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Updated: June 17, 2025
On the next narrow cot there was a slender boy of fifteen, who lay with clenched hands watching the work of the surgeon. Then they passed a woman, who was gently bathing the forehead of a man whose soldier days seemed likely to come to an early end. Some weeks had gone by, when one day he followed a party of men to Marye's Heights. It was a short time after the battle of Fredericksburg.
To Anderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had his artillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantry in line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run, on the wooded hills between the ravine and the Massaponax, was Stonewall Jackson.
The Federal troops were charging Marye's Hill, which was to prove the Cemetery Hill of Fredericksburg. This frightful charge for no other adjective can describe it was made by General French's division, supported by General Hancock.
He described some of the scenes that were haunting him and driving him. The winter's night in the ditches in front of Marye's Heights, when the dead and dying lay piled in windrows, and the soul of a people sobbed in despair!
His great-grandson, John L. Marye, whose mansion, "Brompton," stood on "Marye's Heights," so famous in the Civil War, was an eminent lawyer; as also is a son of the latter, John L. Marye Jr., former Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. The founder of the Virginia Maryes, who should be ranked among American worthies, was an eloquent clergyman, and built up a noble congregation in Fredericksburg.
"I was ordered to form three regiments as the advance of a column of assault against the heights of Marye's Hill, back of Fredericksburgh. I led the Thirty-third New York, Twenty-first New Jersey and Seventh Maine Volunteers, preceded by the Seventy-seventh New York, who were acting as skirmishers, under a heavy fire of shot and shell." Neill's Report.
General McLaws says, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill. Well, I've got to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn't he? Yes, just one more round. Load! Kneel! Commence firing!" In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off in good order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared the Mississippi brigade disappeared from the Federal vision.
In the meantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreet was hurling them back again. The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old Pete's surely giving them hell! There's a stone wall at the base of Marye's Hill. McLaws and Ransom are holding it sorry for the Yanks in front." "Never heard such hullabaloo as the great guns are making!"
Marye's Heights, again, may be described as a moral surprise, for no Confederate officer or man that had witnessed the bloody repulse of Burnside's great army on the very same ground, but a few weeks before, could have expected to be called on so soon to meet the swift and triumphant onset of a single corps of that army. Moreover, Sedgwick's tactical arrangements were perfect.
Sedgwick was fighting his way with desperation now to force Marye's Heights and strike Lee's rear. Once more the stone wall blazed with death for the gallant men in blue. They dashed themselves against it wave on wave, only to fall back in confusion. They tried to flank it and failed. Hour after hour the mad charges rolled against this hill and broke in deep red pools at its base.
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