Virginia, the soles fell off Howard Helman’s shoes, exposing his feet to sharp stones. The new boots he received that evening badly pinched during the next day’s march. Even fellows with decent shoes developed painful blisters.¹¹

Infrequent washing helped wear out clothes. Underwear, pants, shirts, and jackets appeared dingy and quickly became ragged. Lice thrived amidst the filth, and fighting them was a constant, largely unsuccessful battle. For soldiers accustomed to the standards of middle-class cleanliness, filthy, vermin-infested clothing symbolized how much the war had changed daily life and undermined civilized values.¹²

Complaints about lice and ragged clothing, however, paled beside the grumbling over short rations. Soldiers could endure almost anything so long as they had enough to eat, but even the well-provisioned Army of the Potomac could not keep the men adequately fed during marches. Supply wagons fell behind, became mired in mud, or got lost on country roads. Veterans knew enough to eat heartily before a march began; along the way, men wolfed down rations and then went hungry later. Newly enlisted regiments learned these lessons through hard experience. Men in the 24th Michigan began shouting Bread! Bread! whenever they saw high-ranking officers.¹³

Food was not just important; it was an obsession. Meals were described to the last detail, including the exact number of hardtack consumed. Roughly three inches square, these crackers were a staple of the military diet and certainly well named because they could break teeth unless soaked in pork grease or crumbled into coffee. Camp wags held that they were best consumed in the dark so the worms or weevils crawling out would escape notice. After grinding down his back teeth on hardtack, young Robert Carter declared that it wasn’t fit for hogs.¹⁴ A few crackers and some raw salt pork could hardly satisfy a soldier in a cold camp at the end of a long day’s march.

Regiments, however, occasionally lacked even the hardtack and the pork. Sometimes only roasted corn and a cup of coffee stood for breakfast, while corn kernels scrounged from the mules made a poor dinner. The cooking utensils alone might turn the stomach of the hungriest soldiers. A dirty, smoke-and-grease begrimed tin plate and tin dipper have to serve as the entire culinary department, John Haley of the 17th Maine noted.¹⁵ But the soldiers and their clothes were no cleaner than the plates or cups, and if the food would not bear close inspection, no wonder some worried that the war might turn a generation of young men into barbarians unfit for home life.

Such musings assumed, however, that the beloved soldier boys would survive the war, and even though McClellan committed his precious troops to combat slowly, sparingly, and reluctantly, this hardly ensured their well-being. The greatest threat to the Army of the Potomac—or any other Civil War army—came not from the hard marches or even enemy bullets. The physical demands of the campaign—the cold, the cheerless bivouacs, the worn-out shoes, and the poor food—made them vulnerable to an insidious, deadly foe: disease. For many soldiers the greatest shock of army life was watching comrades fall, not on blood-soaked battlefields but in camps and hospitals to unexpected enemies such as typhoid or dysentery or even childhood maladies.¹⁶ As the weather grew colder in early November, a few soldiers bravely claimed that outdoor living was toughening them up, but in reality the exposure took a heavy toll. Each morning, stiff with rheumatism, men arose for the day’s march after a night punctuated by nagging coughs. Hungry soldiers allowed their stomachs to overrule their brains and devoured sutlers’ pies, overpriced, indigestible, and almost sure to cause diarrhea.¹⁷

Unfortunately the common camp diseases, many of which were aggravated by poor sanitation and badly cooked food, followed men on the march. The rates of typhoid fever remained nearly as high as they had been during the pestilent summer months on the Virginia Peninsula. The incidence of dysentery and diarrhea (the latter undoubtedly a much underreported malady) had fallen considerably, though the mortality rate was rising. Diarrhea struck without warning and often defied treatment. A New York private dosed himself with laudanum and stayed in his tent, but a week later he sampled some cider and loosened up my bowels again. As McClellan’s march began, the 11th New Hampshire left camp without Sewall Tilton. The poor man had suffered from diarrhea for five weeks. His weight had fallen and his hands trembled so much that he could barely write. More than a month later, weaker yet, he was seeking a discharge from the army.¹⁸

If you could be here, a Connecticut soldier advised his mother, and see the poor fellows dying around you, worn out by marches and disease and see the misery brought upon us by this awful war, then you would be still more anxious to have the war ended. Each day men saw friends from home, boys in their own company, and complete strangers buried along the roads or in camp. Hospitals in Maryland and northern Virginia and around Washington were full. Disease thinned the ranks of the most robust regiments and reduced others to skeletons. On October 29 Sgt. George S. Gove recalled in his diary how the 5th New Hampshire had left Concord a year earlier more than 1,000 men strong but now could muster only about 200 fit for duty.¹⁹ Ever present death and the fear of whom it would strike next depressed even the strongest soldiers.

