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Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town

by John T. Goolrick · English · Gutenberg #39403 · 393,317 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town

Author: John T. Goolrick


        
Release date: April 9, 2012 [eBook #39403]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG: THE STORY OF AN OLD TOWN ***




Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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generously made available by The Internet Archive.)









HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG




[Illustration: FREDERICKSBURG FROM STAFFORD

_Showing the Steeple that was Used as a Signal Station by Both Armies_]


[Illustration: ON THE WILDERNESS BATTLEFIELD

_President Harding, John T. Goolrick and Gen. Smedley D. Butler_]




  HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG

  _The Story of an Old Town_


  _By_ JOHN T. GOOLRICK

  AUTHOR OF
  _"The Life of General Hugh Mercer"
  "Irishmen in the Civil War" Etc._


  _Printed In U.S.A._
  by
  WHITTET & SHEPPERSON RICHMOND VA.

  _Photographs By_
  DAVIS GALLERY, FREDERICKSBURG VA.




  COPYRIGHT, 1922
  JOHN T. GOOLRICK




  This Book is Dedicated
  To one who has not failed her friends, or her duty.
  Who has given freely of her best.
  Whose faith has not faltered, nor courage dimmed.
  Who has held high her ideals; who has lighted
  a pathway for those she loves.
  To My Wife




_Contents_


  IN THE OLDER DAYS                                         13
    _One by one the little cabins are built along the
    river bank_

  AFTER THE REVOLUTION                                      26
    _In the days of its glory, the Old Town was famed
    and prosperous_

  WAR'S WORST HORRORS                                       37
    _Shelled by 181 guns for hours, the town becomes
    a crumbled ruin_

  THE FIRST BATTLE                                          48
    _When, at Marye's Heights and Hamilton's Crossing,
    war claimed her sacrifice_

  AT CHANCELLORSVILLE                                       55
    _The Struggle in the Pine Woods when death struck
    at Southern hearts_

  TWO GREAT BATTLES                                         64
    _The fearful fire swept Wilderness, and the Bloody
    Angle at Spottsylvania_

  HEROES OF EARLY DAYS                                      70
    _The Old Town gives the first Commander, first
    Admiral and Great Citizens_

  MEN OF MODERN TIMES                                       98
    _Soldiers, Adventurers and Sailors, Heroes and
    Artists, mingle here_

  UNFORGOTTEN WOMEN                                        123
    _Some of Many Who Left a Record of Brilliancy,
    Service or Sacrifice_

  AT THE RISING SUN                                        133
    _Where Famous Men Met; and Mine Host Brewed Punch
    and Sedition_

  LAFAYETTE COMES BACK                                     139
    _After Forty Years of Failure, He Hears the Echo
    of His Youthful Triumph_

  OLD COURT RECORD                                         142
    _Staid Documents, Writ by Hands That Are Still,
    Are History For Us_

  ECHOES OF THE PAST                                       151
    _"Ghosts of Dead Hours, and Days That Once Were
    Fair"_

  WHERE BEAUTY BLENDS                                      165
    _Old Gardens, at Old Mansions, Where Bloom Flowers
    from Long Ago_

  CHURCH AND SCHOOL                                        173
    _How They Grew in the New World; Pathways to the
    Light_

  THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND                                    181
    _First in Virginia, the Church of England Has the
    Longest History_

  THE 250TH BIRTHDAY                                       188
    _Fredericksburg Celebrates an Anniversary_

  APPENDIX                                                 199




FREDERICKSBURG

_A Preface_


Fredericksburg sprawls at the foot of the hills where the scented summer
winds sweep over it out of the valley of brawling waters above. The grass
grows lush in the meadows and tangles in the hills that almost surround
it. In spring the flowers streak the lowlands, climb on the slopes, and
along the ridges; and Autumn makes fair colors in the trees, shading them
in blood crimson, weathered bronze, and the yellow of sunsets.

Over its shadowed streets hangs the haze of history. It is not rich nor
proud, because it has not sought; it is quiet and content, because it has
sacrificed. It gave its energy to the Revolution. It gave its heart to the
Confederacy; and, once when it was thundered at by guns, and red flames
twisted in its crumbling homes, it gave its soul and all it possessed to
the South. It never abated its loyalty nor cried out its sorrows.

In Fredericksburg, and on the battlefields near it, almost thirty thousand
men lay on the last couch in the shadowy forests and--we think--heard Her
voice calling and comforting them. To the wounded, the Old Town gave its
best, not visioning the color of their uniforms, nursing them back to
life: And, broken and twisted and in poverty, it began to rebuild itself
and gather up the shattered ideals of its dead past.

Out of its heart has grown simple kindness; out of its soul simple faith.

As I look out over the streets, (I knew them well when Lee and Jackson and
Stuart, Lincoln and Grant and Hancock knew them too), they shimmer in the
Autumn sun. Over them, as has ever seemed to me, hangs an old and haunting
beauty. There may not be as great men here as long ago, but here are their
descendants and the descendants of others like them. And he who comes
among them will find loyal hearts and warm hand-clasps.

Ah, I know the old town. My bare feet ran along its unpaved walks and
passed the cabins many a time in slavery days. I knew it in the Civil War
and reconstruction days, and on and on till now: And it has not failed its
duty.

Fredericksburg's history brims with achievement and adventure. It has not
been tried in this volume to tell all of these. I have tried to tell a
simple story, with the flame of achievement burning on the shrines and the
echoes of old days sweeping through it, like low winds in the pine woods;
to make men and women more vivid than dates and numbers. I have tried to
be accurate and complete and to vision the past, but above all, I have
loved the things of which I have written.

There is no possibility of expressing the gratitude the author feels for
the aid given him by others, but he must say, briefly, that without the
assistance of Miss Dora Jett, Mrs. Franklin Stearns, Mrs. John T.
Goolrick, and Dr. J. N. Barney, Mr. Chester B. Goolrick and Mr. John T.
Goolrick, Jr., the book could not have been made as readable as we hope
the public will find it. We owe just as deep thanks to Miss Sally Gravatt
of the Wallace Library.

JNO. T. GOOLRICK.

  _Fredericksburg, Va._,
    October 25, 1921.




INTRODUCTION

REV. ROBERT CAMPBELL GILMORE.


As a public speaker of wide reputation, especially on Southern themes,
Hon. John T. Goolrick, Judge of the Corporation Court of Fredericksburg,
Va., needs no introduction. It is my privilege to introduce him as a
writer of history to an ever widening circle of readers. Other men can
gather facts and put them in logical order, but few can give the history
of the old town of Fredericksburg such filial sympathy and interest, such
beauty of local color, as can this loyal son.

The father, Peter Goolrick, a man of fine education, came from Ireland and
made his home in Fredericksburg, and was mayor of the town.

The son has always lived here. The war between the States came in his
boyhood. His first connection with the Confederacy was as a messenger at
the Medical Department headquarters of General Lee. Growing old enough and
tiring of protected service he enlisted in Braxton's Battery of
Fredericksburg Artillery. He was wounded at Fort Harrison, but recovering,
returned to his command and served to the end of the war as "a
distinguished private soldier," and surrendered with "The last eight
thousand" at Appomattox. Since the war he has been prominently connected
with Confederate affairs. At one time he was Commander of the local Camp
of Veterans and is now on the staff of the Commander of all the Veterans
of the South and Virginia.

After the war young Goolrick studied law, was elected Judge of the
Corporation Court of Fredericksburg, and of the County Court of
Spotsylvania, served for a time as Commonwealth's Attorney of
Fredericksburg, and later was re-elected Judge of the Corporation Court,
which position he has held for sixteen years, and which he now holds. He
has been the inceptor often, and always a worker, in every public event in
the town.

This is not Judge Goolrick's first appearance as a writer. He has
contributed many articles to newspapers, and magazines, and has published
several books. He is thus particularly fitted to write the history of his
own beloved town.




HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG




_In the Older Days_

    _One by one the little cabins are built along the river bank--_


Enveloped in the perfume of old English boxwood and the fragrance of still
older poplars, and permeated with the charm of a two hundred and fifty
year old atmosphere, the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, nestles in the
soft foliage along the banks of the Rappahannock, at the point where the
turbulent waters of the upper river rush abruptly against the back-wash of
the sea, an odd but pleasing mixture of the old and the new.

Subtly rich with the elegance of the past, it looks proudly back across
its two and a half centuries, but it has not forgotten how to live in the
present, and combines delightfully all that it has of the old with much
that is new and modern.

Perhaps no other community in the country has had a more intimate and
constant association with the political and historic growth of America
than Fredericksburg. From the earliest Colonial period, when it was a
place of importance, it traces its influence on the nation's development
down through the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812, the Mexican and Civil
wars and the periods of national progress between those conflicts, and
even today, when the old town has lost its touch with affairs as an
important community, it still can claim a close connection with events
through the influence of its descendants--sons and daughters--who have
gone forth in the world and achieved leadership in movements of the day
that are aiding in shaping the destiny of mankind; and of these another
chapter tells.

But while proud of the accomplishments of these, the old town does not
depend upon them for distinction. It bases its claim to this on the events
with which it actually has been associated, and the importance of the part
it has played in the past is proved by data found in the recorded annals
of the country.

[Sidenote: _The Spanish Missionaries_]

It might, indeed, if it sought historical recognition on accepted legend
rather than known fact, assert an origin that antidates that of the first
English permanent colony in America. A historian, writing in the Magazine
of American History, says the spot now occupied by Fredericksburg was
first discovered in 1571 by Spanish Missionaries, who erected there the
first Christian shrine in America. It is almost certain the town was
settled in 1621, three hundred years ago, but this cannot be definitely
proven, and the town has not claimed it as a date in its established
history. It does not claim to have had a beginning with the recorded
arrival of Captain John Smith, one year after the settlement of Jamestown,
but takes as its birthdate May 2d, 1671, at which time the site was
legally recognized by a grant from Sir William Berkley, then Colonial
governor, to John Royston and Thomas Buckner, who are looked upon as the
real founders of community life at the spot now occupied by
Fredericksburg.

Whether or not white men first reached the location as early as the
suggested arrival of the Spanish Missionaries probably must always remain
a mystery, though there are reasons to believe that this is entirely
probable, as it is known that Spaniards made an early effort at
colonization in Virginia, and in 1526 came up the James River from Haiti
with six hundred people, and, with many negro slaves as workmen, founded
the town of Miguel, near where Jamestown afterwards was established by
Captain John Smith. It is probable that these pioneers ventured into the
surrounding country, and not at all unlikely that some of them strayed as
far as the falls of the Rappahannock.

But if the data are not sufficient to actually prove this early visit to
the site, it is a fact of record in the diary of "Chirurgeon" Bagnall, a
member of the party, that Captain Smith reached the spot in 1608, one year
after the establishment of Jamestown, and after successfully disputing
possession of the land with a tribe of Indians, disembarked and planted a
cross, later prospecting for gold and other precious metals. The diary of
Smith's companions, still in existence, tells of the trip in accurate
detail and from it is proven that even if the Spanish missionaries did not
come as far as claimed for them, at least the Indians had recognized the
natural advantages of the place by the establishment there of towns, which
might have been in existence for hundreds of years.

[Sidenote: _Captain Smith's First Visit_]

Captain Smith made two attempts to explore the Rappahannock. The first, in
June, 1608, ended when the hardy adventurer in plunging his sword into "a
singular fish, like a thornback with a long tail, and from it a poison
sting," ran afoul of the water monster and because of his sufferings was
obliged to turn back. The second trip was started on July 24th, 1608, and
was continued until the falls were reached.

Dr. Bagnall says in his diary that when near the mouth of the river, the
party encountered "our old friend, Mosco, a lusty savage of Wighconscio,
upon the Patawomeck," who accompanied them as guide and interpreter, and
upon reaching the falls did splendid service against the unfriendly
Indians, "making them pause upon the matter, thinking by his bruit and
skipping there were many savages." In the fighting Captain Smith's party
captured a wounded Indian and much to the disgust of the cheerful Mosco,
who wished to dispatch him forthwith, spared his life and bound his
wounds. This work of mercy resulted in a truce with the Redmen, which made
possible the final undisturbed settlement of the land by the whites, the
prisoner interceding for Smith and his party.

Captain Smith's first landing on the upper river probably was directly
opposite what now is the heart of Fredericksburg. Dr. Bagnall's diary
says:

[Sidenote: _About The Indian Villages_]

"Between Secobeck and Massawteck is a small isle or two, which causes the
river to be broader than ordinary; there it pleased God to take one of
our company, called Master Featherstone, that all the time he had been in
this country had behaved himself honestly, valiently and industriously,
where in a little bay, called Featherstone's bay, we buried him with a
volley of shot * * *

"The next day we sailed so high as our boat would float, there setting up
crosses and graving our names on trees."

Captain Quinn, in his excellent History of Fredericksburg, says that
Featherstone's bay "is in Stafford, opposite the upper end of Hunter's
island," but it is probable he did not closely examine facts before making
this statement, as his own location of other places mentioned in Dr.
Bagnall's diary serves to disprove his contention as to the whereabouts of
the bay.

"Seacobeck," Captain Quinn says, "was just west of the city almshouse."
The almshouse was then situated where the residence of the President of
the State Normal School now stands. Massawteck, Captain Quinn locates as
"just back of Chatham." If his location of these two places is correct, it
is clear that the "small isle or two," which the diary says was located
between them, must have been at a point where a line drawn from the
President's residence, at the Normal School, to "just back of Chatham"
would intersect the river, which would be just a little above the present
location of Scott's island, and that Featherstone's bay occupied what now
are the Stafford flats, extending along the river bank from nearly
opposite the silk mill to the high bank just above the railroad bridge and
followed the course of Claibourne's Run inland, to where the land again
rises. The contours of the land, if followed, here show a natural
depression that might easily have accommodated a body of water, forming a
bay.

There are other evidences to bear out this conclusion. Dr. Bagnall's diary
says: "The next day we sailed so high as our boat would float." It would
have been an impossibility to proceed "high" (meaning up) the river from
Hunter's island in boats, even had it been possible to go as high as that
point. Notwithstanding contradictory legend, the falls of the
Rappahannock have been where they are today for from five to one hundred
thousand years, and there is no evidence whatever to indicate that
Hunter's Island ever extended into tidewater, the formation of the banks
of the river about that point giving almost absolute proof that it did
not.

No authentic data can be found to prove the continued use of the site as a
settlement from Smith's visit forward, though the gravestone of a Dr.
Edmond Hedler, bearing the date 1617, which was found near Potomac run in
Stafford county, a few miles from the town, would indicate that there were
white settlers in the section early in the 17th century, and if this is
true there is every reason to believe the falls of the Rappahannock were
not without their share, as the natural advantages of the place for
community settlement would have been appealing and attractive to the
colonists, who would have been quick to recognize them.

In 1622, according to Howe's history, Captain Smith proposed to the London
Company to provide measures "to protect all their planters from the James
to the Potowmac rivers," a territory that included the Rappahannock
section, which can be taken as another indication of the presence of
settlers in the latter.

[Sidenote: _Establishment of the Town_]

The first legal record of the place as a community is had in
1671--strangely enough just one hundred years after the reported coming of
the Spaniards--when Thomas Royston and John Buckner were granted, from Sir
William Berkley, a certain tract of land at "the falls of the
Rappahannock." This was on May 2d, and shortly afterward, together with
forty colonists, they were established on what is now the heart of
Fredericksburg, but known in those remote times as "Leaseland." This is
the date that Fredericksburg officially takes as its birthday, though
additional evidence that colonists already were in that vicinity is had in
the fact that the boundaries of the land described in the grant from
Governor Berkley to the two early settlers, ended where the lands of one
Captain Lawrence Smith began.

[Sidenote: _Major Lawrence Smith's Fort_]

Three or four years after the grant was made to Buckner and Royston the
"Grande Assemblie at James Cittie" took official cognizance of the Colony
by ordering Major Lawrence Smith and one hundred and eleven men to the
Falls of the Rappahannock for the purpose of protecting the colonists.
Records in regard to this say, "At a Grande Assemblie at James Cittie,
between the 20th of September, 1674, and the 17th of March, 1675, it was
ordered that one hundred and eleven men out of Gloucester be garrisoned at
one ffort or place of defense, at or near the falls of the Rappahannock
river, of which ffort Major Lawrence Smith is to be captain or chief
commander." It was also ordered that "the ffort be furnished with four
hundred and eight pounds of powder and fourteen hundred pounds of shott."

A few years later, in 1679, Major Smith was authorized by the Jamestown
government to mark out, below the falls of the Rappahannock, a strip of
land one mile long and one-fourth of a mile wide, to be used as a colony
and, together with eight commissioners, he was empowered to hold court and
administer justice. Within this confine he was instructed to build
habitations for two hundred and fifty men, fifty of whom were to be kept
well armed and ready to respond to the tap of a drum. It would appear that
the "ffort" mentioned in the earlier meeting of the "Grande Assemblie" was
not built until this year. The contention that it was erected on the
Stafford side of the river seems to be without any foundation of fact.

That the community was now growing seems to be proven by the fact that the
same act, defining the limits mentioned above, also mentioned a larger
district, defined as extending three miles above the fort and two miles
below it for a distance of four miles back, over which Major Smith and his
commissioners were to have jurisdiction. Two years later, in 1681, the
little town received a great impetus when two hundred families came to
join the colony. From this time forward, the community began to take an
important part in the life of the Colonies.

In 1710, upon the invitation of Baron de Graffenried, a friend of Governor
Spotswood, twelve German families came to America and settled on the
Rapidan river, eighteen miles above Fredericksburg, opening the first iron
mines and establishing the first iron works in America. They named the
place Germanna, and, according to an account left by one of the party,
"packed all their provisions from Fredericksburg," then the principal
trading point of the section.

In 1715, Governor Spotswood and the now-famed "Knights of the Golden
Horseshoe," started from Germanna (some of them came through
Fredericksburg en route and stopped with Austin Smith). Assembling at
Germanna they left on September 24th and continued across the Blue Ridge
mountains to the Valley of Virginia. An interesting account of the trip,
which has been made the theme of song and story, and even the basis of a
secret society, can be found in the diary of John Fountaine, a member of
the party.

For a period nothing seems to have happened to the community of sufficient
importance to be recorded, and for the next few years the imagination must
supply the story of the settlement. It probably was a village of
irregular, straggling streets and indifferent houses, with a population
that struggled for a living by trading, trapping and other pursuits of
that day. Its stores were likely very good for those times, but across the
river it had a rival in its neighbor, Falmouth, which as a place of
importance was fast catching up with it, and soon was destined to pass it,
for in 1720, seven years earlier than "The Leaseland," it received its
charter from the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, who vested its
government in seven trustees.

[Sidenote: _Falmouth's Fast Growth_]

If not as a political and social center, at least as a trading point,
Falmouth had soon superceded Fredericksburg. It was the market for all the
grain of the upper country, which by this time was beginning to be
settled, and was in direct commercial communication with England, Europe
and the West Indies by ocean-going vessels, which, when under 140 tons
burden, could come up to its wharves. It was a great milling center and
its merchants began to grow prosperous and wealthy, one of them, Mr. Bazil
Gordon, accumulating the first million dollars ever made in America,
though he was the product of a little later date than that now under
consideration.

