Fredericksburg, Part 3: Slaughter on Marye's Heights

...Humphreys ordered his men not to load their rifles, but to fix bayonets and charge right over the masses of men prostrate on the little incline. Then he galloped his black horse along the lines shouting, "Officers to the front in this charge. Never mind the obstacles in the way! Charge!" And once again he led the way into the storm of artillery and musket fire. The Federals lying wounded on the ground called out to the attackers, "Halt! Lie down--you will all be killed," and some of them even reached up to clutch at the advancing troops to stop them. The brigade became disorganized (p. 86).

Once again the Federals retreated. And despite his firm objections, Hooker was ordered to send General George Getty's IX Corps division in on the left. Going undetected for a while under the twilight, Getty's men soon were barraged with fire and they too had to fall back. With night time soon upon them and with a total disgust for the day's butchery, Hooker called an end to the attack.

Seven times the Federals assaulted Marye's Heights; fourteen brigades in all marching piecemeal toward certain destruction against the Confederate stronghold. Over 7,000 of those who attacked the stonewall did not return. Only 1,200 Confederates fell during the attacks. Overall, the Army of the Potomac suffered 12,535 casualties. By comparison, about 5,000 Southerners fell prey to Union fire. Longstreet summed up the Federal attacks on December 13 by saying, "The charges had been desperate and bloody, but utterly hopeless" (Goolrick, 1985). A New York Infantryman said after the fighting that "we might as well have tried to take Hell" (McPherson, 1992).

That night, Federal units holding their position or pinned down near the enemy line could hear the agonizing screams of the freezing wounded, calling out for everything from water to death. The 20th Maine's Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain described the experience:

(It was a ) smothered moan that seemed to come from distances beyond reach of natural senses, as if a thousand discords were flowing together in a keynote weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet startling with its nearness; some with delirious dreamy voices murmuring loved names, as if the dearest were bending over them; and underneath, all the time, that deep bass note from closed lips too hopeless or too heroic to articulate their agony.

Like many of the men that night, Chamberlain slept between two frozen

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