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The weather was intensely cold, and the mud almost unfathomable. The troops, with much difficulty, moved about six miles, reaching the rear of Falmouth Station, opposite Fredericksburgh; but the trains, at midnight, had only proceeded two miles. In the ambulances, the sick suffered beyond description. Six soldiers from the Third brigade, Second division, died in the ambulances that night.
On the 9th, many of our wounded were brought to the side of the river at Fredericksburgh and sent over to us by the enemy, in pontoon boats, under flags of truce. On the morning of the 10th, the surgeon of the Seventy-seventh was ordered to proceed at once to Banks' Ford to receive wounded officers who were to be removed from the enemy's lines.
Many of the people of Fredericksburgh exhibited the most malignant spite against the "Yankee wounded;" but others, while they claimed no sympathy with our cause, showed themselves friends of humanity, and rendered us all the assistance in their power. No men, except negroes and white men unfit for military duty, were left in town, but the women were bitter rebels.
General L. A. Grant, in his report, does unintentional injustice to a brave regiment. He says: "The Sixth Vermont followed the Thirty-third New York, and was the second to gain the heights of Fredericksburgh." The Thirty-third was not the first to gain the heights on that part of the line.
As he rode through the camp of our division in the afternoon, with only two staff officers, himself and his horse completely covered with mud, the rim of his hat turned down to shed the rain, his face careworn with this unexpected disarrangement of his plans, we could but think that the soldier on foot, arm oppressed with the weight of knapsack, haversack and gun, bore an easy load compared with that of the commander of the army, who now saw departing his hopes of redeeming the prestige he had lost at Fredericksburgh.
His letters written during his residence here are all dated from "Fredericksburgh," the name at that time of the western and older part of the town of Patterson. Washington's general officers were quartered in the homes of various residents of the neighborhood. One was so entertained by Thomas Taber, at the extreme north end of the Hill.
At sunrise the Second division filed down to the river side, and took position in line of battle. Our horses cropped the green blades which had sprung from the grain scattered for their food nearly five months before. The division was upon the very spot where it lay before, at the first battle of Fredericksburgh. The bridge also was in the same place that Franklin's bridge had been.
The following short extracts from the letters of Colonel Burr to his daughter, while he was imprisoned in Richmond, will serve to show the state of his mind under circumstances thus oppressive and mortifying. "Richmond, March 27, 1807. "My military escort having arrived at Fredericksburgh on our way to Washington, there met a special messenger, with orders to convey me to this place.
It must be confessed that our failure at Bank's Ford had done much to demoralize the army and destroy the confidence in the commanding general so absolutely necessary to success. On our way back from Bank's Ford, as we passed Fredericksburgh, we saw huge placards posted up by the rebels with taunting inscriptions, such as "Burnside stuck in the mud," printed in conspicuous letters.
No doubt John Wilson, grandson of the old man, wounded in the assault at Fredericksburgh, came away from that murderous field with the same impression of the eternity of his own memory; but he will forget all except the very event of the action, like his grandsire.
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