Grain brought out of Falmouth in boats larger than 140 tons was first put
upon barges or flat boats of large capacity, which were conveyed down the
river to waiting vessels and transferred by slave labor. The stories heard
of large vessels docking at the Falmouth wharves are apocryphal; no boat
of great tonnage ever got as far as Falmouth. This may account for
Fredericksburg's final supremacy over Falmouth, which doubtless came about
the time the first ferry was started, permitting the planters to cross the
river with their grain and load directly to the waiting vessels, thus
saving time and work, valuable considerations even in those days of
abundant leisure and cheap slave labor.

[Sidenote: _"Leaseland" Is Chartered_]

But, while Falmouth was progressing "Leaseland" was also making strides,
and in 1727 it became of sufficient importance to receive its charter from
the House of Burgesses, and was named in honor of Frederick, Prince of
Wales, son of George II. The Prince died before ascending the throne, but
his son became George III., and it was thus from the domination of the son
of the Prince for whom their town was named that the patriotic people of
the little village later plotted to free themselves. The act giving the
town a charter names John Robinson, Henry Willis, Augustine Smith, John
Taliaferro, Henry Beverly, John Waller and Jeremiah Crowder as trustees,
and the streets were named for members of the Royal family, names which
fortunately endure today, despite an attempt made some years ago to
modernize the town and discard the beautiful and significant old names in
favor of the less distinguished and uglier method of numerical and
alphabetical designations.


[Illustration: FROM MRS. WASHINGTON'S FARM

_One Sees, Across the River, the Homes of Such Families as the Mercer's,
Weeden's, Mortimer's_]


Settlers now were rapidly coming into the community which was growing in
importance. In 1732, Colonel Byrd owner of vast tracts where now stands
the magnificent city of Richmond, an important man in the Colonial life of
Virginia, came to Fredericksburg, calling on his friend, Colonel Henry
Willis, "top man of the town," as Colonel Byrd refers to him in his very
interesting account of the visit preserved to posterity. Colonel Byrd was
impressed by Fredericksburg, particularly by the stone jail, which, he
said, seemed strong enough "to hold Jack Shepherd" and with the
versatility of one Sukey Livingstone, or Levinston, doctress and coffee
woman. Some believe that the old stone building at the Free Bridge head is
the jail referred to.

The seat of justice which had been located at Germanna, was this year
moved to Fredericksburg, St. George's parish established and the church
erected, with Rev. Patrick Henry, uncle of the famous orator, as its first
rector.

[Sidenote: _"Town Fairs" Are Begun_]

In 1738 the House of Burgesses authorized the holding twice annually of
town fairs for the sale of cattle, provisions, goods, wares and all kinds
of merchandise, and it is easy to understand how these affairs became the
most important events in the life of the village, attracting plantation
owners from miles and taking on a social as well as business aspect. And
as the act also provided that all persons attending these fairs should be
immune from arrest for two days previous and two days subsequent to the
events, except for capital offenses or breaches of the peace, suits,
controversies and quarrels that might arise during the events, it can well
be imagined that they were lively and exciting gatherings.

One year later the trustees found it necessary to purchase additional land
for the accommodation of the growing population but a bargain was struck
with Henry Willis, "the top man of the town," and John Lewis only after
the House of Burgesses had taken up the matter deciding the ownership of
the lands in question and fixing the sum to be paid Willis at fifteen
pounds and Lewis at five pounds, not a bad total price, considering the
survey shows that only three acres were bought.

[Sidenote: _Masonry Is Established_]

The town had now grown to such importance as a trading point that the
establishment of direct connections with the Stafford shore was made
necessary, and in 1748 the first ferry was authorized by law. Evidently
from this time forward the town began to forge ahead of its thriving
neighbor, Falmouth, for the lessened expense of transferring grain
directly to the waiting ships made it more attractive as a market and many
of the up-country people who formerly had sold their gain and traded in
Falmouth, now crossed on the ferry and spent their money with the
merchants of Fredericksburg. The establishment of Masonry in 1752, at
which time the lodge was known as "The Lodge of Fredericksburg," points to
the growing importance of the place; and that the Colonial citizens were
keenly alive to the benefits to be derived from attracting industry to
their towns is attested to by an act of the General Assembly, passed in
1759, to encourage the arts and manufactury in the Colonies, which set up
a premium of five hundred pounds to be awarded the citizen making the best
ten hogsheads of wine in any one year, within eight years from the passage
of the act. A number of citizens of the town contributed to the fund,
among them George Washington, who gave two pounds.

In the Indian wars of 1755-57, Fredericksburg became an important depot
and rendezvous for troops. Recruits, provisions, supplies and ordnances
were sent to the town in quantities, and on April 15th, 1757, Governor
Dinwiddie ordered Colonel George Washington to send two hundred men there
to be "Thence sent by vessels to South Carolina, to treat with curtesy the
Indians at Fort London, and to send them out in scalping parties with such
number of men as you can spare."

But now the peaceable growth and prosperity of the village were to be
halted. Dissatisfaction with the government in England began to grow, and
there were murmurings of discontent and resentment, not by any means
indulged in by all the citizens, for large numbers were still utterly
loyal to the Crown, and those who opposed its policies congregated to
themselves, meeting in secret or standing in little groups about the
streets to give vent to their feelings.

[Sidenote: _The Revolution Gathers_]

One well-known place for the meeting of "Revolutionists" was the Rising
Sun tavern still standing in good order, at that time kept by "Mine Host,"
George Weedon. This famed old Tavern is told of in another chapter. It is
almost certain that at this tavern the rough draft was made of a
resolution to be later passed in a public town meeting, which was
tantamount to a declaration of independence, and which was passed
twenty-one days before the famous Mecklenburg declaration and more than a
year before that of the American congress.

These resolutions were adopted on the 29th day of April, 1775, amidst the
greatest public excitement. News of the battle of Lexington, fought on the
20th of April, and of the removal by Lord Dunmore of twenty barrels of
powder from the public magazine at Williamsburg to the English frigate
"Fowey," then lying near Yorktown, which occurred one day after the battle
of Lexington, had just reached Fredericksburg. Immediately the citizens
showed their indignation. More than six hundred men from the town and the
surrounding country armed themselves and sent a courier to General
Washington, then at Williamsburg, offering their services in defense of
the Colonies. Delegates were also dispatched to Richmond to ascertain the
true state of affairs, and to find out at what point the men should
report. The men stayed under arms and in readiness to move at short notice
until General Washington transmitted a message, advising that they
restrain from any hostilities until a congress could be called to decide
upon a general plan of defense. This advice was received by a council of
more than a hundred men, representing fourteen companies (the number under
arms having by this time grown), which decided by a majority of one to
disperse for the present, but to keep themselves in readiness for a call.
Many of them afterwards joined the armies of General Washington.

[Sidenote: _The Gunnery Is Built_]

Material preparations for the conflict that everyone, even the Tories, now
felt was certain, were made by the establishment at the town of the first
small arms manufactury in America, which was located on what now is known
as Gunnery Green. Colonel Fielding Lewis, brother-in-law of General
Washington, was one of the commissioners in charge of the gunnery and
active in its management.

With the coming of the Gunnery, and the formation of companies of troops,
the peaceful atmosphere of Fredericksburg quickly changed to one of a
militaristic aspect. Recruits drilled in the street, the manufacture of
arms was rushed, supplies were received and stored, couriers, with news
from other parts of the country, dashed in to acquaint the eager
townspeople with events, and those loyal to the Colonies went bravely
about with every kind of war preparation, while those inclined to Toryism
kept quiet and to themselves, or moved away with their families, hoping,
and probably succeeding in many cases, in reaching England before the
whole country was affected by the war, in which the part played by
Fredericksburg and its citizens was of the utmost importance. The town
gave to the Revolution an unusually large proportion of troops and many of
the great leaders.

During the Revolution, although Fredericksburg men were the leaders of the
Army, no fighting occurred here and the period was not one of danger for
the town, but was one of anxiety for the inhabitants. Tarleton passed
close to this city on his raid towards Charlottesville, and Lafayette and
his men built the road still known as "The Marquis Road," through the
Wilderness toward Orange.

Recently three soldiers, whose uniform buttons testify they were Hessians,
were dug up near Spotsylvania Court House. A prison camp existed about two
miles from here on the Plank Road from which Washington recruited some
artisans to do the interior decorating in the home of his beloved sister,
Betty, at Kenmore.

[Sidenote: _Regiments Are Recruited_]

Several Regiments went from Fredericksburg. General William Woodford (see
sketch of life) was elected Commander of the first. Among his descendants
are the late Marion Willis, Mayor Willis and Mr. Benj. Willis. General
Hugh Mercer was chosen Commander of the third regiment, and James Monroe,
of Fredericksburg (afterwards president) was Lieut.-Colonel, while Thomas
Marshall, father of Chief Justice Marshall, was Major. The other Virginia
Regiment was not recruited here. It was commanded by Patrick Henry.

Although it furnished two of the first three Virginia Regiments, and half
of America's Generals, as well as the Commanding General, Fredericksburg
was not a war center. Its history during that period will be found in the
lives of the men it produced, elsewhere in this book.

It did give most material aid by furnishing arms from the "Gunnery" of
Col. Fielding Lewis, and was generous in its financial aid, and always
ready for attack.




_After the Revolution_

    _In the days of its glory, the Old Town was famed and prosperous_


The first mention of Fredericksburg in the annals of the new Republic is
an act of the legislature in 1781, incorporating the town and vesting the
powers of its government in the hands of a mayor and commonality,
consisting of a council and board of aldermen. Courts were established and
provision made for future elections of its officials.

The first mayor was Charles Mortimer, and the Board of Aldermen consisted
of William Williams, John Sommerville, Charles Dick, Samuel Roddy and John
Julien, who, together with the mayor, were also justices of the peace, and
required to hold a hustings court monthly. John Legg was appointed
sergeant of the court and corporation, and John Richards and James Jarvis
constables. The town's initial commonwealth's attorney, John Minor, is
said to have been the first man to offer in any legislative body of the
country a bill for the emancipation of the slaves.

The first action of the court is interesting, especially in these times.
It was giving license to five persons to conduct taverns, immediately
followed by an act to regulate them by establishing prices for alcoholic,
vinous and fermented beverages. There is no mention of opening or closing
hours, Sunday selling, selling to minors or any of the later and stricter
regulations, and the prices to be charged are in terms of pounds, or
parts, per gallon. The American bar was unknown then and probably even in
the taverns and tap rooms, little liquor was sold by the drink. Some of
the prices established translated into dollars, were West Indian rum, per
gallon, $3.34; brandy, $1.67; good whiskey, $1.00; good beer, $0.67 and so
on.

Having taken care that the tavern keepers could not charge too much for
drink, the court now provided that they should not over charge for food
served, placing the score for a "single diet" at twenty-five cents, a most
reasonable sum according to modern standards.

While having the power to regulate, the court was not without regulation
from a superior source as the articles of incorporation show that in case
of misconduct on the part of the mayor or any member of the board, the
others would have power to remove him after the charges had been fully
proved, and it further stipulated that should any person elected to office
fail or refuse to serve, he should be fined according to the following
scale: mayor, fifty pounds; recorder, forty pounds; alderman, thirty
pounds; councilman, twenty-five pounds. In 1782 an amendment was passed by
the legislature, enlarging the jurisdiction of the court to include all
territory within one mile of the town limits.

[Sidenote: _The Famed "Peace Ball"_]

Fredericksburg was not long in recovering from the effects of the
Revolution. It had suffered no physical damage, though it had lost a great
deal of actual and potential value in the deaths of citizens who gave
their lives for the cause. A magnificent Peace Ball was held, in 1784, in
the assembly room over the old City Hall, at Main Street and "Market
Alley," which was attended by General Washington, General Lafayette,
Rochambeau, Washington's mother, who came leaning on his arm and all the
notables and fashionables of the country. The town was soon again a
thriving hustling center of trade and business.

New enterprises came as requirements of the times made themselves felt. In
1786 the Virginia Herald made its appearance, the first newspaper
published in the town, and about the same time whipping posts, ducking
stools, and pillories were established to keep down the criminal
tendencies of the unlawfully inclined. In 1789 an act was passed,
empowering the trustees of the Fredericksburg Academy to raise by lottery
$4,000 to defray the expenses of erecting a building on the grounds for
the accommodation of professors, a method of raising money that modern
morals has outlawed. In 1795 the Episcopal Charity School was established
by Archibald McPherson one of the splendid men of the town and in 1799 the
town experienced its first serious fire, which was held by some to have
been the work of an incendiary and by others as due to a wooden chimney.
The council in an effort to assuredly exclude all danger of another such
from either source, offered a reward of $500. for conviction of the
incendiary, and passed an ordinance abolishing wooden chimneys, and stove
pipes sticking through windows or the sides of houses, provided the
buildings were not fire proof.

[Sidenote: _Commercial Development_]

From 1800 to 1850 Fredericksburg was the principal depot of trade and
commerce for all that region between the Rappahannock river and the
counties of Orange, Culpeper, Rapidan, Madison and Fauquier in addition to
the contiguous territory and the great section lying between the town and
the Chesapeake bay. Commerce with the upper country, however, was the most
productive, for the lower country people were in close connection with the
rivers and, as in those days all shipping was done by water ways, they
shipped from wharves along the Rappahannock near their homes. They
received much of their goods in this manner and were not so dependent upon
the town as the upper country people who were forced to bring their
products to Fredericksburg by wagon trains, which lumbered slowly down
with their burdens of grain, produce and tobacco, and having unloaded and
tarried awhile, lumbered back even more slowly, loaded with groceries,
wines, liquors, household stores, plantation supplies, dry goods and
merchandise for the country stores.

These wagons were of huge dimensions, "their curving bodies being before
and behind at least twelve feet from the ground" according to one writer.
They had canvas covers and were drawn by four horses always, sometimes six
and eight, carrying jangling bells upon their collars. As many as two
hundred of them were often on the streets or in the wagon yards of
Fredericksburg at one time, making prosperity for the energetic merchants
of that distant day, and bringing business for the many vessels, some of
them large three masted schooners, which came from all parts of the globe
to anchor at the wharves.

[Sidenote: _Fires Sweep the Town_]

At about this time Fredericksburg received two serious blows that greatly
retarded its progress and prosperity. The first was in 1808, when nearly
half the town was destroyed by a fire which broke out at the corner of
Princess Anne and Lewis streets, where the Shepherd residence now stands,
and fanned by a high wind quickly roared its way through the inflammable
houses, such as most of the residences then were, until the town was half
in ashes. At the outbreak of the fire most of the citizens were attending
the races at "Willis Field," just below the town, and before they could
get back it had gained such headway that their efforts to check it were
ineffectual. It is said the fire was caused by the overturning of a candle
in the kitchen of the Stannard home, occupying the present site of the
Shepherd residence, where refreshments were being prepared for the funeral
of Mr. Stannard, and that the remains were gotten out of the house only
with great difficulty on the part of the mourners. In those days funerals
were accompanied by feasts, at which cake in sombre wrappings and wine in
glasses with long black ribbons tied to the stems, were served.

Much of the brick construction on the upper business section of Main
street, and a number of residences known as Colonial, are results of that
fire, but deserve to be called Colonial as that period, architectually
speaking, extended until about the year 1812. The Shepherd residence, of
course, was built following the fire; the old Doswell home, now occupied
by Mr. A. W. Rowe, probably was erected afterwards and the old Marye home,
now owned by Mr. A. L. Jenkins, has a corner stone bearing the date 1812,
the residence formerly occupying that site having been burned. However,
most of the older residences in Fredericksburg antedate the fire, and are
of an earlier Colonial period.

[Sidenote: _During The War of 1812_]

Another blow was the War of 1812, and though, as in the case of the
Revolution, the city did not suffer actual physical damage, its business
and trade were interrupted and severely decreased, if not totally stopped,
due to the English dominance of the seas and during the course of that
conflict, the commercial life must have been slow and stagnant.

Fredericksburg itself was for a time threatened when the English admiral,
Cockburn, made a raid up the Rappahannock. Many thought his objective was
Fredericksburg and General William Madison, brother of the President,
summoned a small force which took up positions of defense, from which to
repel the raider, but he never got up the river as far as the city,
turning when much lower down and putting back to sea for a cause which
history has not assigned. During this war, as had been the case in the
Revolution, and was to be in the Civil war to come, the Mercer home, now
occupied by Councilman George W. Heflin, which stands on an eminence on
lower Main street commanding a splendid view of the river, was used as a
post from which to watch for the approach of enemy ships, a use that has
given it the name of "The Sentry Box."

Following the War of 1812, Fredericksburg's trade revived and increased,
and the city settled down to a full enjoyment of that remarkably cultural
era--the only classical civilization America has ever known--which lasted
until the Civil war and which has been made famous in song and story and
the history of the old South. The families of the early settlers had by
now become wealthy; the plantation masters owned hundreds of slaves,
farmed thousands of acres and lived in their handsome old Colonial
mansions in the most magnificent style the times could afford. Surrounded
by many servants and all the comforts known to the day, they entertained
lavishly, kept splendidly stocked wine cellars, boasted of private race
courses and keen thoroughbred hunters and racers, and, as the business of
the plantations was largely in the hands of overseers, they were gentlemen
of splendid leisure with an abundance of time opportunity and means to
devote to sports, politics and literature. Most of them were educated
abroad and were learned in the classics, clever and entertaining
conversationalists, beautiful riders, excellent shots, and when not
engaged in social or literary pursuits that kept them indoors, enjoyed the
sports of the field, hunting to the hounds, gunning for quail, deer, bear,
wild turkey or duck, or fishing in the abundantly supplied streams
tributary to the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. Hard drinking was not
unusual among them, but they were men of the highest sense of honor and
principle, and were always true to an obligation.


[Illustration: THE HOME OF JAMES MONROE

_Who Began His Official Career as a Councilman in Fredericksburg, and
Became President_]


While the townspeople did not enjoy life quite so lavishly as their
plantation neighbors, they were not far behind; entertaining frequently
and hospitably and mingling freely with the people from the country.

[Sidenote: _Care-Free Era of Gayety_]

But though it was a gay and carefree day, the times were not without their
troubles. In 1822 the town was again visited by fire, this time
originating at the site of the present Brent's store, at Main and George
streets, destroying the entire business block encompassed between Main and
Princess Anne and George and Hanover streets. Recovery from this fire was
rapid. The merchants were financially substantial and quickly rebuilt the
burned area.

As early as 1822, Fredericksburg was an important postal point, the mail
for five states being assorted and distributed in the city and sent thence
to its final destination. The conduct of Postmaster General Meigs in
regard to increasing the compensation of carriers on the Fredericksburg
route without authorization from Congress, was the subject of an
investigation by that body, but he was exonerated when it was explained
that the increase was necessary because the mail had become so heavy that
carriers were no longer able to handle it on horse back, being compelled
to use surries, an added expense to them which justified the additional
pay.

James Monroe, a former resident, lawyer and councilman of Fredericksburg,
was at that time President of the United States, and though the town
doubtless was a naturally important postal distribution, it may have been
that the President's influence had some bearing-on the selection of the
place which had given him his political start.