Somehow being tossed into a hastily dug hole, what passed for burial with military honors, seemed almost obscene. After watching such a ceremony for one of his comrades, Capt. Andrew Boyd of the 108th New York penned a stark, Victorian epitaph: He died for his country, with no dear mother nor dear sister to receive his last dying words. Was this any way to treat a soldier who had died far from home? How would the rituals of mourning proceed with the family absent and perhaps not even aware that the poor fellow was gone? News of death traveled slowly, sometimes haltingly to the home front: a list of the dead from the Washington hospitals, a brief eulogy in a comrade’s letter published in the local newspaper, or maybe a hastily scrawled chaplain’s note.²⁰ Even without engaging the enemy, for many soldiers death had become a familiar companion, a daily remainder of their peril.

Men naturally sought temporary escapes from these tensions and fears. They especially looked to alcohol for solace. Loud singing and drunken revelry rent the night even when the army was on the march. Tales of widespread dissipation exaggerated the problem but also alarmed the folks at home. Health warnings and religious injunctions against young men falling into bad habits proliferated. An address issued to the army by a temperance lecturer asserted that medical and scientific evidence proved that alcohol was a poison. Soldiers should think how much money could be saved and how many victories might be won if they would take a pledge of total abstinence. Some men avoided these temptations, a New York Tribune editorialist hoped, but he conceded that many would not. For troops in northern Virginia and nearby Maryland, Washington offered other diversions. Henry Thompson, a young drummer in the 15th Connecticut, informed his wife that the nation’s capital teemed with prostitutes. He had gone to a saloon where he met six or seven bad women. The meals ran from 37 cents to $1.00, but should an unwary lad venture upstairs, there were extra costs.²¹ What Thompson’s wife thought of her husband’s apparently firsthand knowledge unfortunately has been lost to history.

Alcoholism and venereal disease could weaken an army at the beginning of a campaign, but the most serious challenges to discipline came when food ran low. A shortage of hardtack in the 9th New York prompted a night raid on the quartermaster’s wagon. Hungry men broke open four boxes with axes and, with reasoning similar to that applied by southern slaves who raided masters’ smokehouses, saw nothing wrong with stealing government property to feed government troops. Soldiers also justified forays against the wagons of sutlers who had charged exorbitant prices. With soft bread going for 15 cents a loaf, hardtack-weary soldiers from the 108th New York and other regiments stationed near Warrenton seized some 1,800 loaves.²²

Hungry Yankees also cast covetous eyes toward Confederate larders. Many soldiers were profoundly shocked to see how much the Virginia countryside had already been ravaged. It is almost a desert, remarked a sergeant of the famous Iron Brigade. Once-fine homes stood empty, and even the fashionable resort at White Sulphur Springs lay in ruins. A New Yorker considered the barren landscape fit only for wolves. With no coffee, wheat, or other supplies, poor civilians would hardly survive the coming winter.²³

A few tenderhearted men felt compassion for the southerners’ plight, but most spared little sympathy for Rebels regardless of age, gender, or condition. To Union soldiers, white southerners appeared to be primitive, backward people, at once ignorant and arrogant. Men and women alike spat tobacco, smoked pipes, and wallowed in vice. Laziness, poverty, and slavery had blighted both the land and the people; planter nabobs oppressed slaves and poor whites alike. What the region really needed, many New England soldiers believed, was an infusion of Yankee energy and morality.²⁴

Such perceptions were hardly new, but by the fall of 1862, the nature of the war was changing. Despite McClellan’s conservative views, many enlisted men and a growing number of officers no longer put much store in protecting civilian property. Northern soldiers and their friends back home talked of carrying the war into southern farmhouses and fields. Although tough talk did not always translate into harsh actions and conservative attitudes persisted during the fall of 1862, some soldiers kept expanding the boundaries of acceptable behavior.²⁵

