Brigadier General John Gibbon’s Brief Breach During the Battle of Fredericksburg

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Much has been written about the ill-starred soldiers of the Army of the Potomac who died at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13, 1862, in a doomed attempt to drive the Confederates from Marye’s Heights. But few accounts detail the equally brave if futile sacrifice of Brigadier General John Gibbon’s 2nd Division on the plains south of the Rappahannock River that sleet-driven day. At best, the story of the 2nd Division has been relegated in history books to a supporting role in the hopeless Union attack. At worst, the division’s repulse by Stonewall Jackson’s corps has been unfairly blamed on the men themselves.

Most of the regiments in Gibbon’s division that day came from Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. The men were veterans of the vicious Virginia campaigns of 1862, including the battles of Second Manassas and Cedar Mountain. The division was badly bloodied at Antietam in September of that same year in fighting at Miller’s Cornfield and the East Woods, suffering more than 1,000 casualties. One of the regiments, the 12th Massachusetts, left its commanding officer and 224 of its 334 men on the field — the highest casualty rate of any Union regiment at Antietam.

Following the Battle of Antietam, the battered division was joined by two new regiments, the 16th Maine and the 136th Pennsylvania, that had not yet been tested in battle. In early September, the 16th Maine had been abruptly ordered from the defenses around Washington, D.C., to take part in the Maryland campaign. The green regiment left behind its tents, knapsacks and overcoats, naively — and wrongly — believing that their baggage would soon follow. Their fellow soldiers in the 2nd Division cruelly nicknamed the 16th Maine the ‘Blanket Brigade’ for their humble attempts to protect themselves from the cold rain and driving winds of the early Virginia autumn. Both new regiments did poorly on the march from Antietam. It was their first tong march, and straggling quickly became a problem. The 16th Maine also gained an unsavory reputation for foraging, leading the division’s surgeon general to complain to the regiment’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Charles Tilden: ‘Your regiment are poor soldiers but damn good foragers.’

On November 14, 1862, near Warrenton, Va., Brig. Gen. John Gibbon, the tough Regular Army officer who had made the Iron Brigade one of the finest fighting units in the Union Army, took over command of the 2nd Division. Gibbon had wanted a higher command, although he hated to leave his beloved Western brigade. Given the Eastern makeup of his new command, Gibbon was apprehensive about taking charge. He was tempted to bring the Iron Brigade along with him to provide the new men with living examples of proper military bearing.

Gibbon was a born fighter who demanded strict discipline and endless drilling from his soldiers. Following a review of the division shortly after taking command, he sent a letter to his officers concerning the general poor appearance of the regiments and their camps. Determined that only the most competent officers would command his brigades, Gibbon shuffled the various regiments, changing the seniority of many of the regimental commanders and allowing former junior colonels to take command of the brigades.

Colonel Charles Wheelock of the 97th New York protested the new arrangement and the resulting loss of seniority. He was frankly informed by Gibbon that the Army was a profession and that some men were simply better soldiers than others. To further his point, Gibbon asked Wheelock what his profession had been before the war. Wheelock said he was a butcher. Gibbon joked a little wryly that he had not supposed the colonel had followed a calling so closely linked to his military one.

At the end of November, the division went into camp in an open field near Brooks Station on the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad, roughly 12 miles south of Fredericksburg. Assuming the camp would be their winter quarters, the soldiers began building huts to make themselves comfortable during the oncoming winter. On Thanksgiving Day, appropriately enough, the baggage of the 16th Maine finally arrived, reuniting the bone-chilled men with their knapsacks and overcoats.

The continual movement of the various armies through the region had stripped the countryside of food. The soldiers had to survive on Army-issued hardtack, salt beef and black coffee that always seemed to be in short supply. Hunger plagued the 2nd Division, and many soldiers resorted to trickery to obtain more to eat. Orders for boxes of hardtack were forged, and men with long poles stood along the railroad tracks trying to knock boxes of food off passing trains.

By early December the weather had turned bitterly cold, and green firewood had to be carried into camp from half a mile away. Any old railroad ties the men found lying about were quickly turned into kindling. Many of Gibbon’s soldiers were half-clothed, and some of them were even without shoes until large supplies of clothing finally arrived in camp later that month.

As the regiments drilled unceasingly, rumors swept through camp about the division’s future. Speculation ended when orders were received to send all surplus baggage and sick soldiers to the rear — a sure sign that a new battle was coming. Accordingly, on December 9 the division left camp and marched four miles toward the Rappahannock. The cold had frozen the infamous Virginia mud to the consistency of iron, making the march somewhat easier. One captain in the 16th Maine wrote a friend: ‘You may be curious to know how a man feels at the prospect of going into battle within a few days. 1 am free to confess that for me I do not hanker after the job. I think though I can conscientiously admit to you that I never felt lighterhearted or more buoyant in spirit than at the present movement of our troops upon the enemy’s position.’ On December 11, Gibbon’s division reached the low hills above the eastern bank of the Rappahannock, a mile and a hair south of Fredericksburg. As the soldiers waited they listened to the furious cannonade that marked the initial attempt of the army’s Right Grand Division to cross the river there. Incongruously, they also heard excellent music being played by the mounted band of Brig. Gen. George Bayard’s Cavalry Brigade. Meanwhile, Army engineers spent the morning constructing two pontoon bridges across the icy river. Perhaps ominously, Confederate pickets did not seriously contest their work.

The next morning, I and VI Corps, making up the Left Grand Division of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s reconstituted army, began crossing the bridges in a heavy fog. Major General William Franklin cautioned the men to avoid any regularity in their steps that might cause the bridges to sway from their moorings; one of the advance regiment’s had foolishly placed its band at the head of the column, and the band’s lockstep had almost sunk both bridges. Dense fog, darkened by smoke from the cooking fires, hid the regiments from view as they reached the far shore.

While waiting to cross the bridge, Austin Stearns of the 13th Massachusetts was ordered to report to the color sergeant to serve as corporal of the guard. His comrades all crowded around him to say goodbye, believing that they would never see him again. At Antietam, all the regiment’s color guard but one had been killed or wounded. Stearns was not noticeably heartened by the turnout.

Meeting little resistance, Federal troops found themselves on a broad plain approximately 11/2 miles wide, bordered on the west by a long, heavily forested ridge; on the east by the river; and on the north by Deep Run, an impassable stream. To the south the ridge disappeared into the plain at Hamilton’s Crossing near Massaponax Creek. The Old Richmond Road ran north and south, cutting the plain in half. There was a ditch on both sides of the road, and earth had been heaped alongside the ditches to form an embankment. Railroad tracks ran along the base of the ridge in a slight depression.

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