[Sidenote: _The Town Grows Richer_]

For the next decade, the trade and commercial life of the town increased.
The merchants and manufacturers--by this time several large industries of
this character being in operation--were busy and prosperous and had begun
to grow either wealthy, measured in the standards of the time, or were in
very comfortable circumstances, while the citizenry, generally, was
prosperous and free from want. The town was compactly built, many of its
structures now being of brick, and was regularly laid out. The public
buildings consisted of a courthouse, market house, clerks office, the
Episcopal Orphan Asylum, the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist
and Reform Baptist Church. It had two banks, one female and one male
academy of the higher class; a water system supplied through pipes from
Poplar Spring. And the upper river canal was being built, a public
enterprise from which great results were expected and which was to extend
about forty miles up the Rappahannock. Gold was being mined in
considerable quantities in upper Spotsylvania and lower Culpeper counties
and brought to Fredericksburg in exchange for goods, and a generally
thriving trade was being done, chiefly in grain, bacon, tobacco and other
farm products for export. One writer has computed the city's annual
exports at that time as averaging four million dollars, and Government
statistics show that there were in the town in 1840, seventy-three stores,
two tanneries, one grist mill, two printing plants, four semi-weekly
newspapers, five academies with 256 students, and seven schools with 165
scholars. The population in that year was 3,974. Ten years previous it had
been 3,308, divided as follows: whites, 1,797; slaves, 1,124; free blacks,
387.

[Sidenote: _The City Limits Are Set_]

From 1840 until the middle fifties, prosperity was continued. The canal
was completed and had brought about an increased business at a lower cost.
A railroad was in operation from Richmond through Fredericksburg to Aquia
Creek, and steamboats had to some extent taken the place of sailing
vessels as a means of water transportation, meaning quicker trips with
greater burdens. In 1851 the legislature passed an act empowering the town
to extend its limits, which was done according to a survey made by William
Slaughter, and though that was more than seventy years ago, and though the
population has since more than doubled, overflowing the limits and
encroaching on the adjoining county, the limits have not again been
enlarged.

In 1855 Fredericksburg's trade had ceased to grow at a rate equal to its
average yearly increase for the previous twenty years, a condition for
which the business men of that day were not altogether responsible, but
which rather was brought about by the new commercial era the country and
world was just entering--the era of railroad transportation, which quickly
and cheaply, in comparison to past charges, carried the staples of the
farm to the ports of the sea where waiting vessels stood ready to spread
their sable sails on voyages to foreign markets. This era created the
importance of the seaport and spelled the doom, as important shipping
points, of the tidewater cities--those which had been located at the point
where mountain torrent and still water meet in order to get both the
advantage of power production and trade routes.

It is true that the business men of the city made the serious mistake
about this period of building a plank road into one portion of the upper
country from which they derived much trade, instead of building a
railroad, for just a little later transportation by wagon train for export
purposes had nearly entirely given away to transportation by rail, and
Fredericksburg was utterly without such connection with its greatest field
of trade, which soon was largely converted into other channels by the
railroads now beginning to practically surround the town at a distance of
approximately forty miles to the west. The single railroad passing through
Fredericksburg had no coast terminal. Throughout its short length it
paralleled the coast, offering no means of shipping for export, which
comprised most of the business of the day. The plantation owners of the
upper country who had dealt nearly entirely in Fredericksburg, now found
it cheaper to haul to the railroad passing through their country and soon
Fredericksburg was belted by little towns to the west. When later the P.
F. & P. R. R. was built to Orange, it did not save the situation and
except for lumber and ties, a trade it still largely enjoys, it has never
hauled much to Fredericksburg for export, though it did help the city
considerably in the matter of retail business.

Trade, however, had not ceased entirely to grow, nor the town to increase.
In 1860 its population was nearly 5,000 persons, its business men still
were active and prosperous and, but for the Civil war which was to come,
they doubtless would have found a way out of the commercial difficulty
confronting them and a different history of the town from that time
forward might have been written.

[Sidenote: _The War Ends Prosperity_]

But over the course of a few years preceding this date, the community was
troubled and torn by political strife and moral dissention. Black and
ominous on the horizon of men's thoughts loomed the slave question,
perplexing the country's leaders and giving threats of the red carnage
that was to follow. A carnage that cost millions in men and money, caused
unreckoned anguish and suffering, and retarded the growth of the South to
such an extent that at the end of the following fifty years it had only
just begun to emerge from the black shadow cast over it by the war.

By the end of the fifty's, trade had almost ceased, a spirit of patriotism
for the Southland superseded that of commercial enterprise, the quietness
of the soft old Colonial town was broken by wild public meetings; soon the
call of a bugle floated softly across the still air and the heavy
monotonous tread of feet sounded against the ground in unison to the
beating of drums, and though the citizens had been loyal to the Union,
sending by nearly a two-thirds majority a Union man to the State
convention, they made ready for the inevitable conflict, and when the
flame of war burst on the country like a flaring torch, they threw in
their lots with the land of their nativity and bravely shouldering their
arms, marched away from their homes to a fate that would bring them death
or sorrow, and reduce their land to a shambles. The story of the Civil war
as it effected this town is told in other chapters which follow this.

[Sidenote: _A Town in "No Man's Land"_]

For many years after the Civil war, Fredericksburg's connection with the
great tragedy was told in the lines of patient suffering that webbed the
faces of the older generation. It was a town of sombre, black figures--the
widows and daughters of soldiers--gentle creatures who moved about in
quiet dignity, bravely concealing the anguish hidden in their hearts, and
smilingly making the best of such disordered conditions and distressing
circumstances as before they had never known. It was a town filled with
broken, crushed men, ill fitted for the harsher demands of their new
lives; men once rich but now suddenly tossed from the foundations that
always had sustained them, who found themselves aliens in an unknown and
unfriendly world.

Blackened, scarred ruins of what once had been magnificent homes remained
mute, grim evidences of the ghastly horror and the quaint old town was
stunned and still, a tragic wreck of its one time beauty. But as best it
could it gathered up the tangled threads of its existence and for the next
decade struggled dumbly and blindly against the terrible disadvantages
imposed upon it by the ruthlessness of war.

When the war came with Spain, it showed that the hurt of the Civil strife
was gone, when its young men marched proudly through the streets to take
their parts in the crisis; sent on their missions of patriotism with the
feeble but sincere cheers of aged Confederate veterans ringing in their
ears.

With the beginnings of the 20th century, Fredericksburg gave visable
evidence of its recovery from the wounds of war. Its business men had
accumulated sufficient capital to revive trade, at least partially, on its
past scale; additional industries were started, new homes and buildings
sprang up and there was the beginning of a general and steady improvement.


[Sidenote: _A Change in Government_]

In 1909 a group of progressive citizens, among whom one of the most
earnest was the late Henry Warden, a man of immense usefulness, realized
their ambition and the consummation of an aim for which they had fought
for years, when the old form, of councilmanic government was abolished in
favor of the City Manager form, Fredericksburg being one of the first
small cities in the country to adopt it. Since its inauguration, the city
has prospered and improved. Well laid granolithic sidewalks are placed
throughout its business and residential sections, splendid hard gravel
streets, topped with smooth asphalt binding, have replaced the old mud
roadways, the water system has been enlarged and improved, fire protection
increased and other municipal improvements made that have taken the town
out of the class of sleepy provincial hamlets and made of it a modern
little city. New hotels of the finest type, business enterprises and
industrial concerns have come to give it new life and color, but with all
this it still retains much that is sweet and old and is filled with the
charm and elegance of the past.

Though it has just celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, the
anniversary of a time when America was only beginning to give promise of
its brilliant future, a time when the country was young and weak, but when
manhood was strong and courage held high the torch of hope, Fredericksburg
looks forward to the future with eager longing, confident that in the
mirror of its past is the story of the time to come.




_War's Worst Horrors_

    _Shelled by 181 guns for hours, the town becomes a crumbled ruin_


Fredericksburg is the point through which the railway and the roads to
Richmond pass, and is half way between Washington and the Southern city.
During the Civil war the possession of the town was an advantage not to be
despised, and so from the beginning the two great armies of the North and
South were contenders for the town.

The first attempt toward Fredericksburg was made June 1, 1861, when
Federal gunboats and a small cavalry force were defeated, in an attempt to
land troops at Aquia Creek, by General Daniel Ruggles, C. S. A., in
command of the Department of Fredericksburg. This was the first skirmish
of the war, in Virginia, and occurred nine days before "Big Bethel" and
seven weeks after Virginia seceded.

On the nineteenth of April, 1862, the Stafford hills were taken by the
Federals, and on April 27th General Marsena R. Patrick marched troops into
the town and placed it under military rule. General Patrick treated the
citizens with consideration and under his rule there was but little
complaint of oppression. He was, in fact, generally admired for his fair
treatment of the populace.

But with the coming of the conceited and inhuman General Pope, who
followed McClellan in command of the Federal army, all that was changed.
From that time forward this quiet old city between the hills, with its
splendid homes, its old silver and china and tapistry and paintings, its
great trees and broad streets, was to know every cruelty, horror, and
depredation of war.

[Sidenote: _In the Enemy's Hands_]

General Pope, driven back by the Confederates, moved through Fauquier and
Culpeper counties to Fredericksburg, and immediately upon securing the
town, his subordinates scoured the city and arrested nineteen of the most
prominent men, alleging no crime but stating frankly that it was done in
reprisal for the arrest by the Confederates of Major Charles Williams of
Fredericksburg, who was held in Richmond to prevent him from aiding the
enemy. These men were sent to the old Capital Prison at Washington, where
they were held from early in August to late September in 1862, and were
then released in exchange for Major Williams and others. There were Rev.
W. F. Broaddus, D. D., James McGuire, Charles Welford, Thomas F. Knox,
Beverly T. Gill, James H. Bradley, Thomas B. Barton, Benjamin Temple,
Lewis Wrenn, Michael Ames, John Coakley, John H. Roberts, John J. Berrey,
Dr. James Cooke, John F. Scott, Montgomery Slaughter, (Mayor), George H.
C. Rowe, Wm. H. Norton, Abraham Cox.

Fredericksburg was evacuated in August, 1862, when the Northern soldiers
were drawn up in line and marched out of town. A great burden was lifted
from the community. Heavy explosions marked the blowing up of the two
bridges. On September 4th, an advance guard of Confederate cavalry rode
into the town amid shouts of welcome.

The relief was but for a short period. On November 10th, Captain Dalgren's
(Federal) dragoons crossed the river above Falmouth and clattered down
Main street and met a small force of Confederates under Col. Critcher, who
drove them back. But General Burnside's whole army was following and in a
few days held the Stafford hills.

Fredericksburg and the country immediately about it was fought over,
marched over, shelled and ravaged and desolated. The town became a dreary
military outpost of battered, falling walls and charred timbers, of
soldiers, now in gray, now in blue. Under its streets and in yards
hundreds of dead were buried to be now and again, in after years,
unearthed. No other American city ever suffered as did this formerly
prosperous town.

The situation, from a military standpoint, was this: Southeastward of the
city the Rappahannock broadens, so that it is not easily bridged, and
if an army crossed, it still would have to get to Richmond. Northwest (and
much nearer west than north) of the city, the Rappahannock is fordable,
but its course is _away_ from Richmond, and the roads to Richmond _again
lead back toward the rear of Fredericksburg_.


[Illustration: THE SLAVE BLOCK

_Commerce Street, Where Slaves were Sold. The "Step" is Deeply Worn By The
Feet of those Who Mounted It_]


There were, therefore, but two feasible plans for the North to accomplish
its "on to Richmond" purpose. One was to take Fredericksburg and with it
the roads and railway to Richmond; Burnside tried this. The other, to
cross the river just above, and get in the rear of Fredericksburg, thus
getting the roads and railways to Richmond; Hooker and Grant tried this.

[Sidenote: _Threats of Bombardment_]

On November 20th, General Sumner peremptorily demanded the surrender of
the town, under threat of immediate bombardment, but on receiving a
request from Mayor Slaughter, he consented to extend the time twenty-four
hours and sent General Patrick across the river with a message, as
follows:

    "Gentlemen: Under cover of the houses of your town, shots have been
    fired upon the troops of my command. Your mills and factories are
    furnishing provisions and materials for clothing for armed bodies in
    rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United
    States. Your railroads and other means of transportation are removing
    supplies to the depot of such troops. This condition of things must
    terminate; and by direction of Major-General Burnside, commanding this
    army, I accordingly demand the surrender of this city into my hands,
    as a representative of the Government of the United States, at or
    before five o'clock this afternoon (five o'clock P. M. to-day).
    Failing an affirmative reply to this demand by the time indicated,
    sixteen hours will be permitted to elapse for the removal from the
    city of women and children, the sick, wounded, and aged; which period
    having elapsed, I shall proceed to shell the town.

    "Upon obtaining possession of the town, every necessary means will be
    taken to preserve order and to secure the protective operation of the
    laws and policy of the United States Government."

While General Patrick waited from 10:00 A. M. until 7:00 P. M. (November
21) in a log house at French John's Wharf, the note was passed through the
hands of a civic committee who had previously met General Lee at
"Snowden," (now the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Baldwin) on which
were: Mayor Slaughter, William A. Little and Douglas H. Gordon. A note
from General Lee was then transmitted to the town officials by General J.
E. B. Stuart. This Mayor Slaughter, Dr. Wm. S. Scott and Samuel Harrison
delivered late in the afternoon to General Patrick. General Lee simply
said the town was non-combatant; that he would not occupy it, nor would he
allow any one else to occupy it.

[Sidenote: _The Citizens Driven Out_]

Advised by General Lee, the inhabitants of the town now began to refugee
to the rear. They went in the dark, in a snow storm, afoot, in vehicles
and some in a railway train, upon which the Northern guns opened heavy
fire. They slept in barns, cabins and the homes of country people, and
left behind their silverware and fine old china, their paintings and
portraits and every kind of property, all of which was doomed to
destruction.

But the town was not shelled and a few at a time many of the old men and
the women, the boys and girls, crept back from impossible shelters in the
country to their homes in the town.

Then, twenty-two days later, at dawn of December 11th, at a signal from
the "Long Tom" on Scott's Hill, at Falmouth, Burnside opened on the town,
now half full of residents, with one hundred and eighty-one guns. The guns
were placed along Stafford Heights from the Washington Farm to Falmouth,
and the whole fire was concentrated on the town, where walls toppled,
fires sprang up and chaos reigned.

Frequently the Union gunners fired a hundred guns a minute, round shot,
case shot and shell. The quick puffs of smoke, touched in the center with
flame, ran incessantly along the hills and a vast thunder echoed thirty
miles away. Soon the town was under a pall of smoke, through which lifted
the white spires of the churches.

"The scenes following the bombardment," says John Esten Cooke, in
"Jackson," "were cruel. Men, women and children were driven from town.
Hundreds of ladies and children were seen wandering homeless over the
frozen highways, with bare feet and thin clothing. Delicately nurtured
girls walked hurriedly over the various roads, seeking some friendly roof
to cover them."

The following article by one who, as a little girl, was in Fredericksburg
on the day of the bombardment, catches a glimpse of it in a personal way
that is more convincing than pages of description.


THE SHELLING OF FREDERICKSBURG

Recollections of Mrs. Frances Bernard Goolrick (Mrs. John T. Goolrick) who
was a little girl at that time.

During the stormy winter of 1862, my mother, a widow with three little
children, was still in her native place, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Many of
the inhabitants had long since left for Richmond and other points farther
south, for the town lying just between the hostile armies was the constant
scene of raids and skirmishes, and no one knew at what instant everything
might be swept away from them. My mother, separated from her relatives by
the fortunes of war, decided that it would be best for her to remain where
she was and thus probably save the household effects she had gathered
around her. The strongest arguments had been used by friends in town and
relatives at a distance to induce her to leave for a place of more safety,
but so far without avail, and though we were often alarmed by raids into
town, as yet we had sustained no injuries of any description. In the fall
the Federal army, under General Burnside, was on the Stafford hills just
across the river, and it was constantly rumored that the town would be
bombarded; but lulled to an insecure rest by many false alarms, the people
had but little faith in these rumors.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Guns Open On The Town_]

On the 11th of December, one of the most cruel and heartless acts of the
war was to be perpetrated, the town of Fredericksburg was bombarded, the
roar of guns beginning at daybreak, with no one in it but old or invalid
men and helpless women and children. As quick as thought, we were up and
dressed, and my aunt being very rapid in her movements, was the first to
reach the cellar. My mother had long since had some chairs and other
pieces of furniture placed there in case of an emergency. I being the
first child dressed, ran out into the yard, and as I turned towards the
cellar steps I beheld, it seemed to me, the most brilliant light that I
had ever seen; as I looked, my aunt reached out her arms and pulled me,
quivering with terror, into the cellar. A shell had exploded at the back
of the garden, in reality at some distance, but to me it was as if it had
been at my very feet. The family soon assembled, including the servants;
we had also additions in the way of two gentlemen from Stafford, Mr. B.
and Mr. G., who had been detained in town, and a Lieutenant Eustace, of
Braxton's battery, who was returning from a visit to his home. Also a
colored family, Uncle Charles and Aunt Judy, with a small boy named
Douglas and two or three other children. The couple had been left in
charge of their mistress' home (she being out of town), and with no cellar
to their house they were fain to come into ours.

[Sidenote: _Hiding From The Shells_]

And now the work of destruction began, and for long hours the only sounds
that greeted our ears were the whizzing and moaning of the shells and the
crash of falling bricks and timber. My mother and we three children were
seated on a low bed with Ca'line, a very small darkey, huddled as close
to us children as she could get, trying to keep warm. Mr. B. and Mr. G.
occupied positions of honor on each side of the large old-fashioned
fire-place, while my aunt was cowering inside, and every time a ball would
roll through the house or a shell explode, she would draw herself up and
moan and shiver. Lieutenant Eustace was a great comfort to my mother, and
having some one to rely on enabled her to keep her courage up during the
terrible ordeal of the cannonading. Although my brother, sister and myself
were all frightened, we could not help laughing at the little darkey
children who were positively stricken dumb with terror, old Aunt Judy
keeping them close to her side and giving them severe cuffs and bangs if
they moved so much as a finger.