Foraging—whether officially condoned or not—became both commonplace and difficult to control. To Pvt. Edwin O. Wentworth of the 37th Massachusetts the rationale was simple: The people here are all rebels. We have had a grand time killing and eating their sheep, cattle and poultry. Officers often ignored such pillaging so long as they received a share, and in any case hungry soldiers cared little about property rights. A Maine recruit joked about seizing hogs from a woman supposedly related to Robert E. Lee: We didn’t feel enough interest in their genealogy to ask whether their pig-ships’ names were Lee or Fitzhugh. A few men still paid for any goods taken, though others handed their Rebel hosts counterfeit Confederate bills printed in Philadelphia.²⁶ Actions that would have seemed extraordinarily callous a year or even a few months earlier no longer caused much unease as the war steadily eroded conventional moral standards.

The seizure, consumption, and even destruction of property began whenever the troops stopped at the end of a day’s march. Soldiers grabbed nearby fence rails to kindle roaring fires, an action that posed no great ethical dilemma for either enlisted men or officers.²⁷ With the fires going, foraging parties fanned out into barns, chicken houses, and hog pens. Few soldiers asked any longer whether the owners were loyal to the United States; they had decided to fend for themselves, and if supply wagons failed to appear, they would live off the land. Even men who pitied suffering families and might still be inclined to pay for food grabbed what they wanted if they encountered any resistance.²⁸

Confederate livestock faced mortal danger from soldiers tired of the usual salt pork. A lieutenant herding some sheep into camp, according to a young soldier in the 131st Pennsylvania, looked more like a butcher than a commander. Raw recruits might be satisfied with chasing rabbits until they saw veterans feasting on lamb. Near White Plains, members of the 10th Massachusetts slaughtered so many sheep that the place was dubbed Camp Mutton.²⁹ Other soldiers used dogs to drive squealing hogs toward their hungry comrades. A nice pig generously introduces himself to the guard & is accepted as a martyr to the cause of the Union, a Minnesotan wryly remarked. The fresh pork reminded lonely farm boys of home, but the cooking seldom evoked memories of a mother’s kitchen. When a fat old hog turned belligerent, a sergeant in the 17th Maine pinned it to the ground with his bayonet. After the beast was heaved into a large frying pan, it continued to puff and froth. Such a sight, John Haley observed with disgust (and no little exaggeration), reduced our gustatory pleasure in pork to the minimum and we had no stomach for it after all. But many ravenous soldiers could not afford to be finicky. Men from the 24th Michigan cut off some meat from a cow that had been dead several days. During any halt in the march the countryside became what Jacob Heffelfinger termed one vast slaughter shop.³⁰

The men also struck at enemy chicken coops. An Indiana soldier watched bemusedly as twenty other Hoosiers chased squawking chickens and gobbling turkeys around a barn lot. At night pickets drifted away from their posts to snare unwary ducks or geese from sleeping farmers. Fresh poultry sizzling in a skillet whetted the appetites of weary men at the end of a day’s trek across the Virginia countryside. After a sumptuous meal of fried chicken, flaky biscuits, and fine butter, Capt. Charles Haydon of the 2nd Michigan reflected that the jollity & good feeling [would be] little understood by those who have never tried it.³¹ The longing for simple pleasures made men more than willing to defy orders, beard angry civilians, readjust their scruples, and risk capture by Confederate cavalry.

Inclination and desire, however, clashed with military discipline because officially the soldiers were still supposed to protect civilian property. Yet the logic of this policy escaped many men. Explaining to a hungry recruit why he should guard some traitor’s house or barn no longer carried much weight. Who could justify having a provost guard fire on a shivering private caught stealing straw on a cold night? To Captain Haydon, the explanation was clear: Contractors must be enriched & political pimps rewarded so they could overcharge the government for hay, grain, or fresh meat. Such illicit profits would vanish if the army was permitted to live off the land. I have seen a sick soldier refused a drink of water by a Union guard lest... he ... might possibly do some injury to rebel property, Haydon railed. Regiments and brigades that defied orders and swept the country pretty clean had his approval.³²

