Battle of Fredericksburg took place in Spotsylvania County, Virginia between December 11–15, 1862 and marked General Ambrose Burnside’s first major campaign as commander of Army of the Potomac. While Burnside’s overall objective was to march on Richmond, Virginia, his army had to first successfully cross the Rappahannock river near Fredericksburg. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, however, defeated Burnside’s forces and forced them to retreat. Some estimates put the total number of casualties at 17,929 (Union 13,353, CSA 4,576), which included four generals – two Union (C. Feger Jackson and George Bayard) and two Confederate (Thomas R.R. Cobb and Maxey Gregg). The National Park Service’s website on Fredericksburg provides a nice overview of the battle and offers a number of resources. There are over ten galleries of modern and historic photographs, including “Fredericksburg Sketches” and “Historic Photos.” In addition, the site is creating a virtual tour of the battlefield. Anyone planning on a visit should check out their tour options. The Encyclopedia of Virginia, which is produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, also provides a nice overview of the battle and links to historic images. Other primary sources about this battle are available at Cornell University’s Making of America, which provides digital access to historical periodicals like The Century. In August 1886, this magazine published five articles by officers who were involved in the battle, including General James Longstreet (HD profile / article) and Union Generals Darius Couch (HD profile / article), William Farrah Smith (HD profile / article), and Rush C. Hawkins (article).Longstreet argued that:

“The battle of Fredericksburg was a great and unprofitable sacrifice of human life made, through the pressure from the rear, against a general who should have known better and who doubtless acted against his judgment. If I had been in General Burnside’s place, I would have asked the President to allow me to resign rather than execute his order to force the passage of the river and march the army against Lee in his stronghold.”

You can also find other documents related to this battle in volume 21 of the Official Records.

Within twenty four hours of the Union’s victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July 1863, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered his forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi on July, 4, 1863 to General Ulysses S. Grant after a long siege. Vicksburg is a city located along the Mississippi River and the Confederacy’s loss of such an important port was a serious loss. Teachers should check out the great resources on National Park Service’s page and in their online exhibit, which are described in an earlier post. House Divided has several interesting documents that offer a variety of perspectives on Vicksburg, including a Confederate private who told his wife what he believed was responsible for the defeat. General Pemberton’s forces surrendered “on the account of provisions,” as Private William Stoker explained. Stoker, who was with General John Walker’s Texas Division in Louisiana when he heard about Vicksburg, argued that “[the Union] could [never] of whipped us there if we…of had [enough] provisions.” General William T. Sherman, who also participated in the Vicksburg Campaign, reflected after the war on some negative consequences of the Union’s victory:

“But our success at Vicksburg produced other results not so favorable to our cause a general relaxation of effort, and desire to escape the hard drudgery of camp: officers sought leaves of absence to visit their homes, and soldiers obtained furloughs and discharges on the most slender pretexts; even the General Government seemed to relax in its efforts to replenish our ranks with new men, or to enforce the draft, and the politicians were pressing their schemes to reorganize or patch up some form of civil government, as fast as the armies gained partial possession of the States.”

In addition, this short newspaper article from the Vicksburg Whig provides a nice example of the way southern editors portrayed Union soldiers’ conduct during the campaign. You can find other primary sources in the Vicksburg Campaign major topic at House Divided as well as in volume 15 of the Official Records.

Alexander Kelly was an African- American Civil War soldier who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  He was born on April 7, 1840 in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania and worked as a coal miner prior to his involvement in the war.  On August 19, 1863 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania he enlisted in Company F of the 6th United States Colored Troops Regiment  as a substitute for someone named Joseph Kelly.  He was originally trained at Camp William Penn in Chelten Hills, Pennsylvania.  Although Kelly was small in stature, standing at only about 5 feet 3 inches tall, he was commended for his actions at Chaffin’s Farm in Henrico County, Virginia on September 29-30, 1864.  The National Park Service’s website includes a brief summary on the battle at Chaffin’s Farm (also known as New Market Heights) that includes how  Union Major General Benjamin Butler attacked General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate forces at Richmond.  A more detailed description of the battle at Chaffin’s Farm is provided in “Pennsylvania Negro Regiments in the Civil War .”  Kelly was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor  on April 6, 1865 for his bravery and leadership at Chaffin’s Farm.  General Benjamin Butler noted in an order  issued on October 11, 1864:

“Alexander Kelly, first sergeant Company F, Sixth U.S. Colored Troops, gallantly seized the colors, which had fallen near the enemy’s lines of abatis, raised them, and rallied the men at a time of confusion and in a place of great danger.”