My aunt, as well as the rest of us, now began to feel the pangs of hunger,
and Aunt B. ordered the cook in the most positive manner to go up to the
kitchen and make some coffee, telling her that she knew she was afraid and
we would all be satisfied with only a cup of coffee for the present. I
believe Aunt Sally would have gone without a word if my mother had told
her, but this, from an outsider, she could not bear. (Aunt B. was my
uncle's wife and the family servants had seen very little of her.) She,
therefore, demurred, and Aunt B. calling her a coward, she arose in a
perfect fury, and with insubordination written upon her from her rigid
backbone to her flashing eyes, informed Aunt B. "dat she warn no mo' a
coward dan de res' of 'em, but she didn't b'lieve Mars Gen'l Lee hisself
cud stan' up making coffee under dat tornady." Just about this time Uncle
Charles sprawled himself out upon the floor in ungovernable terror, and
called upon the Lord to save him and his family. "Pray for us all, Uncle
Charles," screamed my aunt, her voice just heard above the roar of
artillery. The cannonading was now something fearful. Our house had been
struck twice and the shrieking balls and bursting bombs were enough to
appall the stoutest heart. My aunt being brave in speech, but in reality
very timorous, and Uncle Charles "a bright and shining light" among the
colored persuasion, she again requested him to pray. Aunt Judy by this
time began to bewail that she had "lef' old Miss cow in the cowshed," and
mistaking the moaning of the shells for the dying groans of the cow, she
and Douglas lamented it in true darkey fashion. Uncle Charles meanwhile
was very willing to pray, but Aunt Judy objected strenuously, saying, "dis
ain't no time to be spendin' in pra'ar, Char's Pryor, wid dem bumb shells
flying over you and a fizzlin' around you, and ole Miss cow dyin' right
dar in your sight." But when the house was struck for the third time, Aunt
B., in despairing accents, begged Uncle Charles to pray, so he fell upon
his knees by an old barrel, in the middle of the cellar floor, upon which
sat a solitary candle, whose flickering light lit up his hushed and solemn
countenance, and in tremulous tones with many interjections, offered up a
prayer.

       *       *       *       *       *

My mother thought of my father's portrait, and afraid of its being injured
she determined to get it herself, and bring it into the cellar. Without
telling anyone of her intentions, she left the cellar and went up into the
parlor; the portrait was hanging just over a sofa, on which she stood to
take it down. She had just reached the door opposite the sofa when a shell
came crashing through the wall, demolishing the sofa on which she had so
recently stood, as well as many other articles of furniture. She reached
the cellar, white and trembling, but with the portrait unhurt in her arms.

[Sidenote: _Cannons Stop For Dinner_]

At one o'clock the cannonading suddenly ceased and for one hour we were at
liberty to go above and see the damage that had been done. My mother's
first efforts were directed towards getting a lunch, of which we were all
sorely in need. With the aid of one of the frightened servants she
succeeded in getting a fire and having some coffee made and with this,
together with some cold bread and ham, we had a plentiful repast.

What a scene met our eyes; our pretty garden was strewn with cannon balls
and pieces of broken shells, limbs knocked off the trees and the grape
arbor a perfect wreck. The house had been damaged considerably, several
large holes torn through it, both in front and back. While we were
deploring the damage that had been done, Lieutenant Eustace returned in
breathless haste to say that he had just heard an order from General Lee
read on Commerce Street, saying that the women and children must leave
town, as he would destroy it with hot shell that night, sooner than let it
fall into the hands of the enemy, who were rapidly crossing the river on
pontoon bridges. They urged my mother to take her children and fly at once
from the town. After resisting until the gentlemen in despair were almost
ready to drag her from her dangerous situation, she finally consented to
leave. The wildest confusion now reigned, the servants wringing their
hands and declaring they could not go without their "Chists," which they
all managed to get somehow, and put upon their heads, but the gentlemen
insisted so that we had only time to save our lives. They would not even
let my mother go back into the house to get her purse or a single
valuable. So we started just as we were; my wrapping, I remember, was an
old ironing blanket, with a large hole burnt in the middle. I never did
find out whether Aunt B. ever got her clothes on, for she stalked ahead of
us, wrapped in a pure white counterpane, a tall, ghostly looking figure,
who seemed to glide with incredible rapidity over the frozen ground. * * *

[Sidenote: _"Refugeeing" in Winter_]

We plodded along under a heavy cross fire, balls falling right and left of
us. We left the town by way of the old "plank road," batteries of
Confederates on both sides. The ground was rough and broken up by the
tramping of soldiers and the heavy wagons and artillery that had passed
over it, so that it was difficult and tiresome to walk, and the sun got
warm by this time and the snow was melting rapidly; the mud was
indescribable.

We had now reached the "Reservoir," a wooden building over "Poplar
Spring," and about a mile from town. I had already lost one of my shoes
several times, because of having no string in it, and my little brother
insisted on giving me one of his, so we sat down by the "Reservoir"
feeling very secure, but were terribly alarmed in a few moments by a ball
coming through the building and whizzing very close to our ears. No, this
would not do, so on we went, footsore and weary; sometimes we would meet a
soldier who would carry one of us a short distance. All of our servants,
except Ca'line, who was only seven years old, had taken some other
direction. When we got about two miles from town we overtook many other
refugees; some were camping by the way, and others pressing on, some to
country houses which were hospitably thrown open to wanderers from home,
and others to "Salem Church," about three miles from Fredericksburg, where
there was a large encampment. Our destination was a house not far from
"Salem Church," which we now call the "Refuge House." Exhausted, we
reached the house by twilight, found there some friends who had been there
some weeks, and who kindly took us into their room and gave us every
attention. And so great was our relief to feel that we had escaped from
the horror of that day, that such small matters as having to sleep in the
room with a dozen people, having no milk and no coffee, our principal diet
consisting of corn bread, bacon and sorghum, seemed only slight troubles.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Pillage and Plunder_]

From the end of the bombardment, and at the first invasion of the town by
Union forces, until they were driven across the river again,
Fredericksburg was mercilessly sacked. All day, from the houses, and
particularly from the grand old homes that distinguished the town, came
the noise of splintering furniture, the crash of chinaware, and--now and
then--a scream. On the walls hung headless portraits, the face gashed by
bayonets. Bayonets ripped open mattresses and the feathers heaped in piles
or blew about the streets, littered with women's and men's clothing and
letters and papers thrown out of desks. Mahogany furniture warmed the
despoilers, and ten thousand were drunk on pilfered liquors. Windows and
doors were smashed, the streets full of debris, through which drunken
men grotesquely garbed in women's shawls and bonnets, staggered; flames
rose in smoke pillars here and there, and the provost guard was helpless
to control the strange orgy of stragglers and camp followers who were wild
with plunder lust, amid the dead and wounded strewn about. A fearful
picture of war was Fredericksburg in those December days from the eleventh
to the thirteenth.


[Illustration: THE CONFEDERATE CEMETERY

_In The Lower Left Corner the Plank Road and Marye's Heights_]


[Sidenote: _A Carnival of Horrors_]

To the citizens of Fredericksburg, those days meant bankruptcy, for their
slaves walked away, their stores and churches were battered, their
silverware stolen, their homes despoiled and their clothing worn or thrown
away. Wealthy men were to walk back a few days later to their home town as
paupers; women and children were to come back to hunger and discomfort in
bleak winter weather; and all this was the result of what General Lee said
was an entirely "unnecessary" bombardment and of days of pillage, which no
earnest attempt to stop was made. Fredericksburg was the blackest spot on
Burnside's none too effulgent reputation.

From the army, from Southern cities and from individuals money for relief
came liberally, and in all nearly $170,000. was contributed to aid in
feeding, clothing and making habitable homes for the unfortunate town's
people. A good many carloads of food came, too, but the whole barely
relieved the worst misery, for the $170,000. was Confederate money, with
its purchasing power at low mark.




_The First Battle_

    _When, at Mayre's Heights and Hamilton's Crossing, war claimed her
    sacrifice_


Following the shelling of Fredericksburg, on December 11th, the Union army
began to cross on pontoons. On the 12th of December, under cover of the
guns and of fog, almost the whole Union army crossed on three pontoons,
one near the foot of Hawk street, another just above the car bridge, and
one at Deep Run. On the morning of December 13th, General Burnside's army
was drawn up in a line of battle from opposite Falmouth to Deep Run. It
was, say they who saw the vast army with artillery and cavalry advanced,
banners flying and the bayonets of their infantry hosts gleaming as the
fog lifted, one of the most imposing sights of the war.

General Burnside actually had in line and fought during the day, according
to his report, 100,000 effective men.

General Lee had 57,000 effectives, ranged along the hills from Taylor,
past Snowden, past Marye's Heights, past Hazel Run and on to Hamilton's
Crossing.

There were preliminary skirminishes of cavalry, light artillery and
infantry. The enemy tried to "feel" General Lee's lines.

Then, about 10 o'clock, they advanced against the hills near Hamilton's
Crossing, where Jackson's Corps was posted, in a terrific charge across a
broad plateau between the river and the hills to within a quarter of a
mile of the Confederate position, where they broke under terrific
artillery and musketry fire. At one o'clock 55,000 men, the whole of
Franklin's and Hooker's Grand Divisions advanced again in the mightiest
single charge of the Civil War. Stuart and Pelham (he earned that day from
Lee the title of "The Gallant Pelham") raked them with light artillery,
but nevertheless they forced a wedge through Jackson's lines and had won
the day, until Jackson's reserves, thrown into the breach, drove them out
and threw back the whole line. As dusk came on, Stuart and Pelham counter
charged, advancing their guns almost to the Bowling Green road, and
Jackson prepared to charge and "drive them into the river," but was
stopped by the heavy Union guns on Stafford hills.

[Sidenote: _At Hamilton's Crossing_]

During the fiercest part of the battle, "Stonewall" Jackson was on the
hill just on the Fredericksburg side of Hamilton's Crossing where Walker's
artillery was posted, but toward evening, fired with his hope of driving
the Union forces across the river, he rode rapidly from place to place,
sending out frequent orders. One of these he gave to an aide.

"Captain, go through there and if you and your horse come out alive, tell
Stuart I am going to advance my whole line at sunset." It was this charge,
mentioned above, which failed.

Late that night, rising from the blankets which he shared with a Chaplain,
Jackson wrote some orders. While he was doing this, an orderly came and
standing at the tent flap, said, "General Gregg is dying, General, and
sent me to say to you that he wrote you a letter recently in which he used
expressions he is sorry for. He says he meant no disrespect by that letter
and was only doing what he thought was his duty. He hopes you will forgive
him."

Without hesitation, Jackson, who was deeply stirred, answered, "Tell
General Gregg I will be with him directly."

He rode through the woods back to where the brave Georgian was dying, and
day was about to break when he came back to his troops.

General Maxey Gregg, of Georgia, was killed in action here, as were a
number of other gallant officers.

Jackson held the right of the Confederate lines all day with 26,000 men
against 55,000. His losses were about 3,415, while Hooker and Franklin
lost 4,447. Meanwhile, against Marye's Heights, the left center of the
line, almost two miles away, General Burnside sent again and again
terrific infantry charges.

[Sidenote: _The Charge at Marye's Heights_]

The hills just back of Fredericksburg are fronted by an upward sloping
plane, and at the foot of that part of the hills called Marye's Heights is
a stone wall and the "Sunken Road"--as fatal here for Burnside as was the
Sunken Road at Waterloo for Napoleon. On Marye's Heights was the
Washington Artillery, and a number of guns--a veritable fortress, ready,
as General Pegram said, "to sweep the plans in front as close as a
fine-tooth comb." At the foot of the heights behind the stone wall were
Cobb's Georgians, Kershaw's South Carolinians, and Ransom's and Cobb's
North Carolinas--nine thousand riflemen, six deep, firing over the front
lines' shoulders, so that, so one officer wrote "they literally sent
bullets in sheets."

Against this impregnable place, Burnside launched charge after charge, and
never did men go more bravely and certainly to death. This was
simultaneous with the fighting at Hamilton's Crossing.

Meagher's Irish Brigade went first across the plain. Detouring from
Hanover street and George street, they formed line of battle on the lowest
ground, and with cedar branches waving in their hats, bravely green in
memory of "the ould sod" they swept forward until the rifles behind the
wall and the cannon on the hill decimated their ranks; and yet again they
formed and charged, until over the whole plain lay the dead, with green
cedar boughs waving idly in their hats. The Irish Brigade was practically
exterminated, and three more charges by larger bodies failed, although one
Northern officer fell within twenty-five yards of the wall. The day ended
in the utter defeat of the Union Army, which withdrew into Fredericksburg
at night.

In front of the wall 8,217 Union soldiers were killed or wounded, and in
the "Sunken Road" the Confederates lost 1,962.

The total Union loss in the whole battle of Fredericksburg was 12,664 and
the Confederates' loss 5,377.

General J. R. Cook, of the Confederate Army, was killed almost at the spot
where Cobb fell. General C. F. Jackson and General Bayard, of the Union
Army, were killed, the latter dying in the Bernard House, "Mansfield,"
where Franklin had his headquarters.

[Sidenote: _The Death of General Cobb_]

General T. R. R. Cobb, the gallant commander of the Georgians, fell
mortally wounded at the stone wall, and tradition has said that he was
killed by a shell fired from the lawn of his mother's home, a dramatic
story that is refuted by evidence that he was killed by a sharpshooter in
a house at the left and in front of the "Sunken Road."

But the brilliant Georgian, who aided in formulating the Confederate
Constitution, was killed within sight of the house, where, more than forty
years before, the elder Cobb met, and in which he married, she who was to
be the General's mother. Journeying late in 1819 North to attend Congress,
Senator John Forsythe, who was born in Fredericksburg, and Senator Cobb,
Sr., were guests of Thomas R. Rootes, Esq., at Federal Hill, a great house
that sits at the edge of the town, overlooking the little valley and
Marye's Heights, and there began a romance that led to marriage of Miss
Rootes and Senator Cobb, in the mansion, in 1820. From the spot where he
stood when he died, had not the smoke of a terrific battle screened it,
their son, the Georgian General, could have clearly seen the windows of
the room in which his parents were married.

General Cobb died in the yard of a small house, just at the edge of the
"Sunken Road," ministered to in his last moments, as was many another man
who drank the last bitter cup that day, by an angel of mercy and a woman
of dauntless courage, Mrs. Martha Stevens.

Her house was in the center of the fire, yet she refused to leave it, and
there between the lines, with the charges rolling up to her yard fence and
tons of lead shrieking about her, Mrs. Stevens stayed all day, giving the
wounded drink, and bandaging their wounds until every sheet and piece of
clothing in the house had been used to bind a soldier's hurts. At times
the fire of Northern troops was concentrated on her house so that General
Lee, frowning, turned to those about him and said: "I wish those people
would let Mrs. Stevens alone."

Nothing in the war was finer than the spirit of this woman, who stayed
between the lines in and about her house, through the planks of which now
and then a bullet splintered its way, miraculously living in a hail of
missiles where, it seemed, nothing else could live.

[Sidenote: _Lee Spares Old "Chatham"_]

During the battle at Fredericksburg, General Lee stood on "Lee's Hill," an
eminence near Hazel Run, and between Marye's Heights and Hamilton's
crossing. Looking across the Rappahannock he could see "Chatham," the
great winged brick house where General Burnside had headquarters, and
where, under the wide spreading oaks, General Lee had won his bride, the
pretty Mary Custis. The fine old place was now the property of Major Lacy,
who rode up to Lee and said: "General there are a group of Yankee officers
on my porch. I do not want my house spared. I ask permission to give
orders to shell it." General Lee, smiling, said: "Major, I do not want to
shell your fine old house. Besides, it has tender memories for me. I
courted my bride under its trees."

In all this saturnalia of blood, it is a relief to find something in
lighter vein, and in this case it is furnished by two Irishmen, Meagher
and Mitchell. This little incident takes us back some years to "Ould
Ireland." Here three young Irishmen, Charles Francis Meagher, John Boyle
O'Reily and John Mitchell, known respectively, as the Irish Orater, Poet
and Patriot, fired by love for Free Ireland and Home Rule, earned exile
for themselves and left Ireland hurriedly. O'Reily settled in Boston and
became a well-known poet and a champion of the North. Meagher settled in
New York, and at the outbreak of the War organized the Irish Brigade, of
which he was made Brigadier-General. Mitchell settled in Richmond, where
he became the editor of the Richmond Enquirer, and, as a spectator, stood
on Marye's Heights during the battle and witnessed the desperate charges
and bloody repulses of his old friend, Meagher; and as he watched he
unburdened his soul. His refrain varied between exultation at the sight of
a fine fight and execration, in picturesque and satisfying language, of
the "renegade Irishman," his one-time friend, who would fight against the
very principle, the advocacy of which had brought them exile from Ireland.


[Illustration: MARYE'S HEIGHTS; THE STONE WALL

_It was Here that the Terrible and Spectacular Charges Spent Themselves.
The Sunken Road is in the Foreground_]


Mitchell's grandson was John Purroy Mitchell, mayor of New York City, who
died in the Aviation service during the late war.

[Sidenote: _The Good Samaritan_]

There was another soul at the Battle of Fredericksburg whose spirit of
mercy to the suffering was stronger than the dread of death, and in the
Chapel of the Prince of Peace at Gettysburg, is a tablet to him, Dick
Kirkland--the "Angel of Marye's Heights"--a gracious memorial placed by
the Federal survivors of that fight.

Dick Kirkland, a Southern soldier, who all day long had fought behind the
Stone Wall, laid aside all animosity when night fell and the bitter cries
arose in the chill air from the wounded and dying on the plain. The
pitiful calls for "water, water" so moved the young South Carolinian that
he asked his commanding officer to be allowed to relieve the sufferers.
His request was at first refused, but when he begged, permission was
given, and taking as many full canteens as he could carry, he went out
among the pitiful forms dotting the field, while the shells and rifle fire
still made it most dangerous, administering to the enemy. He was a good
Samaritan and unafraid, who is affectionately remembered by a grateful
foe. Kirkland was more merciful to the wounded Federals than was their
commander, for it was forty-eight hours before General Burnside could
swallow his pride and acknowledge defeat by applying for a truce. In the
interval, during forty-eight hours of winter weather while the wounded lay
unsheltered, chill winds sweeping over them, the wailing and the agonized
crying slowly died out. Every wounded man who could not crawl or walk
died, and when the truce came more than four thousand bodies were piled in
front of the "Sunken Road."

At night of December 13th, Burnside was utterly defeated and after quietly
facing the Southern forces all day on the 14th, he was practically forced
to abandon his battle plans by the protests of his Generals, who
practically refused to charge again, and moved his army across the river
at night.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _A Critique of the Armies_]

In the whole action at Fredericksburg, General Lee used but 57,000 men,
while official reports state that the Northern forces "in the fight"
numbered 100,000. As bearing on this (and most assuredly with no intention
to belittle the gallant men of the Federal Army, who fought so bravely)
the condition of Burnside's Army, due to the policy of his government and
to Major-General Hooker's insubordination, is to be considered. An
estimate of this army by the New York Times shows to what pass vacillation
had brought it. The Times said after Fredericksburg:

"Sad, sad it is to look at this superb Army of the Potomac--the match of
which no conqueror ever led--this incomparable army, fit to perform the
mission the country has imposed upon it--paralyzed, petrified, put under a
blight and a spell. You see men who tell you that they have been in a
dozen battles and have been licked and chased every time--they would like
to chase once to see how it "feels." This begins to tell on them. Their
splendid qualities, their patience, faith, hope and courage, are gradually
oozing out. Certainly never were a graver, gloomier, more sober, sombre,
serious and unmusical body of men than the Army of the Potomac at the
present time."

On the other hand, thus spoke the correspondent of the London Times of the
"tatterdermalion regiments of the South":

"It is a strange thing to look at these men, so ragged, slovenly,
sleeveless, without a superfluous ounce of flesh on their bones, with
wild, matted hair, in mendicants rags, and to think, when the battle flags
go to the front, how they can and do fight. 'There is only one attitude in
which I should never be ashamed of you seeing my men, and that is when
they are fighting.' These were General Lee's words to me the first time I
ever saw him."