Yet even some enlisted men still hesitated to abuse civilians and feared that widespread plundering would demoralize the army. These sensitive souls bemoaned the disgraceful conduct of others and generally blamed worthless stragglers, though the question of responsibility remained devilishly tricky. Pvt. Edward King Wightman, an educated and opinionated New Yorker, had enjoyed a fine supper while guarding a large house near Warrenton. After he and his comrades departed, however, other Federals ransacked the place. The straitlaced Wightman haughtily remarked that most of our common soldiers are scarcely above brutes by nature. A Pennsylvania chaplain believed that rebel property is too carefully guarded but also acknowledged that we certainly can not permit our army to be a band of marauders.³³ The most difficult decision was where to strike the balance.

Orders to safeguard civilian property remained in force even though they were often honored more in the breach than in the observance. Seeing how much destruction had already taken place, a Pennsylvania corporal predicted that a recently issued edict against looting would be universally ignored. A clever group of New Jersey soldiers even pretended to be provost guards in order to seize an already pilfered calf from some unsuspecting Vermonters.³⁴Many officers routinely disregarded orders against foraging, and some directly benefited from raids on civilian food supplies. A wink-and-nod policy generally prevailed. The colonel of the 6th Wisconsin made up in clarity what he lacked in subtlety, telling his troops, Don’t you let me see or hear of your foraging on this march. I think I see a smokehouse near that white residence. Go back to your quarters. When later awakened from a convenient nap and presented with hams, fresh eggs, and flour, he solemnly inquired whether the men had violated his instructions. One clever forager, presumably with a straight face, claimed that a friendly farmer had insisted the men take this load of provisions. That’s all right, the colonel sighed with relief, I was afraid you had stolen them. He then put another egg on his tin plate.³⁵

Some conscientious officers tried to stop the plundering, but their best efforts often failed ludicrously. Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade came upon Lt. Ernest Wright of the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves chasing a pig and chided him about disobeying orders. Wright snapped back that he had little respect for such edicts and, not surprisingly, got arrested for his cheekiness. But after learning of Wright’s excellent service record, Meade ordered his release. Futility quickly degenerated into farce. Despite an edict against sheep stealing, Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock caught members of the Irish Brigade in the act of slaughtering several of the woolly creatures. Threatening the miscreants with his sword, Hancock prepared to bring down the full force of his wrath on them, when a frightened sheep jumped up, bleated loudly, and ran off. On another occasion he spied some soldiers apparently fleeing from enemy pickets. As he rode up closer, however, the reality of the situation came into focus. Enemy! the rebs be damned! he exploded, It is a damned flock of sheep they are after.³⁶

The most stringent measures failed to stop the plundering. Courts-martial handed out stiff sentences but to little avail. Imposing fines, forcing offenders to wear barrels shirts inscribed with the word thief, and even stringing up men to cross bars did little to reduce foraging. Moreover, such punishments were extremely unpopular in the ranks, and woe betide the officer who crossed the line of what enlisted men considered to be acceptable treatment. Enraged soldiers assaulted one martinet with burning fence rails and bayoneted another to death in his tent.³⁷ With little regard for the conservatism of the upper command, McClellan’s troops learned to carry on a far more destructive war than had been conceivable only a few months earlier.

Sharp-tongued Virginians who berated Yankees at every opportunity reinforced the growing belief in the Army of the Potomac that ending the war required crushing such rebellious spirits. The defiance of Confederate women had already become legendary, and confrontations between soldiers and secesh females acquired a set-piece quality. The Federals’ descriptions of hostile women were colorful but largely interchangeable: Three saucier vixens could not be found in all rebeldom; the women at the doors look sour and cross; more inveterate secessionists I have never encountered. Even children acted out their parts as rabid Confederates. One little girl told a group of Massachusetts soldiers that she hated the Yankees because they had brought cold weather.³⁸

With incredible gall, some women begged soldiers to guard their property while still spouting secessionist gasconade. Even women who appeared meek sometimes spat fire. When men from the 20th Maine politely asked for milk, one amiable lady wished them all dead. Hot-blooded Confederates avoided contact with the Federals and angrily tore up northern newspapers. An eighteen-year-old declared that she had no desire to enter heaven if Yankees were there but that she would gladly kiss the most unkempt soldier in the Confederate army.³⁹

