Bold Sons of Erin (49 page)

Impatient, the Confederate riflemen opened fire, knocking down the Irish by the dozen. But Meagher’s lads only closed their ranks and stepped off once again. I saw bayonets now. The Irish intended to reach the enemy, even if they had to do it alone.

Their attack had been virtually unsupported, with other brigades advancing on faulty lines and out of sequence. But the Irish did not look back or to their sides. Already shot to pieces, they plunged into the chaos of the swale. For the first time, their ranks broke, corrupted by the carpet of survivors and corpses, foiled by our instinctive reluctance to step upon the dead or even the living. They seemed on the verge of coming
apart completely, simply because they had trouble placing their feet. I thought they might go to ground with their comrades, joining the roiling blue mass in that shallow dip.

Above the din of the day, I heard a roar. Of human rage. And I saw the remaining Irishmen, struggling to keep their order, break into a trot, then into a run. Undaunted even then they were, unwilling to give up after coming so far. They rushed the Rebel lines, a handful of men against thousands.

For a pair of moments, if no longer, I believed the Irish might reach that wall of stone and earth and gray and flashing rifles. Their lines were gone, their flag was either down or shrouded in smoke, but the last of the Irish Brigade charged forward like wild Afghanees or rabid hounds.

It looked as if a handful would get in among the Rebels with their bayonets. But I was looking at dozens of men, not hundreds nor a thousand. A massed volley from the base of the ridge collapsed their charge in an instant. Farther back, a few stray clots of men still stood and fired their rifles into the gray ranks before them. But those men, too, recoiled, crumpled, fell or dropped to the ground to load then thought better of rising again.

Not half an hour before, they had been a brigade as fine as any on earth. Now nothing remained but a thickening of the blue cloth dressing the earth.

“The sad, sorry bastards” was all that Jimmy said. Even he could not find a joke that day.

In later years, the survivors of the terrible Battle of Fredericksburg argued, as aging veterans will, as to which regiment come closest to the Rebel lines. None reached it, of course, though more than five thousand men fell in the attempt. The old men argued and nattered and, sometimes, lied. But I was there, and I will tell you: Those bold sons of Erin lay nearest to the enemy, the bravest almost close enough to touch the men who slew them.

Now, you will think me weak, but the truth is that I wept. Not for long, see. But long enough it was for Jimmy to turn away so
his gaze would not embarrass me. Or perhaps his own eyes were teary. I never thought quite so badly of an Irishman after that day.

But let that bide.

The slaughter went on, well into the shades of the evening. Stubbornness, folly, madness, ignorance, vanity, and incompetence, that is what our high commanders gave us. General Burnside did his best to throw away an army. The only good I can say of him is that, when the defeat demanded a scapegoat, he took the blame upon himself like a man. But that is not enough, see. He humbled himself, but first he killed men in the thousands, to no purpose. Remorse will not bring any father or son or husband back to life.

It was going to be a glum Christmas in the North. And all for naught.

The sacrifice of regiments and brigades only stopped by the light of burning ruins. For the hundreds of men who had crept or crawled back into the sheltering streets, thousands still lay upon the field, thousands dead and thousands wounded, all lying in the frigid cold, and still more men lying among them unscathed, but unable to withdraw with the Rebels shooting at any hint of movement that showed against the backdrop of the town. More buildings burned now, though this time the fires had been lit by Confederate gunnery.

Jimmy and I abandoned our vantage point, only to find the stairs had been shot away by a Rebel cannonball. We had to drop down to the floor below, which was a bother to my leg, but little matter compared to the day’s other miseries. We had to go a bit slowly through the streets, though, for my blasted leg was unwilling to behave.

We had to go carefully, too. For Rebel sharpshooters made a game of seeking targets amid the dancing light, and, now and then, a Confederate gun would send a ball down one of the vertical streets, to sweep it clean.

The lanes were a shambles of wounded men and shocked survivors. Sullen and drained, they sat against walls or in doorways,
or sprawled on ruined lawns. Few seemed concerned enough to hunt their regiments, while elsewhere little knots of men were all that remained of brigades. You would think that men would be glad to have survived, that they would find some joy in it and think themselves lucky. But that is not the way the soldier feels things. There was only loss, and shame, and guilt, and a relief so fragile it was not yet quite believed.

Many feared the fight would resume in the morning. Rumors plagued the living and mocked the dead.

Even in the streets where houses burned and crackled, or where sergeants called the roll of broken companies, you heard the screams of the wounded off in the night. In the ravaged heart of the town, ambulances rolled along in columns, efficient in this second year of war. But the vehicles were still too few in number, for no one had expected such a bloodbath.

We found the house where the Irish brigade had quartered its staff the night before. Meagher was there, uniform scorched and muddy, his fair face stunned. A much-diminished knot of officers had gathered about him. They were drinking quietly.

“My brigade,” Meagher said to no one. “My lovely brigade. All gone.”

THE SOLDIERS WHO had not regained the town lay out all night, exposed to a frost that fell hard. Many a wounded man who might have lived froze upon those fields. In that crowded swale, men robbed canteens from corpses, only to find the water frozen through. The living sneaked against one another for warmth, regardless of identities, ranks, or old animosities. In the ditch that cut the field, the water thickened to ice tinged pink with blood. Merciless, the Rebels watched for any sign of life.

And the lads still alive come morning, who had not scuttled back to safety in the dark, remained upon the field all through the next day, freezing, thirsty, terrified, hungry, dying. Twas only during the second night after the battle that the Rebels eased their vigilance and the other survivors crawled back.

On that second night, the cries of the wounded were far less of a bother. So many had died in the absence of a truce, lying under that winter sky until they could no longer cling to life. Later, of course, there was a brief cease-fire, to bury the dead.