_At Chancellorsville_

    _The Struggle in the Pine Woods when death struck at Southern hearts_


From the close of the battle at Fredericksburg in December 1862, until the
spring of 1863, General Burnside's Army of the Potomac and General Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia lay in camp; the first on the north and the
second on the south bank of the Rappahannock. The little town, now fairly
well repopulated by returned refugees, lay between the hosts. The Northern
lines practically began at Falmouth, where General Daniel Butterfield had
headquarters, and at which spot young Count Zeppelin and his assistants
were busily arranging to send up a great Observation Balloon with a
signalling outfit. Southward, Lee's army stretched over thirty-three
miles, from the fords of the Rappahannock, where the hard riding
cavalrymen of Stuart and W. H. F. Lee watched, to Port Royal, Jackson's
right.

Burnside's headquarters were the Phillips house and Chatham, (recently
owned by the famous journalist, Mark Sullivan and where he and Mrs.
Sullivan made their home for some years). Hooker, part of the time, was at
the Phillips house, Lee in a tent, near Fredericksburg, while General
Jackson had headquarters first in an outbuilding at Moss Neck, now the
home of Count d'Adhemar and later in a tent. It was here that he became
fond of little Farley Carbin, who came every day to perch on his knee and
receive little presents from him. One day he had nothing to give her, and
so, ere she left, he tore the gold braid from the new hat that was part of
a handsome uniform just given him by General "Jeb" Stuart, and placed it
like a garland on her pretty curly head. During the winter the General,
who from the beginning of the war never slept at night outside his army's
camp, nor had an hour's leave of absence, saw for the first time since he
left Lexington, and for next to the last time on earth, his wife and
little daughter, whom he so fervently loved. They spent some weeks near
him at Moss Neck.

[Sidenote: _Christmas at the Front_]

Christmas Eve came. In the Southern camp back of the hills down the river
road, up towards Banks Ford, out at Salem Church, and even in the town,
hunger and cold were the lot of all. General Lee, wincing at the
sufferings of his "tatterdermalion" forces, wrote and asked that the
rations of his men be increased, but a doctor-inspector sent out by the
often futile Confederate Government reported that the bacon ration of
Lee's army--one-half a pound a day, might be cut down, as "the men can be
_kept alive_ on this." General Lee himself wrote that his soldiers were
eating berries, leaves, roots and the bark of trees to "supplement the
ration," and although at this time the Confederate Government had a store
of bacon and corn meal that would have fed _all_ its armies a half year,
Lee's ragged soldiers starved throughout the winter. It is worthy of note
here that when Lee's starving army moved, foodless, toward that last day
at Appomattox, they marched past 50,000 pounds of bacon alone, which the
Confederate commissary, at Mr. Jefferson Davis' orders, burned next day.

We spoke of Christmas Eve, when in the long lines of the two camps' great
fires beamed, voices rose in songs and hymns, and bands played. Late in
the evening, when dusk had settled, a band near Brompton broke out
defiantly into "Dixie," and from the Washington Farm a big band roared out
"The Battle Hymn." There was a pause and then, almost simultaneously, they
began "Home, Sweet Home," and catching the time played it through
together. When it was done, up from the camps of these boys who were to
kill and be killed, who were to die in misery on many a sodden field, rose
a wild cheer.

Hardly could two great armies ever before have lain for months' within
sight of each other as these two did in almost amicable relations. There
was no firing; the cannon-crowned hills were silent. Drills and great
reviews took place on either bank of the river and in the Confederate
ranks there went on a great religious "revival" that swept through the
organization. Along the banks of the river where pickets; patrolled by
day, and their little fires flamed in the night, trading was active. From
the Union bank would come the call softly:

    "Johnny."

    "Yea, Yank."

    "Got any tobacco?"

    "Yes, want 't trade?"

    "Half pound of coffee for two plugs of tobacco, Reb."

    "'right, send 'er over."

They traded coffee, tobacco, newspapers and provisions, sometimes wading
out and meeting in mid-river, but as the industry grew, miniature ferry
lines, operated by strings, began to ply.

Soldiers and Generals passed and repassed in the streets of
Fredericksburg, where wreckage still lay about in confusion, houses
presented dilapidated fronts, and only a few of the citizens attempted to
occupy their homes.

Once, in midwinter, the armies became active when Burnside attempted to
move his army and cross the river above Fredericksburg; but only for a few
days, for that unfortunate General's plans were ruined by a deluge and his
army "stuck in the mud." General Hooker took his place.

[Sidenote: _The Coming of Spring_]

About April 26 Hooker's great army, "The finest army on the planet," he
bombastically called it, moved up the river and began crossing. It was his
purpose to get behind Lee's lines, surprise him and defeat him from the
rear. On April twenty-ninth and thirtieth, Hooker got in position around
Chancellorsville, in strong entrenchments, a part of his army amounting to
85,000 men, but the Confederate skirmishers were already in front of him.

It was the Northern Commander's plan for Sedgwick, left at Fredericksburg
with 40,000, to drive past Fredericksburg and on to Chancellorsville, and
thus to place the Southern forces between the two big Federal armies and
crush it.

[Sidenote: _The First Aerial Scout_]

Before the great battle of Chancellorsville began, this message came down
from the first balloon ever successfully used in war, tugging at its cable
two thousand feet above the Scott house, on Falmouth Heights:

    Balloon in the Air, April 29, 1863.

    Major-General Butterfield,
      Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac.

    General: The enemy's line of battle is formed in the edge of the
    woods, at the foot of the heights, from opposite Fredericksburg to
    some distance to the left of our lower crossing. Their line appears
    quite thin, compared with our forces. Their tents all remain as
    heretofore, as far as I can see.

    T. C. S. LOWE,
      Chief of Aeronauts.

But the force did not "remain as heretofore" long, though the tents were
left to confuse the enemy, for on April 29 General Anderson moved to
Chancellorsville, followed on April 30 by General McLaws; and under cover
of darkness "Stonewall Jackson" moved to the same place that night, with
26,000 men. On May 1, then, Hooker's 91,000 at Chancellorsville were being
pressed by Lee's army of 46,000.

General Early's command of 9,000 and Barksdale's brigade of 1,000 and some
detached troops were left to defend Fredericksburg against Sedgwick's
corps, which was now crossing the Rappahannock, 30,000 strong. At 11 A.
M., May 1, General Lee's army, with Jackson's corps on his left, began the
attack at Chancellorsville, of which this dispatch speaks:

    Balloon in the Air, May 1, 1863.

    Major-General Sedgwick,
      Commanding Left Wing, Army of the Potomac.

    General: In a northwest direction, about twelve miles, an engagement
    is going on.

    T. C. S. LOWE,
      Chief of Aeronauts.

[Sidenote: _Fight at Chancellorsville_]

Before evening of May 1 Hooker's advance guard was driven back, and the
Confederate forces swept on until within one mile of Chancellorsville, and
there, stopped by a "position of great natural strength" (General Lee) and
by deep entrenchments, log breastworks and felled trees, they ceased to
progress. It was evident at nightfall that with his inferior force the
Southern commander could not drive Hooker, and that if he failed to do so,
Sedgwick would drive back the small force in Fredericksburg and would come
on from Fredericksburg and crush him.

Jackson and Lee bivouaced that night near where the Old Plank Road and the
Furnace Road intersect, and here formulated their plans for the morrow.
From Captain Murray Taylor, of General A. P. Hill's staff, they learned
that a road existed, by advancing down which (the Furnace Road) then
turning sharply and marching in a "V" Jackson's plan to turn Hooker's
right might be carried out, and at Captain Taylor's suggestion they sent
for "Jack" Hayden, who could not be gotten at once, and who, being an old
man, was "hiding out" to avoid "Yankee" marauders.

Lee and Jackson slept on the ground. Jackson, over whom an officer had
thrown his overcoat, despite his protests, waited until the officer dozed,
gently laid the coat over him and slept uncovered, as he had not brought
his own overcoat. Later, arising chilled, he sat by the fire until near
dawn, when his army got in motion.

When Jackson moved away in the early hours of May 2 there were left to
face Hooker's 91,000 men on the Federal left, Lee's 14,000 men, attacking
and feinting, and nowhere else a man. Jackson was moving through tangled
forests, over unused roads, and before 5 o'clock of that memorable
afternoon of May 2 he had performed the never-equalled feat of moving an
army, infantry and artillery of 26,000 men sixteen miles, entirely around
the enemy, and reversing his own army's front. He was now across the Plank
Road and the Turnpike, about four miles from Chancellorsville, facing
toward Lee's line, six miles away. And Hooker was between them!

[Sidenote: _Jackson's Stroke of Genius_]

It was 5:30 when Jackson's command (Colston's and Rhodes' Divisions, with
A. P. Hill in reserve) gave forth the rebel yell and sweeping along
through the woods parallel to the roads, fell on Hooker's right while the
unsuspecting army was at supper. The Federals fled in utter disorder.

Before his victorious command, Jackson drove Hooker's army through the
dark pine thickets until the Federal left had fallen on Chancellorsville
and the right wing was piled up and the wagon trains fleeing, throwing the
whole retreating army into confusion. At 9 o'clock he held some of the
roads in Hooker's rear, and the Northern army was in his grasp.

Hill was to go forward now. He rode to the front with his staff, a short
distance behind Jackson, who went a hundred yards ahead of the Confederate
lines on the turnpike to investigate. Bullets suddenly came singing from
the Northern lines and Jackson turned and rode back to his own lines.
Suddenly a Confederate picket shouted "Yankee cavalry," as he rode through
the trees along the edge of the Plank Road. Then a volley from somewhere
in Lane's North Carolina ranks poured out, and three bullets struck
Jackson in the hand and arms. His horse bolted, but was stopped and
turned, and Jackson was aided by General Hill to dismount. Almost all of
Hill's staff were killed or wounded.

There was trouble getting a litter, and the wounded man tried to walk,
leaning on Major Leigh and Lieutenant James Power Smith. The road was
filled with men, wounded, retreating, lost from their commands. Hill's
lines were forming for a charge and from these Jackson hid his face--they
must not know he was wounded. A litter was brought and they bore the
sufferer through the thickets until a fusilade passed about them and
struck down a litter-bearer, so that the General was thrown from the
litter his crushed shoulder striking a pine stump, and now for the first
time, and last time, he groaned. Again they bore him along the Plank
Road until a gun loaded with canister swept that road clear, and the
litter-bearers fled, leaving General Jackson lying in the road. And here,
with infinite heroism, Lieutenant Smith (see sketch of life) and Major
Leigh lay with their bodies over him to shield him from missiles.


[Illustration: WHERE "STONEWALL JACKSON" DIED

_In the Room on the Lower Floor, the Window of Which Looks Out on the
Little Bush, The South's Hero Passed Away_]


[Sidenote: _The Death of "Stonewall"_]

Later the wounded officer was gotten to a field headquarters near
Wilderness Run, and Dr. Hunter McGuire and assistants amputated one arm
and bound the other arm and hand. Two days later he was removed to Mr.
Chandler's home, near Guineas, where, refusing to enter the mansion
because he feared his presence might bring trouble on the occupants should
the Federals come, and because the house was crowded with other wounded,
he was placed in a small outbuilding, which stands today. The record of
his battle against death in this little cabin, his marvelous trust in God
and his uncomplaining days of suffering until he opened his lips to feebly
say: "Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees" is
a beautiful story in itself. He died from pneumonia, which developed when
his wounds were beginning to heal. The wounds only would not have killed
him and the pneumonia probably resulted from sleeping uncovered on the
night before referred to. Mrs. Jackson and their little child, Dr. Hunter
McGuire, Lieutenant James Power Smith, his aide-de-camp; Mrs. Beasley and
a negro servant were those closest to him in his dying hours.

Hill succeeded Jackson, and in twenty minutes was wounded and Stuart
succeeded him, and fighting ceased for the night.

On May 3, General Lee attacked again, uniting his left wing with Stuart's
right, and a terrific battle took place that lasted all day, and at its
end Hooker's great army was defeated and dispirited, barely holding on in
their third line trenches, close to the river; that worse did not befall
him was due to events about Fredericksburg. (We may note here that Hooker
lost at Chancellorsville 16,751 men while Lee lost about 11,000.)

[Sidenote: _Battle at Salem Church_]

For Sedgwick, with 30,000 men, took Marye's Heights at 1 o'clock of this
day, losing about 1,000 men, and immediately General Brooks' division
(10,000) marched out the Plank Road, where on each successive crest,
Wilcox's Alabamians, with a Virginia battery of two guns (4,000 in all)
disputed the way. At Salem Church, General Wilcox planted his troops for a
final stand.

Here at Salem Church the battle began when Sedgwick's advance guard,
beating its way all day against a handful of Confederates, finally formed
late in the afternoon of May 3, prepared to throw their column in a grand
assault against the few Confederates standing sullenly on the pine ridge
which crosses the Plank Road at right angles about where Salem Church
stands. Less than 4,000 Alabama troops, under General Wilcox, held the
line, and against these General Brooks, of Sedgwick's corps, threw his
10,000 men. They rushed across the slopes, met in the thicket, and here
they fought desperately for an hour. Reinforcements reached the
Confederates at sundown, and next morning General Lee had come with
Anderson's and McLaw's commands, and met nearly the whole of Sedgwick's
command, charging them late in the afternoon of May 4, and driving them so
that, before daybreak, they had retreated across the river. Then, turning
back to attack Hooker, he found the latter also crossing the river.

Unique in the history of battles are the two monuments which stand near
Salem Church, erected by the State of New Jersey and gallantly uttering
praise of friend and foe.

They mark the farthest advance of the New Jersey troops. The first, on the
right of the Plank Road as one goes from Fredericksburg to
Chancellorsville, is a monument to the Fifteenth New Jersey troops, and on
one side is inscribed:

    "The survivors of the Fifteenth New Jersey Infantry honor their
    comrades who bore themselves bravely in this contest, and bear witness
    to the valor of the men who opposed them on this field."

[Sidenote: _Monument at Salem Church_]

The other monument stands on the ridge at Salem Church, close to the road,
and about where the charge of the Twenty-third New Jersey shattered itself
against the thin lines of Wilcox's Alabamians. It stands just where these
two bodies of troops fought hand to hand amidst a rolling fire of
musketry, bathing the ground in blood. In the end the Confederates
prevailed, but when the State of New Jersey erected the monument they did
not forget their foe. It is the only monument on a battlefield that pays
homage alike to friend and enemy.

The monument was unveiled in 1907, Governor E. Bird Gubb, who led the
Twenty-third New Jersey, being the principal speaker. Thousands were
present at the ceremonies.

On one side of the splendid granite shaft is a tablet, on which is
engraved:

    "To the memory of our heroic comrades who gave their lives for their
    country's unity on this battlefield, this tablet is dedicated."

And on the other side another tablet is inscribed:

    "To the brave Alabama boys, our opponents on this battlefield, whose
    memory we honor, this tablet is dedicated."




_Two Great Battles_

    _The fearful fire swept Wilderness, and the Bloody Angle at
    Spottsylvania_


After Chancellorsville, the Confederate Army invaded the North, and Hooker
left the Stafford Hills to follow Lee into Pennsylvania. When Gettysburg
was over, both armies came back to face each other along the Rappahannock,
twenty to thirty miles above Fredericksburg.

Now, Chancellorsville is in a quiet tract of scrub pine woods, twelve
miles west of Fredericksburg. The Plank Road and the Turnpike run toward
it and meet there, only to diverge three miles or so west, and six miles
still further west (from Chancellorsville) the two roads cross Wilderness
Run--the Turnpike crosses near Wilderness Tavern, the Plank Road about
five miles southward.

Two miles from Wilderness Tavern on the Turnpike is Mine Run. Here General
Meade, now commanding the Northern Army, moved his forces, and on December
1, 1863, the two armies were entrenched. But after skirmishes, Meade, who
had started toward Richmond, decided not to fight and retreated with the
loss of 1,000 men.

In the spring General Grant, now commander-in-chief, began to move from
the vicinity of Warrenton, and on May 4, 1864, his vast army was treading
the shadowed roads through the Wilderness. It was one of the greatest
armies that has ever been engaged in mobile warfare; for, by official
records, Grant had 141,000 men.

Lee's army--he had now 64,000 men--was moving in three columns from the
general direction of Culpeper.

Grant intended to get between Lee and Richmond, but he failed, for the
Confederate commander met him in the tangled Wilderness, and one of the
most costly battles of the war began--a battle than can barely be touched
on here, for, fought as it was in the woods, the lines wavering and
shifting and the attack now from one side, now from the other, it became
so involved that a volume is needed to tell the story.

It is sufficient to say that the first heavy fighting began along the
Turnpike near Wilderness Run, on May 4 and 5, and that shortly afterwards
the lines were heavily engaged on each side of, and parallel to, the Plank
Road. Northward, on the Germanna road, charges and countercharges were
made, and on May 6, Sedgwick's line finally broke and gave ground before a
spirited charge by part of Ewell's corps--the brigades of Gordon, Johnston
and Pegram doubling up that flank.

The Northern left (on the Plank Road), which had been driven back once,
rallied on the morning of May 6, and in a counter-attack threatened
disaster to the Confederates under Heth and Wilcox who (this was in the
forenoon) were driven back by a terrific charge from the Federal lines
near Brock Road. Expected for hours, Longstreet's march-worn men came up
at this critical moment along Plank Road. Heading this column that had
been moving since midnight was a brigade of Texans and toward these
General Lee rode, calling:

    "What troops are these?"

The first answer was simply:

    "Texans, General."

[Sidenote: _"General Lee to the Rear"_]

"My brave Texas boys, you must charge. You _must_ drive those people
back," the Confederate commander said, so earnestly that the Texas troops
began to form while Lee personally rallied the men who by now were pouring
back from the front. Then as Longstreet's men began to go forward Lee rode
with them until the line paused while the cry arose from all directions
"General Lee, go to the rear. Lee to the rear." Officers seized his
bridle. "If you will go to the rear, General," said an officer waving his
hand toward the lines "these men will drive 'those people' back." His
promise was made good, for as Lee drew back, Longstreet's men--General
Longstreet himself had now reached the head of the column--rushed through
the woods, driving the advancing Federals back, and piercing their lines
in two places. Before a second and heavier assault the whole line fell
back to entrenchments in front of Brock Road, and soon the junction of
that road and Plank Road was within Longstreet's reach, and the Northern
line threatened with irretrievable disaster.

And now, for the second time, just as a great victory was at hand, the
Southern troops shot their leader. General Longstreet was advancing along
the Plank Road with General Jenkins, at the head of the latter's troops,
when--mistaken for a body of the enemy--they were fired into. General
Longstreet was seriously wounded, General Jenkins killed, and the forward
movement was checked for several hours, during which the Federals
reinforced the defenses at the junction.

[Sidenote: _Grant's Advance Defeated_]

At night of May 6 Grant had been defeated of his purpose, his army driven
back over a mile along a front of four miles, and terrific losses
inflicted--for he lost in the Wilderness 17,666 men, while the Confederate
losses were 10,641. General Hays (Federal) was killed near the junction of
Plank and Brock Roads.