Nor would Confederate women succor their enemies. Near Middleburg, Virginia, a lady in mourning attire hid the pump handle to prevent a foraging party from getting a drink of water. A few fanatics, whose devotion to the southern nation well exceeded their good sense, tried to assault Federal soldiers. In a battle over chickens one woman hurled a stone at a member of the 10th Massachusetts and broke his jaw.⁴⁰

Violent confrontations made for exciting stories in postwar memoirs and regimental histories, but for the southern civilians involved, these incidents signaled the final stages of resistance preceding a painful adjustment to military reality. However noteworthy their confrontations with fiery belles, the Federals also met women who shattered stereotypes, as harsher treatment forced even ardent Confederates to act more circumspectly. Relations between invader and invaded naturally remained tense but also grew more complex in ways that confounded expectations on both sides. Some women—whether Unionists or not—hoped that the Federals might restore order and bring some relief from irregular foraging. Others disdained politics and even entertained soldiers around the supper table, a rare treat for men used to the rough fare and rougher conditions of march and camp.⁴¹

However pleasant such encounters might be, by the beginning of November much of the bluecoats’ exuberance had worn thin. Once again combing his body and clothes for lice, a disheartened member of the 10th Massachusetts grumbled, If I could only get home the Union might go to H–ll.⁴² The march left in its wake many stragglers as well as rumors of officers running off for the pleasures of Washington and other cities. The boys are pretty well played out, a Pennsylvanian conceded.⁴³

Such laments prompted speculation about the Army of the Potomac settling into winter quarters before a battle could be fought. Even if a bloody engagement took place and the army retreated once again, some men preferred being taken prisoner to staying in the ranks. Rumors of European intervention, financial uncertainty, and peace negotiations all circulated between home front and camp, reinforcing a deepening gloom about the course of the war.⁴⁴ More ominous were signs of despair in the army. Seeing no prospect for ending the war soon, General Meade poured out his frustration: The South accepts ruin, and is willing to have all its material interests destroyed if it can only secure its independence. The North, owing to the villainous system of paper money, the postponement of taxation and of the draft, has not yet realized the true condition of the country. But even if the northern people and the rosewater politicians would accept sterner measures, whether northern armies could win in the eastern theater remained doubtful. The South has able generals, a Maine chaplain conceded sadly. We have not been bold and daring enough; we have at times been too cautious for our own good.⁴⁵ This was a remarkable understatement, for surely caution had been McClellan’s watchword, and only the most sanguine believed that he could match wits with Robert E. Lee, whose reputation for invincibility grew almost as rapidly in the North as it did in the South.

Standing nearly six feet tall, weighing around 190 pounds, and sporting a thick gray beard the Virginian looked every inch the classic gentleman. Yet his deep piety and sense of duty appeared at odds with an intense and sometimes costly aggressiveness. The unassuming humility he displayed with generals, staff, and family was partly misleading because by the fall of 1862, it belied a man who had become a very confident commander. So, too, his robust appearance belied a weakening heart and a curious fatalism. He dressed in a simple uniform and ate plain food, but there was about Lee a strength and even a fierceness that inspired respect, admiration, and awe in the Army of Northern Virginia.⁴⁶ After Joseph E. Johnston was badly wounded at the battle of Seven Pines on June 1, 1862, Lee had assumed command and won a series of strategic victories and established a psychological ascendancy over his Federal opponents. Although Lee tried to avoid the sin of pride and worried that people expected too much of him, even this model of humility and introspection could not help but sense his own mastery of command.