Jimmy and I were weary men, for we had done our best in the night after the battle to help bring in the nearest of the wounded. My leg would not allow me to manage a stretcher, but I did my best to crawl out to the boys with Jimmy and we lugged in several dozen of them between us. Enough to leave us covered with blood and stinking. I hope some of them lived.

The hardest wounded men with whom you must cope are the boys who beg you not to move them, to let them lie there and not add to their pain. Some ask you to kill them. You must bring all those in, too, for that is our Christian duty. But it is a hard thing. Especially when a broken boy uses his last bit of strength to make a fist, threatening to kill you if you do not let him be. You bring them in legless and robbed of arms, with their manhood shot away or their faces shorn off. The conscious ones think of their sweethearts and dread their lives. You bring them in begging and screaming, or deeply unconscious. And you pray to God that you have done a good service.

That second night, we went again to seek General Meagher, but only saw him from a distance, for the fellow was holding a grand reception for visiting politicians. I believe they brought him his flags, after all. There were speeches and oaths and food and drink, and the Good Lord knows how they managed it. His brigade was ruined, true enough, with less than half the names answered at the muster. Yet, Meagher would not quit—not yet—nor would his Irishmen. The lot of them acted as if they were a grand brigade again, though barely the strength of a regiment. The Irish pluck hope from the lip of the grave. The men were certain their ranks would fill back up, although our army’s regulations would finally do what the Rebels had not accomplished. But that is another tale.

An officer who recognized us invited us into the party, where the general was holding forth with heady grandiloquence.
Amid the smoldering ruins of the town, with the wounded still lying about and the army a savaged thing, General Meagher was describing the liberation of Ireland, to be effected by our Irish veterans, once we had taken Richmond and trounced the Rebels. The prospect seemed little better than a fairy tale that night, and the fellow’s flights of fancy left me sour. But perhaps that is the very heart of the matter: The Irish have endured so much they must resort to fantasies and find their refuge in dreams.

We would have been welcome at a back table, but neither Jimmy nor I had the stomach for it. We thanked the fellow who greeted us, but begged off.

Twas the final time I saw General Meagher, who would leave the war in bitterness not long after, angry that he was not allowed to rebuild his brigade. He applied himself to politics then, not always for the better. He never was disloyal, but his heart was broken by our government’s callousness. And by Fredericksburg. He died but a short time after the war, still young, out in the West and in a sorry circumstance. When last I glimpsed him, he was laughing at his own joke as he raised a cup.

Jimmy and I walked along toward the pontoons, without further companionship. For the name of Daniel Boland had not found an answer when the roll was called. Nor did he appear later on, among the lists of the wounded and convalescing. I cannot even say where his body lies, for the Rebels held the ground. We buried our men at their sufferance and in haste.

We walked through the shame of ravished streets, past men who had fought honorably and less so, past the bivouacs of fresh regiments put over to stave off a possible Confederate attack, and along by the squalid remains of units shot to pieces and waiting for orders, or for officers, or simply for the vigor to lift themselves from the spot. We walked in dreary light, almost in darkness, between campfires built at streetcorners and the hurricane lanterns at sentry posts. And then I heard singing.

We were passing through a rough encampment of Irishmen—not those of the Irish Brigade, but some of the tens of
thousands of others who served our Union. And from the next crossing we heard a well-sung hymn. Welshmen the singers were, I could not mistake it. They were singing an anthem of Charles Wesley’s, reverent and warm, in a harmony of two parts, then of three.

I expected the Irish to make a fuss, to call cats and shout and complain. But the strangest thing happened. Those Irishmen, though their souls belonged to Rome, began singing along with the Welshmen. Perhaps it was a result of months in encampments, but many knew the words to the hymn and near all knew the tune. In another minute, the street resounded with song.

I stood transfixed until the singing ended. Then Jimmy tugged me along. For we had a long journey before us.

Before we passed on to the next crowd of soldiers, the Irishmen took up a song of their own, “Mollie of the Downs.” It is a lovely air, all loss and pining.

The Welshmen just ahead joined in, as the Irish had done on the hymn.

Twas thus we made our way along to the bridges, with the music of many voices in our ears. I stumbled once, my leg still an annoyance, and Jimmy caught me by the arm. He kept his arm laced through mine own thereafter. We felt the cold off the river, chilling our faces. But the singing at our backs was lovely warm.

Just shy of the provost’s station, we had to wait for a battery to pass, all whinnies and curses and rumbling and clanging and creaks. As we waited for the guns to cross the river, I listened to the last of the fading harmonies.

“Well,” I said to Jimmy, “we are all Americans now.”

AS WITH EACH NOVEL IN THIS SERIES, I OWE THANKS to numerous people who assisted me with my research or otherwise encouraged me. Chief Dale Repp of the Pottsville Police Department, whose hospitality is as deep as his friendship is enduring, acted repeatedly as my host and “events coordinator” during my investigations into the remarkable past of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. His splendid wife, Cathy, never allowed me to leave the Repp home until I had been fed well enough to win a blue ribbon at the farm show.

My mother keeps the newspaper clippings coming, in case I miss anything back home, and my old school pals, Rhon Bower and Bruce Evans—Welshies the two of them—have been consistent, gracious supporters of Abel Jones. Katherine McIntire Peters, my wife (and a candidate for Protestant sainthood) is not only my savage first-line editor, but my literary conscience and moral compass. She is far more important to me than any book.

Thomas P. Lowry, M.D., the author of several fascinating books on Civil War subjects, was as helpful as ever. The most generous researchers I ever have encountered, Tom and his wife, Bev, provided me with their court-martial records on the Irish Brigade, as well as with other priceless sources. They are kind, lovely people, whose pioneering research work remains underappreciated.