Fire now raged through the tangled pines and out of the smoke through the
long night came the screams of the wounded, who helplessly waited the
coming of the agonizing flames. Thousands of mutilated men lay there for
hours and hours feeling the heated breath of that which was coming to
devour them, helpless to move, while the fire swept on through the
underbrush and dead leaves.

The battle had no result. Grant was badly defeated, but, unlike Burnside,
Hooker and Meade, he did not retreat across the Rappahannock. Instead,
pursuing his policy and figuring that 140,000 men against 60,000 men could
fight until they killed the 60,000, themselves loosing two to one, and
still have 20,000 left, he moved "by the flank."

By the morning of May 8 Grant's army, moving by the rear, was reaching
Spotsylvania Court House by the Brock Road and the Chancellorsville Road.
General Lee has no road to move on. But on the night of May 7 his
engineers cut one through the Wilderness to Shady Grove Church and his
advance guard moving over this intercepted Warren's corps two miles from
the Court House and halted the advance. By the night of May 8, Lee's whole
army was in a semi-circle, five or six miles in length, about the Court
House. The center faced northward and crossed the Fredericksburg Road.

Grant attacked feebly on May 10, and again on May 11, and because of the
lightness of these attacks Lee believed Grant would again move "by the
flank" toward Richmond. But before dawn on May 12 Hancock's corps struck
the apex of a salient just beyond the Court House, breaking the lines and
capturing General Edward Johnson and staff and 1,200 men.

[Sidenote: _The Day of "Bloody Angle"_]

In this salient, now known as the "Bloody Angle," occurred one of the most
terrible hand-to-hand conflicts of modern warfare. From dawn to dawn, in
the area of some 500 acres which the deep and well-fortified trenches of
the angle enclosed, more than 60,000 men fought that day. Artillery could
hardly be used, because of the mixture of the lines, but nowhere in the
war was such rifle fire known. The Northern forces broke the left of the
salient, took part of the right, and, already having the apex, pushed
their troops through. The lines swayed, advancing and retreating all day.

Toward evening the gallant Gordan advancing from base line of the Angle,
with his whole command pouring in rifle fire, but mostly using the
bayonet, drove back the Federals slowly, and at night the Confederates
held all except the apex. But General Lee abandoned the salient after
dark, and put his whole force in the base line. Here General Grant
hesitated to attack him.

All along the lines about Spotsylvania desperate fighting occurred that
day, but the battle was distinctly a draw. Both armies lay in their
trenches, now and then skirmishing, until May 18, when Grant withdrew,
again moving "by the flank," this time toward Milford, on the R., F. & P.
Railroad.

Near the Bloody Angle, on the Brock Road, where it is intersected by a
cross road, General Sedgwick was killed by a sharpshooter concealed in a
tree. He fell from his horse, and although his aides summoned medical help
he died almost immediately. The tree from which it is said the
sharpshooter killed him is still standing.

General Lee had at Spotsylvania about 55,000 men and General Grant about
124,000.

The Federal loss was 15,577. The Confederate loss was 11,578. A large part
of these, probably 15,000, fell in the Bloody Angle.[1]

    [1] Figures, see official reports.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _Our Part in Other Wars_]

In the War of 1812 only one company was formed here, commanded by Colonel
Hamilton. This company did really very little service. The fear that the
enemy would come up the Rappahannock River to attack this place was never
realized.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the war with Mexico it is not recorded that any distinctive company was
enrolled here, although a number of its young men enlisted, and one of the
Masons of Gunston was the first man killed, in the ambush of the First
Dragoons on the Mexican border. General Daniel Ruggles won honor in this
war.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Civil War, every man, "from the cradle to the grave," went to the
front voluntarily and cheerfully for the cause. They could be found in
such commands as the Thirtieth Virginia Regiment of Infantry, commanded by
Colonel Robert S. Chew, in which, among the many officers were: Hugh S.
Doggett, Robert T. Know, James S. Knox, Edgar Crutchfield, John K.
Anderson, Edward Hunter, Thomas F. Proctor and many others. Of these it is
sufficient to say that at all times they loyally did their duty, and this
may also be said of the Fredericksburg Artillery, sometimes called
Braxton's Battery, among the officers of which were Carter Braxton, Edward
Marye, John Pollock, John Eustace and others. Some of "our boys" united
themselves with the "Bloody Ninth" Virginia Cavalry, commanded by that
prince of calvarimen, Colonel Thomas W. Waller, of Stafford. Others of the
town, voluntarily enlisted in many other branches.

Charles T. Goolrick commanded a company of infantry which was organized
and equipped by his father, Peter Goolrick. Later his health gave way and
his brother, Robert Emmett Goolrick, a lieutenant in the company, took
command.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the War with Spain was declared, the old Washington Guards, which has
done its duty at all times in the life of the town, came to the front.
Captain Maurice B. Rowe was its commander at that time; Revere, first
lieutenant, and Robert S. Knox, now of the U. S. Army, second lieutenant.
It is pertinent to state that in the War with Spain there was no draft,
and there were more volunteers than there was work to do. The company
marched away with great hopes, but spent almost the whole period of the
war at Camp Alger, near Washington.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: _In the Great World War_]

When the Great World War came on, Fredericksburg sent two organized
companies to the front. The first, the Washington Guards, under Captain
Gunyon Harrison, and the second, the Coast Artillery Company, under
Captain Johnson. No names can be recorded, for after the companies left,
the draft men went in large bodies, and many won promotion and
distinguished service medals.

On July 4, 1918, the town gave to the World War soldiers a sincere and
royal "welcome home," in which the people testified to their gratitude to
them. In the war, our boys had added luster to the name of the town, and
splendid credit to themselves. The joy of the occasion and the pleasure of
it were marred by the fact that so many had died in France.




_Heroes of Early Days_

    _The Old Town gives the first Commander, first Admiral, and Great
    Citizens_


[Sidenote: _Washington's Boyhood Home_]

Fredericksburg claims George Washington, who although born in Westmoreland
County, Virginia, February 22, 1732, spent most of his boyhood on the
"Ferry Farm," the home of his father, Augustine Washington, situated on a
hill directly opposite the wharf which juts out from the Fredericksburg
side of the river. Here it is that Parson Weems alleged he threw a stone
across the river.

He was educated in Fredericksburg and Falmouth, a village of gray mists
and traditions, which lords it over Fredericksburg in the matter of
quaintness and antiquity, but obligingly joins its fortunes to those of
the town by a long and picturesque bridge.

His tutor in Falmouth was a "Master Hobbie," and while this domine was
"strapping the unthinking end of boys," George was evading punishment by
being studious and obedient. He also attended the school of Mr. Marye, at
St. George's Church. It was in this church that the Washingtons
worshipped.

Shy in boyhood and eclectic in the matter of associates, he had the genius
for real friendships.

The cherry tree which proclaimed him a disciple of truth has still a few
flourishing descendants on the old farm, and often one sees a tourist
cherishing a twig as a precious souvenir of the ground hallowed by the
tread of America's most famous son. It was on this farm that George was
badly hurt while riding (without permission) his father's chestnut colt.

We take Washington's career almost for granted, as we watch the stars
without marveling at the forces that drive them on, but when we do stop
to think, we are sure to wonder at the substantial greatness, the
harnessed strength of will, the sagacity and perception, which made him
the man he was.

He left school at sixteen, after having mastered geometry and
trigonometry, and having learned to use logarithms.

He became a surveyor. His brother, Lawrence, who at that time owned Mt.
Vernon, recognized this; in fact, got him, in 1740, to survey those wild
lands in the valley of the Alleghany belonging to Lord Fairfax.

He was given a commission as public surveyor after this. It is hard to
realize that he was only sixteen! We will not attempt to dwell upon his
life in detail. We know that at nineteen he was given a military district,
with the rank of major, in order to meet the dangers of Indian
depredations and French encroachments. His salary was only 150 pounds a
year.

On November 4, 1752, he was made a Mason in Fredericksburg Lodge, No. 4.
The Bible used in these interesting ceremonies, is still in possession of
the lodge, and is in a fine state of preservation. Washington continued a
member of this lodge until he died, and Lafayette was an honorary member.

At twenty-one, as a man of "discretion, accustomed to travel, and familiar
with the manners of the Indians," he was sent by Governor Dinwiddie on a
delicate mission which involved encroachments by the French on property
claimed by the English. During all these years he came at close intervals
to visit his mother, now living in her own house in Fredericksburg, which
was still his home.

After his distinguished campaign against the French army under M. De
Jumonville in the region of Ohio, where he exposed himself with the most
reckless bravery, he came to Mt. Vernon which he inherited from his
brother, Augustus, married Martha Custis, a young widow with two children
and large landed estates, and became a member of the House of Burgesses,
punctually attending all the sessions.

Indeed, one finds oneself eagerly looking for an occasional lapse in this
epic of punctuality. It would humanize him. Anyway, one is glad to see
that he was a patron of the arts and the theatre, and his industry in
keeping day-books, letter-books, contracts and deeds is somewhat offset by
the fact that he played the flute.

He seldom spoke in the House of Burgesses, but his opinion was eagerly
sought and followed. We will pass over the time when Dunmore prorogued the
"House," and of the events which ended in Washington's being made
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.

We are, perhaps, more interested in another visit to Fredericksburg to see
his mother, after he had resigned his commission. From town and country,
his friends gathered to give him welcome and do him honor. The military
turned out, civic societies paraded, and cannon boomed.

[Sidenote: _When "George" got Arrested_]

In between his career as statesmen and as soldier, we strain our eyes for
a thread of color, and we discover that he was once brought before a
justice of the peace and fined for trading horses on Sunday. And again,
that he was summoned before the grand jury and "George William Fairfax,
George Washington, George Mason," and half dozen others were indicted for
"not reporting their wheeled vehicles, according to law."

It is worth noting, too, that while her son, George, was leading the
American army, Mary, his mother, was a partisan of the King; a tory most
openly. "I am sure I shall hear some day," She told some one, calmly, in
her garden, "that they have hung George."

Nevertheless, his first two messages, after he crossed the Delaware and
won signal victories, were to Congress and his mother. And after the
hard-riding courier had handed her the note, and the gathering people had
waited until she laid down her trowel, and wiped the garden earth from her
hands, she turned to them and said: "Well, George has crossed the Delaware
and defeated the King's troops at Trenton."

[Sidenote: _Washington Advises Lovers_]

The stern fact of the Revolution, which cast upon George Washington
immortal fame and which was followed by his election to the Presidency of
the United States, is softened somewhat by a letter on love written to his
daughter, Nellie Custis. A few excerpts are as follows:

"When the fire is beginning to kindle, and the heart growing warm,
propound these questions to it. Who is this invader? Is he a man of
character; a man of sense? For be assured, a sensible woman can never be
happy with a fool. Is his fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner
I have been accustomed to live? And is he one to whom my friends can have
no reasonable objection?"

And again, "It would be no great departure from the truth to say that it
rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough paced coquette dies in
celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others by
encouraging looks, words and actions, given for no other purpose than to
draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected."

The letter ends with a blessing bestowed on the young lady to whom is
given such sensible advice. That this letter is characterized by an
admirable poise, cannot be denied.

George Washington died at Mt. Vernon, December 4, 1799. He upheld the
organization of the American state during the first eight years of its
existence, amid the storms of interstate controversy, and gave it time to
consolidate.

No other American but himself could have done this--for of all the
American leaders he was the only one whom men felt differed from
themselves. The rest were soldiers, civilians, Federalists or Democrats,
but he--was Washington.

[Sidenote: _Evidence of Citizenship_]

Almost immediately after appearing before the public session of Congress,
at which he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the
Continental armies, an act of which Thackeray speaks as sheathing his
sword after "a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage
indomitable and a consummate victory," Washington came to Fredericksburg
to visit his mother. He was the great hero of the age, the uncrowned King
of America and from all over the section crowds flocked to do him honor.
The occasion was of such importance that the city did not trust the words
of welcome to a single individual, but called a meeting of the City
Council at which a short address was adopted and presented to Washington
upon his arrival by William McWilliams, then mayor.

While beautifully worded to show the appreciation of his services and
respect for his character and courage, the address of welcome contains
nothing of historical significance except the line "And it affords us
great joy to see you once more at a place which claims the honor of your
growing infancy, the seat of your amiable parent and worthy relatives,"
which establishes Washington's connection with Fredericksburg.

In reply, General Washington said:

    Gentlemen:

    With the greatest pleasure I receive in the character of a private
    citizen the honor of your address. To a benevolent providence and the
    fortitude of a brave and virtuous army, supported by the general
    exertion of our common country, I stand indebted for the plaudits you
    now bestow. The reflection, however, of having met the congratulating
    smiles and approbation of my fellow citizens for the part I have acted
    in the cause of Liberty and Independence cannot fail of adding
    pleasure to the other sweets of domestic life; and my sense of them is
    heightened by their coming from the respectable inhabitants of the
    place of my growing infancy and the honorable mention which is made of
    my revered mother, by whose maternal hand, (early deprived of a
    father) I was led to manhood. For the expression of personal affection
    and attachment, and for your kind wishes for my future welfare, I
    offer grateful thanks and my sincere prayers for the happiness and
    prosperity of the corporate town of Fredericksburg.

    Signed: GEORGE WASHINGTON.

This address is recorded in the books of the town council and is signed in
a handwriting that looks like that of Washington.

As it is known that Washington lived at Fredericksburg from the time he
was about six years of age until early manhood, the expression "growing
infancy" is unfortunate, but later, when Mayor Robert Lewis, a nephew of
Washington, delivered the welcome address to General Lafayette when he
visited Fredericksburg in 1824 the real case was made more plain when he
said:

    "The presence of the friend of Washington excites the tenderest
    emotions and associations among a people whose town enjoys the
    distinguished honor of having been the residence of the Father of his
    Country during the days of his childhood and youth," and in reply
    General Lafayette said:

    "At this place, Sir, which calls to our recollections several among
    the most honored names of the Revolutionary War, I did, many years
    ago, salute the first residence of our paternal chief, receiving the
    blessings of his venerated mother and of his dear sister, your own
    respected mother." Later the same day, at a banquet in the evening,
    given in his honor, Lafayette offered the following sentiment, "The
    City of Fredericksburg--first residence of Washington--may she more
    and more attain all the prosperity which independence, republicanism
    and industry cannot fail to secure."


JOHN PAUL JONES.

Of all the men whose homes were in Fredericksburg, none went forth to
greater honor nor greater ignominy than John Paul Jones, who raised the
first American flag on the masthead of his ship, died in Paris and was
buried and slept for 113 years beneath a filthy stable yard, forgotten by
the country he valiantly served.

He came to Fredericksburg early in 1760 on "The Friendship," as a boy of
thirteen years. Born in a lowly home, he was a mere apprentice seaman, and
without doubt he deserted his ship in those days, when sea life was a
horror, to come to Fredericksburg and join his brother, William Paul,
whose home was here, and who is buried here. There is some record of his
having been befriended by a man in Carolina, and traditions that he left
his ship in a port on the Rappahannock after killing a sailor, and walked
through the wilderness to Fredericksburg. Neither tradition is of
importance; the fact is that he came here and remained four years during
the developing period of his life.

[Sidenote: _Jones' American Home Here_]

William Paul had immigrated to Fredericksburg from the Parish of Kirkbeam,
Scotland, (where he and his brother, John, were born), about 1760, had
come to Fredericksburg and conducted a grocery store and tailor shop on
the corner of Caroline and Prussia streets. William died here in 1773, and
is buried in St. George's Church Yard. In his will he left his property to
sisters in the Parish of Kirkbeam, Scotland.

Alexander McKenzie, in his life of John Paul Jones, says, after referring
to the fact that William Paul is buried in Fredericksburg: "In 1773 he
went back to Fredericksburg to arrange the affairs of his brother, William
Paul," and John Paul Jones himself wrote of Fredericksburg: "It was the
home of my fond election since first I saw it." The Legislature of
Virginia decided in settling William Paul's estate that John Paul Jones
was a legal resident of Fredericksburg.

Obviously, then, Fredericksburg was the great Admiral's home, for, though
not born here, he chose it when he came to America.

When he first reached the little town on the Rappahannock he went to work
for his brother, William Paul and one can surmise that he clerked and
carried groceries and messages to the gentry regarding their smart clothes
for his brother.

The Rising Sun Tavern was then a gathering place for the gentry and
without doubt he saw them there. He may well have learned good manners
from their ways, good language from hearing their conversation and
"sedition" from the great who gathered there. We may picture the lowly
boy, lingering in the background while the gentlemen talked and drank
punch around Mine Host Weedon's great fire, or listening eagerly at the
counter where the tavern-keeper, who was to be a Major-General, delivered
the mail.

Certainly John Paul Jones was a lowly and uneducated boy at 13. He left
Fredericksburg after four years to go to sea again, and in 1773 came back
to settle his brother's estate, and remained here until December 22, 1775,
when he received at Fredericksburg his commission in the Navy.

[Sidenote: _From Cabin Boy to Courtier_]

John Paul Jones' story is more like romance than history. Beginning an
uncouth lad, he became a sea fighter whose temerity outranks all. We see
him aboard the Bonhomme Richard, a poor thing for seafaring, fighting the
Serapis just off British shores, half of his motley crew of French and
Americans dying or dead about him, the scruppers running blood, mad
carnage raging, and when he is asked if he is ready to surrender he says:
"I've just begun to fight," and by his will forcing victory out of defeat.
He was the only American who fought the English on English soil. He never
walked a decent quarter deck, but with the feeble instruments he had, he
captured sixty superior vessels. His ideal of manliness was courage.

What of this Fredericksburg gave him no one may say, but it is sure that
the chivalry, grace and courtliness which admitted him in later years to
almost every court in Europe was absorbed from the gentry in Virginia. He
did not learn it on merchantmen or in his humble Scotch home, and so he
learned it here. Of him the Duchess de Chartres wrote:

    "Not Bayard, nor Charles le Temeaire could have laid his helmet at a
    lady's feet with such knightly grace."

He won his country's high acclaim, but it gave him no substantial
evidence. He was an Admiral in the Russian Navy, and after a time he went
to Paris to live a few years in poverty, neglect, and bitterness. He died
and was buried in Paris in 1792, at 45 years of age.

He was a dandy, this John Paul Jones, who walked the streets of
Fredericksburg in rich dress. Lafayette, Jefferson, and, closest of all,
the Scotch physician, Hugh Mercer, were his friends. Slender and not tall,
black-eyed and swarthy, with sensitive eyes, and perfect mouth and chin,
he won the love or friendship of women quicker than that of men.

He was buried in an old graveyard in Paris and forgotten until the author
of this book wrote for newspapers a series of letters about him. Interest
awoke and Ambassador Porter was directed to search for his body. How
utterly into oblivion had slipped the youth who ventured far, and
conquered always, is plain when it is known that it took the Ambassador
six years to find the body of Commodore John Paul Jones. He found it in an
old cemetery where bodies were heaped three deep under the courtyard of a
stable and a laundry.