Another resource that may be interesting to browse is Black Union Soldier’s  in the Civil War which has a valuable list detailing all the Black Union Recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Kelly was “mustered out” of service in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1865.  After the war, Kelly married his wife Victoria on July 30, 1866, and the two had a son named William in January 1867.  He served as a night watchman for the Pittsburgh Police before his death on June 19, 1907.  Kelly is buried in St. Peters Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On May 31, 1897, the city of Boston erected a monument created by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in honor of the 54th Massachusetts and its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw.  The monument commemorates the regiment’s participation in the second attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina on July 18, 1863. The August 8 edition of Harper’s Weekly, available in a transcribed form at Assumption College’s primary source-rich database “Northern Vision of Race, Religion & Reform” recorded that at Fort Wagner: “The 54th Massachusetts (negro), whom Copperhead officers would have called cowardly if they had stormed and carried the gates of hell, went boldly into battle, for the second time, commanded by their brave Colonel, but came out of it led by no higher officer than the boy, Lieutenant Higginson.”  Sergeant James Henry Gooding of Company C of the 54th wrote weekly letters to the New Bedford Mercury, a periodical in the company’s hometown.  Gooding’s letters were published as On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters from the Front, and some are available on Google Books.  Gooding’s July 20 letter documents the 54th’s attack of Fort Wagner: “When the men saw their gallant leader [Colonel Shaw] fall, they made a desperate effort to get him out, but they were either shot down, or reeled in the ditch below. One man succeeded in getting hold of the State color staff.” The “one man” who reached the flag was Sergeant William H. Carney, originally of Norfolk, Virginia, as he maintained the sanctity of the flag by keeping it from touching the ground. Though Carney was wounded in both of his legs, one arm, and his chest he kept the flag aloft and is recorded as exclaiming, “the old flag never touched the ground, boys!”  During the 1897 monument dedication Carney raised the flag once more, an action that Booker T. Washington recorded in his autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), as causing such an effect on the crowd that “for a number of minutes the audience seemed to entirely lose control of itself.” Three years later, Carney received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle of Fort Wagner. Though Carney is often listed as the first African-American recipient of a Medal of Honor, instead, Carney’s rescue of the colors at Fort Wagner was the earliest African-American act of bravery to be recognized with a Medal of Honor. The medal notation reads: “Medal of Honor awarded May 9, 1900, for most dinstinguished gallantry in action at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, July 18, 1863.”

Correspondents from the New York Herald and other newspapers faced numerous problems in reporting during the Civil War. While “General Grant [was] not afraid of newspaper criticism,” the New York Herald described that others “generals exhibit[ed]…excessive sensitiveness to criticism.” These generals put in place “stringent measures” against newspapers and in some cases even arrested reporters. As the New York Herald explained:

• “Liable to be cashiered or put to hard labor by our own generals, to be tried and hung as spies by the rebels, or to encounter the dangers without receiving any of the rewards or the honors of the soldier, they exhibit an amount of spirit and nerve which, perhaps, no other class of men are capable of.”

You can read the full editorial here.

As United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiments entered southern states, they had the opportunity on numerous occasions to liberate slaves. After one USCT regiment liberated slaves from a plantation in North Carolina, an editorial published in Harpers Weekly on January 23, 1864 noted that they “[left] ‘Ole Massa’ to glory in solitude and secession.” You can read the full article here as well as view the accompanying illustration.

This short editorial published in Harper’s Weekly describes two pictures of the same man – one shows him as a fugitive slave from Alabama and the other as a Union soldier. While at first he was a “poor fugitive oppressed with the weariness of two hundred long miles of dusty travel,” Harper’s Weekly explains that he enlisted in the USCT and became a “solder crowned with freedom and honor.” You can read the full editorial here.

See the images described in this editorial in the Slideshow below –

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African American soldiers in the United States Colored Troops originally did not receive equal pay. Some northerners demanded that Congress take action and change the policy. This editorial, which was published in Harper’s Weekly on February 13, 1864, asked readers to consider the issue:

• “But the point for every honest man to ponder is this: We invited the colored man to fight for us: they have shown themselves brave, clever, and obedient, and we refuse to pay them what we pay other soldiers. Not to speak again of the sheer breach of faith and wanton injustice of such conduct, a distinction like this, even if it were honorably made, tends to maintain a feeling of caste which would be fatal to the army. All that we ask is fair play for every man who will risk his life for the country; and against foul play…we shall not fail to protest as earnestly and persistently as we can.”

Congress eventually instituted equal pay in June 1864.

As USCT regiments were organized in northern states, they were often honored at ceremonies held in local cities or at their training camps. A previous post described a flag raising ceremony at Camp William Penn. This article in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, however, described the event at which the 20th USCT received their colors in New York City. “A vast crowd of citizens of every shade of color, and every phase of social and political life, filled the square, and streets, and every door, window, veranda, tree and housetop that commanded a view of the scene was peopled with spectators,” as the reporter observed. You can read the entire article here.