Gen. Robert E. Lee (Francis Trevelyan Miller, Photographic History of the Civil War, 2:235)

The recent campaign into Maryland and the bloody draw at Sharpsburg had been costly, but this had not tarnished Lee’s reputation or checked his aggressiveness. Luckily, McClellan had been inactive for several weeks after the battle, thus allowing Confederates precious time to rebuild and reorganize their forces. Despite persistent supply problems, Lee managed to reorganize the cavalry and consolidate artillery batteries with patient diplomacy.⁴⁷

The most visible change in the Army of Northern Virginia was the creation of two corps to replace a less formal command structure.⁴⁸ Lt. Gen. James Longstreet would command the First Corps. At age forty-one Old Pete, as he was known in the army, was one of Lee’s most reliable subordinates. A large man with a florid complexion and a normally cheery disposition, he had become much more reserved since three of his children had died of scarlet fever at the beginning of the year. A native South Carolinian in an army dominated by Virginians, this cautious disciple of defensive warfare offered a striking contrast to Lee and other more aggressive generals.⁴⁹

Lee chose Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson to command the Second Corps. After a disappointing performance during the Seven Days campaign, Jackson had returned to form by the fall of 1862 and had become indispensable to Lee. Yet Jackson could be a troublesome subordinate, and he had engaged in some nasty disputes, notably with his capable division commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose P. Hill. Two years younger than Longstreet, Old Jack, nevertheless acted older. Officers and enlisted men admired Jackson but also found him unbending and occasionally harsh. Although Confederate president Jefferson Davis apparently harbored some reservations about Jackson, no one could doubt he was a fearsome fighter who had become the Confederacy’s most popular hero.

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet (Francis Trevelyan Miller, Photographic History of the Civil War, 10:245)

Jackson tended to be reserved and humorless (except around playful cavalry commander Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart). Fearless and self-confident, he had trouble understanding human weaknesses in others and drove his men with a relentlessness that bordered on the maniacal. Jackson reminded people of an Old Testament prophet pronouncing judgment on hapless mortals. As devout as Lee and nearly as fatalistic, Jackson wrote to his wife shortly after the birth of their daughter, Do not set your affections upon her, except as a gift from God. If she absorbs too much of our hearts, God may remove her from us.⁵⁰ Though the ways of providence remained both mysterious and terrible, he vowed to serve God by wreaking bloody vengeance on the Yankees with a remorseless fury that struck fear in the North and evoked awe in the South.

Lee had chosen two capable (albeit sharply contrasting) corps commanders, and despite persistent problems in various divisions and brigades, the start of McClellan’s advance did not trouble him much. Lee knew his opponent and had taken his measure. He ordered Jackson to Winchester, while Longstreet, screened by Stuart’s cavalry, marched toward Culpeper. The Confederate high command exuded confidence. Lee’s appearance in Richmond on November 1 for a conference with Davis sparked new rumors of European intervention, an impending armistice, and even an end to the war. By November 6, as McClellan’s forces massed near Warrenton and Federal cavalry probed toward the Rappahannock River, Lee returned to Culpeper. He instructed Jackson to march up the Shenandoah Valley and prepare to join Longstreet. Stuart, mourning the recent death of his young daughter, poured himself into the work of shielding Longstreet’s movements and providing intelligence on enemy activity. The Confederates also suffered from the cold, and they faced much more serious supply problems than the Federals; but Lee was not that concerned. He expected McClellan’s strength to decrease the farther he removes from his base and looked for a chance to strike a successful blow.⁵¹

Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (National Archives)

Lee also hoped that improved discipline and vigorous enforcement of the conscription laws might swell the ranks of his army. Straggling had become rampant during the Maryland campaign, but in Lee’s view, better officers and sterner measure might reduce the problem. Courts-martial imposed harsh sentences—including hard labor, bucking and gagging, and the ball and chain—for soldiers convicted of being absent without leave. Furloughs became a rarity.⁵² Although discipline improved and many absentees returned to the ranks, Lee’s men never became textbook soldiers. The typical Confederate remained an independent cuss who enjoyed his fun without worrying too much about regulations.

As Indian summer faded and the air grew sharper and clouds looked more ominous in late October and early November, footsore and hungry Confederates had a convenient excuse for swigging apple jack or some other alcoholic concoction. Soldiers had to wade through icy streams—ten thousand needles sticking through your flesh would not have hurt any worse, a Georgian claimed—and early snowfalls along with cold winds only added to their misery.⁵³ The men huddled together under blankets or shivered in thin fly tents. Lucky ones found shelter in an abandoned farmhouse. Large fires, constantly attended, supplemented hastily constructed brush huts. Longstreet advised his troops to heat the soil with daytime fires and sleep on the warmer, drier ground at