[Sidenote: _Admiral Jones' Surgeon_]

SURGEON LAURENS BROOKE

Surgeon Laurens Brooke, was born in Fredericksburg, in 1720, and was one
of those who accompanied Governor Spottswood as a Knight of the Golden
Horseshoe. He afterwards lived in Fredericksburg, entered the U. S. Navy
as a surgeon and sailed with John Paul Jones on the "Ranger" and on the
"Bon Homme Richard." At the famous battle of Scarborough, between the
latter vessel and the "Serapis," Surgeon Brooke alone had the care of one
hundred and twenty wounded sailors; and later with Surgeon Edgerly, of the
English navy, from the Tempis, performed valiant work and saved many
lives. The surgeons were honored by Captain Paul Jones with a place at his
mess, and the literature of the period refers to Surgeon Brooke as the
"good old Doctor Laurens Brooke." He was with Jones until the end of the
war and spent some time at his home here when a very old man, some years
after the Revolution. His family had a distinguished part in the War
Between the States, being represented in the army and in the C. S.
Congress during that period.


GENERAL HUGH MERCER

We wonder if any one ever declined to take the advice of George
Washington.

Certain it is that General Hugh Mercer did not, for, at the suggestion of
Washington, Mercer came to Fredericksburg. Many Scotchmen have found the
town to their liking. It makes them feel a sort of kinship with the
country of hill-shadows, and strange romance.

Mercer was born in Aberdeen in the year 1725. His father was a clergyman;
his mother, a daughter of Sir Robert Munro, who, after distinguishing
himself at Fontenoy and elsewhere, was killed at the battle of Falkirk,
while opposing the young "Pretender." Hugh Mercer did not follow in the
footsteps of his father, but linked his fortunes with Charles Edward's
army, as assistant surgeon, fought with him at Culloden and shared the
gloom of his defeat--a defeat which was not less bitter because his ears
were ringing with the victorious shouts of the army of the Duke of
Cumberland.

To change a scene that brought sad memories, Dr. Hugh Mercer, in the fall
of 1746, embarked for America. There, on the frontiers of civilization, in
Western Pennsylvania, he spent arduous, unselfish years. He was welcomed
and loved in this unsettled region of scattered homes.

A rough school it was in which the doctor learned the lessons of life.

In the year 1755, Mercer made his appearance in the ill-fated army of
Braddock, which met humiliating disaster at Fort Duquesne. Washington's
splendid career began here and here Mercer was wounded. Of this memorable
day of July 9, 1755, it has been said that "The Continentals gave the only
glory to that humiliating disaster."

In 1756, while an officer in a military association, which was founded to
resist the aggression of the French and Indians, he was wounded and forced
to undergo terrible privations. While pursued by savage foes he sought
refuge in the trunk of a tree, around which the Indians gathered and
discussed the prospect of scalping him in the near future. When they left
he escaped in the opposite direction and completely outwitted them. Then
began a lonely march through an unbroken forest, where he was compelled to
live on roots and herbs, and where the carcass of a rattlesnake proved his
most nourishing meal. He finally succeeded in rejoining his command at
Fort Cumberland. In recognition of his sacrifices and services in these
Indian wars, the Corporation of Philadelphia presented him with a note of
thanks and a splendid memorial medal. In the year 1758 he met George
Washington and then it was that Pennsylvania lost a citizen. In
Fredericksburg, at the time that Mercer came, lived John Paul Jones, and
we do not doubt that they often met and talked of their beloved Scotland.

During his first years in Fredericksburg, Mercer occupied a small
two-story house on the southwest corner of Princess Anne and Amelia
Streets. There he had his office and apothecary shop. The building is
still standing.

An Englishman, writing at this time of a visit to Fredericksburg, calls
Mercer "a man of great eminence and possessed of almost every virtue and
accomplishment," truly a sweeping appreciation.

[Sidenote: _Mercer Joins Masonic Lodge_]

He belonged to Lodge No. 4, of which George Washington was also a member,
and he occasionally paid a visit to Mount Vernon.

In September, 1774, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. The war
cloud was lowering, it broke, and when the Revolution swept the country,
Mercer was elected Colonel of the Third Virginia Regiment.

An approbation of the choice of Mercer was prepared by the county
committee, which set forth the importance of the appointment and was an
acknowledgment of his public spirit and willingness to sacrifice his life.

Colonel Mercer with his men and fifes and drums marched away from his
home, bidding good-bye to his wife (Isabella Gordon), whom he never saw
again.

There is an interesting story of Mercer at Williamsburg. Among the troops
which were sent there at that time, was a Company of riflemen from beyond
the mountains, commanded by a Captain Gibson. A reckless and violent
opposition to military restraint had gained for this corps the name of
"Gibson's Lambs." After a short time in camp, a mutiny arose among them,
causing much excitement in the army, and alarming the inhabitants of the
city. Free from all restraint, they roamed through the camp, threatening
with instant death any officer who would presume to exercise any authority
over them.

[Sidenote: _Mercer Quells a Mutiny_]

At the height of the mutiny an officer was dispatched with the alarming
tidings to the quarters of Colonel Mercer. The citizens of the town vainly
implored him not to risk his life in this infuriated mob.

Reckless of personal safety, he instantly repaired to the barracks of the
mutinous band and directing a general parade of the troops, he ordered
Gibson's company to be drawn up as offenders and violators of the law, and
to be disarmed in his presence.

The ringleaders were placed under a strong guard and in the presence of
the whole army he addressed the offenders in an eloquent manner,
impressing on them their duties as citizens and soldiers, and the
certainty of death if they continued to remain in that mutinous spirit
equally disgraceful to them and hazardous to the sacred interests they had
marched to defend. Disorder was instantly checked and the whole company
was ever afterward as efficient in deportment as any troop in the army.

On June 5, 1776, Mercer was made Brigadier-General in the Continental
Army. It was Mercer who suggested to Washington the crossing of the
Delaware. Major Armstrong, Mercer's Aide-de-Camp, who was present at a
council of officers, and who was with Mercer on that fateful night, is
authority for this statement.

We, somehow, see the army of the colonists poorly clad, many of them
barefoot, without tents, with few blankets, and badly fed. In front of
them is Cornwallis, with his glittering hosts, and we can almost hear the
boast of General Howe, that Philadelphia would fall when the Delaware
froze. He did not know Washington; and Mercer's daring was not reckoned
with. We wonder if ever a Christmas night was so filled with history as
that on which Washington, with the intrepid Mercer at his side, pushing
through that blinding storm of snow and fighting his way through the
floating ice, crossed the Deleware with the rallying cry of "victory or
death," and executed the brilliant move which won for him the Battle of
Trenton.

Near Princeton, Washington's army was hemmed in by Cornwallis in front and
the Delaware in the rear. After a consultation at Mercer's headquarters it
was determined to withdraw the Continental forces from the front of the
enemy near Trenton, and attack the detachment then at Princeton. The
pickets of the two armies were within two hundred yards of each other. In
order to deceive the enemy, campfires were left burning on Washington's
front line and thus deceived, the enemy slept.

[Sidenote: _Death on The Battlefield_]

A woman guided the Continental army on that night march. A detachment of
two hundred men, under Mercer, was sent to seize a bridge at Worth's Mill.
The night had been dreary; the morning was severely cold. Mercer's
presence was revealed at daybreak. General Mahood counter-marched his
regiment and crossed the bridge at Worth's Mill before Mercer could reach
it. The British troops charged. The Colonials were driven back. General
Mercer dismounted and tried vainly to rally his men. While he was doing
this, he was attacked by a group of British troops, who, with the butts of
muskets, beat him down and demanded that he surrender. He refused. He was
then bayoneted and left for dead on the battlefield. Stabbed in seven
different places, he did not expire until January 12, 1777.

Washington finally won the Battle of Princeton, but Mercer was a part of
the price he paid. The battles of Trenton and Princeton were the most
brilliant victories in the War of the Revolution.

At Fredericksburg a monument perpetuates Mercer's fame. At the funeral in
Philadelphia 30,000 people were present, and there his remains rest in
Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The St. Andrew's Society, which he joined in 1757, erected a monument to
his memory and in the historical painting of the Battle of Princeton, by
Peale Mercer is given a prominent place. The states of Pennsylvania,
Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey have, by an act of Legislature, named a
county "Mercer," and on October 1, 1897, a bronze tablet to his memory was
unveiled at Princeton, N. J. We have not the space to relate all of his
illustrious life, but somewhere there is a poem, the last lines of which
voice the sentiment of his countrymen.

      "But he, himself, is canonized,
    If saintly deeds such fame can give;
      As long as liberty is prized,
    Hugh Mercer's name shall surely live."


SIR LEWIS LITTLEPAGE

In the possession of a well-known man of Richmond, Va., is a large gold
key.

It is vastly different from the keys one sees these days, and inquiry
develops that it was once the property of one of the most picturesque
characters in America--a man who began his life in the cornfields of
Hanover County, Va., in 1753, and was swept by the wave of circumstance
into the palace of a King.

The atmosphere of old William and Mary College, where Lewis Littlepage was
graduated, after the death of his father, gave a mysteriously romantic
note to the beckoning song of adventure, which finally became a definite
urge, when the youth, after residing in Fredericksburg, listened to the
advice of his guardian, Benjamin Lewis, of Spotsylvania County, who placed
him with John Jay, the American Minister at Madrid.

Six months later, Jay, in a letter to Benjamin Lewis, said of the
seventeen-year-old lad:

"I am much pleased with your nephew, Lewis Littlepage, whom I regard as a
man of undoubted genius, and a person of unusual culture."

And a few months after this we discover that the well-known traveler, Mr.
Elekiah Watson, has an entry in his diary which reads:

"At Nantes I became acquainted with Lewis Littlepage, and although he is
but eighteen years of age, I believe him to be the most remarkable
character of the age. I esteem him a prodigy of genius."

[Sidenote: _The Poet Takes The Sword_]

In Madrid, Littlepage got into financial straits, owing to the fact that
his allowance did not reach him, and the next glimpse we get of him is
through the smoke of battle at Fort Mahon, where in 1781, as a member of
the force under the Duke de Crillion, he was painfully wounded while
charging the Turks.

In 1872, en route to Madrid to join Mr. Jay, he heard that de Crillion was
preparing to storm Gibraltar, and, believing himself in honor bound to
follow the fortunes of his chief, he wrote Mr. Jay that he must turn again
to arms.

From that day forward he was a soldier, a diplomat, a courtier--the
elected friend of Kings and Princes.

He aided in storming Gibraltar and left his ship only when it had burned
to the water's edge. He was highly recommended to the King for his
gallantry, and went back to Paris with de Crillion to become a brilliant
figure at court and in the salons.

Europe knew him, but America refused him even a small commission, though
Kings wrote to our Congress in his behalf.

He met Lafayette at Gibraltar; in fact, accompanied him to Spain. Then,
after considerable travel in European countries, he again encountered
Prince Nassau, who was his brother at arms in de Crillion's forces, became
his aide-de-camp and, together they found happiness in travel. They
sought the bright lights of gay capitals and followed mysterious moon
tracks on the Danube river.

[Sidenote: _When Poland's Star Flamed_]

At the Diet of Grodno, in 1784, where he went with Nassau, he met
Stanislaus Augustus, King of Poland. He captivated the King; and in a
brilliant ball room, Stanislaus offered him a permanent service at his
court.

Within a year he was chamberlain and secretary to the cabinet of His
Majesty, and for years he was practically the ruler of the empire.

In 1787, at Kiva, he made a treaty with Catherine, Empress of Russia, and
became her intimate friend.

He was a special and secret envoy from Poland to the sessions of the grand
quadruple alliance in France. Later we see him leading a division of the
army of Prince Potempkin across the snow-clad steppes of Russia, and a few
months after, he was marching at the head of the Prince's army through the
wild reaches of Tartary. Again, under Prince Nassau, we find him
commanding a fleet against the Turks at Oczacon.

Shortly after, he was a special high commissioner to Madrid. His mission
completed, he was ordered to return to Russia for the revolution of 1791,
and now he served as aide-de-camp and Major-General.

In 1794, when the Polish patriot, Kosciusco, headed a revolution,
Littlepage answered his summons and fought through to the storming of
Prague.

Stanislaus held him the greatest of his generals and his aides and when
the King was captured by the Russians, Littlepage, tired of the broils of
European politics, came home to America.

[Sidenote: _Ah, But he Had His Memories_]

When Littlepage was first in Poland, the place was gay and
laughter-loving. An atmosphere of high culture and literary achievements
made a satisfactory entourage for the ill-fated people. He lived happily
there and loved a princess of North Poland. There were starlight meetings
and woodland strolls, vows of faith and the pain of renunciation, when
for diplomatic reasons she was forced to endure another alliance.
Littlepage's reputation and splendid appearance; her beauty and the love
they bore each other and, finally, her death, made a background of red
romance, against which he is silhouetted in one's memory.

That Lewis Littlepage was a poet of no mean ability was a fact too well
known to be disputed. The last verse of a poem written by him and inspired
by the death of the woman he loved reads:

    "Over there, where you bide--past the sunset's gold glory,
      With eyes that are shining, and red lips apart,
    Are you waiting to tell me the wonderful story,
      That death cannot part us--White Rose of my Heart."

It is said that Littlepage had more honors and decorations showered upon
him than any other American in history.

Go to the old Masonic cemetery in Fredericksburg, and in a far corner,
where the wild vines and the hardy grass struggle for mastery, you may see
a legend inscribed upon a large flat stone: This is the tomb of Lewis
Littlepage. For the multitude, it is simply an unpleasant finale to the
life of a well known man.

To the imaginative, it starts a train of thought--a play of fancy. One
sees the rise of the star of Poland. Gay youths and maids pass and repass
to the sound of music and laughter. The clank of a sword sounds above the
measured foot fall on a polished floor. A soldier passes in all the
bravery of uniform. It is General Littlepage silently going to an audience
with the King. The massive doors open without a challenge, for as a
passport to the palace, on the uniform of this soldier glitters a large
gold key--the gift of Stanislaus.

Suddenly the scene changes. Amid the surging hosts and in the thick of the
bloody clash at Prague, when the anguish of uncertainty was crumbling the
courage of a kingdom, a man is seen, riding with reckless abandon. Tearing
through the lines and holding aloft the tattered standard of Poland,
comes Littlepage of Virginia. With the rallying cry of his adopted land,
he gathers up his troops and gloriously defends the flag he loves. Our
eyes again stray to the legend on the tomb: Disillusionment!

His return to his old home! His death! We see this also, but with this is
the knowledge that he lived greatly, and in his ears, while dying, sounded
again, the shout of victory, while his heart held the dream of the old
romance.


GEN. GEORGE WEEDON

Among the first men in America to "fan the flames of sedition," as an
English traveler said of him long before the war, was Mine Host George
Weedon, keeper of the Rising Sun Tavern, Postmaster, and an Irish
immigrant. At his place gathered all the great of his day, spending hours
dicing and drinking punch.

Over and over among these men--Washington, Mason, Henry, the Lees,
Jefferson and every Virginia gentleman of that section, George Weedon
heard discussion of the Colonies' problems, and he forcibly gave vent to
his opinions.

Time and again he expressed the idea of freedom before others had thought
of more than protest. His wild Irish talk in the old Rising Sun Tavern
helped to light the torch of liberty in America.

When war came, Weedon was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the First
Virginia, of which Hugh Mercer was chosen Colonel. August 17, 1776, he
became its Colonel, and on February 24, 1777, he was made a
Brigadier-General.

In the Battle of Brandywine, General Weedon's division rendered
conspicuous service, when they checked the pursuit of the British and
saved our army from rout. He commanded brilliantly at Germantown. Wherever
he fought, his great figure and stentorian voice were prominent in the
conflict.

He admired Washington and his fellow-generals. It was not because of
these, but because he thought Congress to have treated him unfairly about
rank, that he left the Army at Valley Forge. He re-entered in 1780, and in
1781 was given command of the Virginia troops, which he held until the
surrender of Yorktown, where he played an important part.

George Weedon was the first President of the Virginia Society of the
Cincinnati, a fraternity of Revolutionary officers which General
Washington helped to organize, and this was, indeed, a singular honor. He
was a member of the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge, of which Washington was
also a member. After the war, he lived at "The Sentry Box," the former
home of his gallant brother-in-law, General Mercer.

[Sidenote: _A Song For the Yuletide_]

General Weedon was a man of exuberant spirits, loud of voice and full of
Irish humor. He wrote a song called "Christmas Day in '76," and on each
Yuletide he assembled at his board his old comrades and friends, and,
while two negro boys stood sentinel at the door, drank punch and roared
out the verses:

    "On Christmas Day in '76
    Our ragged troops with bayonets fixed,
      For Trenton marched away.
    The Delaware ice, the boats below
    The lights obscured by hail and snow,
      But no signs of dismay."

Beginning thus, the brave Irishman who verbally and fought among the
foremost for America for over physically thirty years, told the story of
Washington's crossing the Delaware, vividly enough, and every Christmas
his guests stood with him and sang the ballad.[2]

    [2] See Goolrick's "Life of Mercer."


MASON OF GUNSTON

Of George Mason, whom Garland Hunt says is "more than any other man
entitled to be called the Father of the Declaration of Independence," whom
Judge Garland says, "Is the greatest political philosopher the Western
Hemisphere ever produced," of whose Bill of Rights, Gladstone said, "It is
the greatest document that ever emanated from the brain of man," little
can be said here. His home was at Gunston Hall, on the Potomac, but the
Rising Sun knew him well, and his feet often trod Mary Washington's garden
walks, or the floors of Kenmore, Chatham and the other residences of Old
Fredericksburg.

Mason was intimate here, and here much of his trading and shipping was
done. When he left Gunston, it was usually to come to Fredericksburg and
meet his younger conferees, who were looking up to him as the greatest
leader in America. He died and is buried at Gunston Hall. It was in
Fredericksburg that he first met young Washington, who ever afterward
looked upon "The Sage of Gunston" as his adviser and friend, and as
America's greatest man.


GENERAL WILLIAM WOODFORD

Although he came from Caroline, General William Woodford was a frequenter
of and often resident in Fredericksburg, and it was from this city he went
to Caroline upon the assembling of troops when Lord Dunmore became
hostile. In subsequent military operations he was made Colonel of the
Second Regiment and distinguished himself in the campaign that followed,
and he was honorably mentioned for his valiant conduct at the battle of
Gread Bridge, December 9, 1775, upon which occasion he had the chief
command and gained a brilliant victory. He was later made General of the
First Virginia Brigade. His command was in various actions throughout the
war, in one of which, the Battle of Brandywine, he was severely wounded.
He was made prisoner by the British in 1778 at Charleston, and taken to
New York, where he died.


[Sidenote: _The Owner of "Kenmore"_]

COL. FIELDING LEWIS

The mansion stands in a park, which in autumn is an explosion of color. An
old wall, covered with Virginia creeper, adds a touch of glamour to the
Colonial house, and a willow tree commanding a conspicuous corner of the
grounds lends a melancholy aspect which makes up the interesting
atmosphere of Kenmore, part of the estate of Colonel Fielding Lewis, who
brought to this home his bride, "Betty," a sister of George Washington,
and where they lived as befitted people of wealth and learning, his wife
giving an added meaning to the social life of the old town, and Colonel
Lewis himself taking an active and prominent part in the civic affairs, as
most people of wealth and culture deemed it their duty to do in the days
gone by.

Colonel Lewis was an officer in the Patriot Army and commanded a division
at the siege of Yorktown. He was an ardent patriot and when the Revolution
started his activities ran to the manufacture of firearms, which were made
at "The Gunnery" from iron wrought at the foundry, traces of which may
still be seen on the Rappahannock river, just above the village of
Falmouth.

Colonel Lewis was a magistrate in the town after the war, a member of the
City Council and represented the county in the Legislature.

His son, Captain Robert Lewis, was one of President Washington's private
secretaries and mayor of Fredericksburg from 1821 to the day of his death.
When LaFayette visited the town in 1824, Colonel Lewis was selected to
deliver the address of welcome.

However, we are apt to forget the elegancies and excellencies of the
courtly man whose life was dedicated to useful service in a note that is
struck by the home in which he lived. Kenmore, in the light of its past,
sounds an overtone of romance. We cannot escape it, and it persistently
reverberates above the people it sheltered.


[Sidenote: _The Greatest Officeholder_]

JAMES MONROE

James Monroe was among the most important citizens that ever lived in
Fredericksburg.

Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, not far from what is now Colonial
Beach. When a young man he was attracted by the larger opportunities
afforded by the town and moved to Fredericksburg, where he began the
practice of law, having an office in the row of old brick buildings on the
west side of Charles Street, just south of Commerce. Records still in the
courthouse show that he bought property on lower Princess Anne Street,
which still is preserved and known as "The Home of James Monroe." Monroe
occupied the house when it was located at Bradley's corner, and it was
afterwards moved to its present site, though some contend that he lived in
the house on its present site.

Shortly after his arrival he became affiliated with St. George's Church,
soon being elected a vestryman, and when he had been here the proper
length of time he got into politics, and was chosen as one of the Town
Councilmen. From this humble political preferment at the hands of the
Fredericksburg people, he began a career that seemed ever afterward to
have included nothing but officeholding. Later he became Continental
Congressman from the district including Fredericksburg, and was, in turn,
from that time on, Representative in the Virginia convention, Governor of
Virginia, United States Congressman, Envoy Extraordinary to France, again
Governor, Minister to England, Secretary of War, once more Minister to
England, Minister to Madrid, Secretary of State and twice President--if
not a world's record at least one that is not often overmatched. Previous
to his political career, Monroe had served in the Revolutionary Army as a
Captain, having been commissioned while a resident of Fredericksburg.

Monroe gave to America one of its greatest documents--known to history as
the Monroe Doctrine. It was directed essentially against the purposes of
the Holy Alliance, formed in 1815 by the principal European powers with
the fundamental object of putting down democratic movements on the part of
the people, whether they arose abroad or on this side of the world. After
consultation with English statesmen and with Jefferson, Adams, John Quincy
Adams and Calhoun, Monroe announced his new principle which declared that
the United States of America would resent any attempt of the Alliance to
"extend their system to this part of the Hemisphere."


[Sidenote: _"Old Doctor Mortimer"_]

DR. CHARLES MORTIMER

In a beautiful old home on lower Main Street, surrounded by a wall,
mellowed by time, and ivy-crowned, lived Washington's dear friend and
physician, Dr. Charles Mortimer. He could often be seen, in the days gone
by, seated on his comfortable "verandah," smoking a long pipe, covered
with curious devices, and discussing the affairs of the moment with those
rare intellects who were drawn there by the interesting atmosphere of
blended beauty and mentality. There was, as a background, a garden,
sloping to the river, and sturdy trees checquered the sunlight.
Old-fashioned flowers nodded in the breeze which blew up from the
Rappahannock, and the Doctor's own tobacco ships, with their returned
English cargoes, swung on their anchors at the foot of the terraces.

If one entered the house at the dinner hour, every delicacy of land and
water would conspire against a refusal to dine with the host of this
hospitable mansion. Highly polished and massive pewter dishes, disputed
possession of the long mahogany table, with a mammoth bowl of
roses--arrogantly secure of an advantageous position in the center.

There was often the sound of revelry by night, and the rafters echoed gay
laughter and the music of violins--high, and sweet and clear.

An historic dinner, following the famous Peace Ball at the old Market
House in November, 1784, was given here, and the hostess, little Maria
Mortimer, sixteen years old, the Doctor's only daughter, with her hair
"cruped high" for the first time, presided, and her bon mots won the
applause of the company, which was quite a social triumph for a
sixteen-year-old girl, trying to hold her own with Lafayette, Count
d'Estang and the famous Rochambeau. They clicked glasses and drank to her
health standing, and little Maria danced with "Betty Lewis' Uncle George
himself," for Washington did not disdain the stately measures of the
minuet.

But there is an obverse here. The old Doctor did not fail in his duty. On
horseback, with his saddlebag loaded with medicines, he rode down dark
forest paths to the homes of pioneers, traveled the streets of
Fredericksburg and came silently along lone trails in the country in the
dead of night, when hail or snow or driving rains cut at him bitterly
through the trees. He refused no call, and claimed small fees. He was Mary
Washington's physician for years, called on her almost daily, and stood by
her bedside mute, when, the struggle over, she quietly passed on to the
God in whom she had put her deepest faith.

Of the many people who walk in Hurkamp Park, in the center of the old
town, there are few who know that they are passing daily over the grave of
the genial and popular Doctor, who was Fredericksburg's first mayor, and
Washington's dearest friend.


[Sidenote: _Maury--a Master Genius_]

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY

Of all the famous men who went from Fredericksburg to take large parts in
the rapidly moving history of America, or in the work of the world,
Commodore Maury added most to the progress of science. Not only did he
create knowledge, but he created wealth by the immense saving he effected
to shipping by charting shorter ocean routes. He is buried in Hollywood
Cemetery, in Richmond, under a simple shaft which bears the name, "Matthew
Fontaine Maury." The great "pathfinder of the seas" was born in
Spotsylvania County, January, 1806, and died at Lexington in 1873.

[Sidenote: _A World Famed Scientist_]

He wore the most prized decorations the monarchs of Europe could give him;
he founded the most valuable natural science known, and was reckoned a
transcendent genius. Of him, Mellin Chamberlain, Librarian of Congress,
said, with calm consideration "I do not suppose there is the least doubt
that Maury was the greatest man America ever produced."

Alexander Humbolt said that Maury created a new science.

He plunged into the unknown; he charted the seas and mapped its currents
and winds. He was the first to tell the world that winds and currents were
not of chance, but of fixed and immutable laws, and that even cyclones
were well governed. He knew why a certain coast was dry and another rainy,
and he could, on being informed of the latitude and longitude of a place,
tell what was the prevailing weather and winds.

Maury went to sea as a midshipman in the American navy in 1825, and in
1831, at twenty-four years of age, he became master of the sloop Falmouth,
with orders to go to the Pacific waters, but, though he sought diligently,
he found no chart of a track for his vessel, no record of currents or of
winds to guide him. The sea was a trackless wilderness, and the winds were
things of vagrant caprice. And he began then to grapple with those
problems which were to immortalize him.

He came back from ocean wanderings in a few years and married an old
sweetheart, Miss Ann Herndon, of Fredericksburg, and he lived for a time
on Charlotte Street, between Princess Anne and Prince Edward, and wrote
his first book, "A Treatise on Navigation;" while from his pen came a
series of newspaper and magazine articles that startled the world of
scientific thought. For the man had discovered new and unsuspected natural
laws!

Misfortune--that vastly helped him--came in 1839, when his leg was injured
through the overturning of a stage coach. The government put him in charge
of a new "Bureau of Charts and Instruments," at Washington, and out of
his work here grew the Naval Observatory, the Signal Service and the first
Weather Bureau ever established on earth! Every other science was old. His
science was utterly new, a field untouched.

[Sidenote: _Charting Seas and Winds_]

He found a mass of log books of American warships. Over these he pondered.
He sent hundreds of bottles and buoys to be dropped into the seven seas by
fighting craft and merchantmen.

These were picked up now and again and came back to him, and from the
information sent to him with them, and soundings in thousands of places,
added to what he had gleaned in earlier years, he prepared his greatest
work. It took ultimate form in a series of six "charts" and eight large
volumes of "sailing directions," that comprehended all the waters and
winds in all climes, and on every sea where white sails bend and steamer
smoke drifts.

The charts exhibit, with wonderful accuracy, the winds and currents, their
force and direction at different seasons, the calm belts, the trade winds,
the rains and storms--the gulf stream, the Japan current--all the great
ocean movements; and the sailing directions are treasure chests for
seamen. Paths were marked out on the ocean, and a practical result was,
that one of the most difficult sea voyages--from New York to San
Francisco, around the Horn--was shortened by forty days. It has been
estimated that by shortening the time of many sea voyages, Commander Maury
has effected a saving of not less than $40,000,000 each year.

Of his own work, Maury wrote:

"So to shape the course on voyages at sea as to make the most of winds and
currents, is the perfection of the navigator's art. How the winds blow or
the currents flow along this route or that is no longer a matter of
speculation or opinion. The wind and weather, daily encountered by
hundreds who sailed before him, have been tabulated for the mariner; nay,
the path has been blazed for him on the sea; mile posts have been set
upon the waves and time tables furnished for the trackless waste."

It was this work that, reaching over Europe and Asia, brought on the
Brussels conference in 1853, to which Maury, founder of the science of
hydrography and meteorology, went as America's representative, and here he
covered himself with honors. He came back to write his "Physical Geography
of the Sea and Its Meteorology."

This, the essence of his life work, the poetry and the romance of his
science, passed through twenty editions and was known in every school, but
the book's greatest interest was killed by the removal of the poetic
strain that made it beautiful. It has been translated into almost every
language. In it is the story of the sea, its tides and winds, its shore
lines and its myriads of life; its deep and barren bottoms. For Maury also
charted the ocean floors, and it was his work in this line that caused
Cyrus Field to say of the laying of the Atlantic cable:

"Maury furnished the brains, England furnished the money, and I did the
work."

[Sidenote: _Honored by All Europe_]

No other American ever was honored by Emperors and Kings as was Matthew
Fontaine Maury. He was given orders of Knighthood by the Czar of Russia,
the King of Denmark, King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Belgium and
Emperor of France, while Russia, Austria, Sweden, Holland, Sardenia,
Bremen, Turkey and France struck gold medals in his honor. The pope of
Rome sent him a full set of all the medals struck during his pontificate.
Maximilian decorated him with "The Cross of the Order of Guadaloupe" while
Germany bestowed on him the "Cosmos Medal," struck in honor of Von
Humboldt, and the only duplicate of that medal in existence.

The current of the Civil War swept Maury away from Washington, and he
declined offers from France, Germany and Russia, joining his native state
in the Confederacy. He introduced the submarine torpedo, and rendered the
South other service before the final wreck, which left him stranded and
penniless. He went to Mexico now, to join his fortunes with those of the
unhappy Maximilian, and when the Emperor met his tragic end he found
himself again resourceless--and crippled. In 1868 when general amnesty was
given, he came back to become the first professor of meteorology at the
Virginia Military Institute. In October, 1872, he became ill and died in
February of the next year.

And this man, who had from Kings and Emperors more decorations than any
American has ever received, and for whom Europe had ever ready the highest
honors and greatest praise, was ignored by his own government, to which he
gave his life's work. No word of thanks, no tribute of esteem, no reward,
was ever given him. A bill to erect a monument to him lies now rotting in
some pigeonhole in Congress. But an effort to renew this is underway.


ARCHIBALD MCPHERSON

Curiously enough, no more memory is left to Fredericksburg of Archibald
McPherson than the tombstone under the mock orange tree in St. George's
Church, the tablets to his memory in the old charity school on Hanover
Street (now the Christian Science Church) and a few shadowy legends and
unmeaning dates.

He was born in Scotland and died in Fredericksburg in 1854. He was a
member of St. George's Church and vestry.

But what manner of man he was, the few recorded acts we know will convey
to every one. He established a Male Charity School with his own funds
principally, and took a deep interest in it, and, dying, he left the small
fortune he had accumulated by Scotch thrift "to the poor of the town," and
provided means of dispensing the interest on this sum for charity
throughout the years to come. Most of this fund was wiped out by
depreciation of money, etc., during the Civil War.




_Men of Modern Times_

    _Soldiers, Adventurers and Sailors, Heroes and Artists, mingle here._


A prophet without honor in his own country was Moncure Daniel Conway
because, a Fredericksburger and a Southerner, he opposed slavery. But his
genius won him world praise, and later, honer in his own country.

Born in 1832, near Falmouth, to which village his people moved later, the
child of Walker Peyton Conway and Marguerite Daniel Conway he inherited
from a long line of ancestry, a brilliant intellect and fearlessness to
tread the paths of freedom.

The difficult studious child was too much for his teacher, Miss Gaskins,
of Falmouth, so he was sent, at the age of ten, to Fredericksburg
Classical and Mathematical Academy, originally John Marye's famous school,
and made rapid progress.

His hero was his great uncle, Judge R. C. L. Moncure, of Glencairne, and
his early memoirs are full of loving gratitude for the great man's
toleration and help. The Methodism of his parents did not hold him, for he
several times attended the services at St. George's Church.

The wrongs of slavery he saw, and after he entered Dickinson College, at
Carlisle, in his fifteenth year, he found an anti-slavery professor,
McClintock, who influenced him and encouraged his dawning agnosticism. His
cousin, John M. Daniel, editor of the Richmond Examiner, became, in 1848,
a leading factor in Conway's life, encouraging his literary efforts and
publishing many of his contributions.

All beauty, all art appealed to him. Music was always a passion, and we
also find constant and quaint references to beautiful women and girls. It
seemed the superlative compliment, though he valued feminine brains and
ability.

His great spiritual awakening came with his finding an article by Emerson
and at the age of twenty, to the delight of his family, he became a
Methodist minister.

His career as such was not a success. After one of his sermons, in which
he ignored Heaven and Hell, his father said: "One thing is certain, Monk,
should the Devil aim at a Methodist preacher, you'd be safe."

He moved to Cambridge. The prominence of his Southern family, and his own
social and intellectual charms gave him entre to the best homes and
chiefest among them, that of his adored Emerson, where he met and knew all
the great lights of the day. His slavery opinions, valuable as a Southern
slave owner's son, made him an asset in the anti-slavery propaganda of the
time.

[Sidenote: _Conway's Famous Friends_]

Among his friends were the Thoreaus, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell
Holmes and Agassiz.

I must hurry over the charm of those college days to Moncure Conway's
first Unitarian Church, in Washington. So pronounced were his sermons on
anti-slavery that his father advised him not to come home on a visit. He
did come and had the humiliation of being ordered from Falmouth under pain
of tar and feathers, an indignity which cut him to his soul. His success
in Washington was brilliant, but he found trouble, owing to his
abolitionist opinions, and had to resign. In 1856 he accepted a call to a
Cincinnati church, whose literary and artistic circles made much of the
new preacher. The wealth of that larger population enabled Conway to
establish several charitable homes. He married there Ellen Davis Dana, and
there published his first book, "Tracts For Today." He edited a paper, The
Dial, to which Emerson contributed.

He went to England to the South Place Chapel, London, an ethical society,
and the round peg seemed to have found its proper hole at last. Here he
labored for twenty years, and became known through all Europe. His
personal recollections of Alfred Tennyson, the Brownings their courtship;
of Carlyle, are classics. A very interesting light is thrown on Freud. He
was intimate with the whole pre-Raphaelite school and gives account among
others of Rossetti and his lovely wife, all friendships he formed in Madam
Brown's charming home.

Burne Jones, Morris, Whistler, Swinburne, Arthur Hughs, DeMaurier (was
there ever such a collection of genius in one country) are all described
in Conway's vivid pen pictures. Artemus Warde was his friend, and Conway
conducted the funeral services over that world's joy giver, and in his
same South End Chapel, preached memorial addresses on Cobblen, Dickens,
Maurice, Mazzanni, Mill, Straus, Livingstone, George Eliot, Stanley,
Darwin, Longfellow, Carlyle, the beloved Emerson, Tennyson, Huxley and Abe
Lincoln, whom he never admired, though he recognized his brain and
personality. He accused him of precipitating the horrible war for the sake
of a flag and thus murdering a million men.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his wife visited England in 1872 and
Moncure Conway and his wife knew them intimately and afterwards visited
them in this country. Joseph Jefferson, John Motley, George Eliot, Mrs.
Humphrey Ward (whose book, Robert Elsmere, he flays) and W. S. Gilbert,
all were his friends. The man was a genius, a social Voltaire; a master of
thought and phrase. Where before did an exile from his own country ever
achieve a friendship circle where the names now scintillate over all the
world?

[Sidenote: _He Travels Through Russia_]

He visited Paris in 1867 and the story of his travels in Russia later are
full of charm, of folk lore and religious mysticism. But before long we
find him back in his South Place Chapel. His accounts of several woman
preachers there are interesting, as is that of Annie Besant--the wondrous
before-her-time--whom Mrs. Conway befriended in her bitter persecution by
her parson husband for agnosticism. In 1875 Conway returned to America,
and Falmouth town, grieving over the war ravages and his lost boyhood
friends. He toured through the West, lecturing on Demonology, and the
great Englishmen he knew. The death of his son, Dana, and of his wife in
1897, were blows, and his remaining years were spent in Europe with
several visits between to his brother, Peter V. D. Conway, of
Fredericksburg, and friends in America. His life ended in 1907 in Paris. A
great man, a brilliant and a brave one. He fought for his beliefs as
bravely as ever did any warrior or explorer in unknown lands.


[Illustration: BEAUTIFUL "BELMONT"

_On Falmouth Heights, Now the Home of Mr. and Mrs. Gari Melchers_]


[Sidenote: _A Great American Artist_]

GARI MELCHERS

Crowning a hill, which is the triumphant result of a series of terraces
rising from the town of Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, is Belmont, the
home of Gari Melchers, an American artist, who has been more honored
abroad than any of our living painters, with the exception, perhaps, of
John Singer Sargent.

Born in Detroit, Gari Melchers left America when he was seventeen, to
pursue his studies in Europe.

His apprentice days were spent in Dusseldorf and Paris, where his
professional debut in 1889 gained for him the coveted Grand Prix--Sargent
and Whistler being the only other American painters similarly honored.

Italy had to resign to Holland the prestige of lending her country to the
genius of Mr. Melchers, for he intended to reside in Italy, but owing to
the outbreak of the cholera there he settled at Engmond instead. His
studio borrowed the interest of the sea on one side and the charm of a
lazy canal on the other, and over its door were inscribed the words: "Wahr
und Klar" (Truth and Clarity). Here he worked at those objective and
realistic pictures of Dutch life and scenes; and free from all scholastic
pretense, he painted the serene, yet colorful panorama of Holland.

Christian Brinton says of the art of Gari Melchers that it is explicit and
veracious. Prim interiors are permeated with a light that envelopes all
things with a note of sadness. Exterior scenes reflect the shifting of
seasons or the precise hour of day. He paints air as well as light and
color. Without exaggeration, he manages to suggest the intervening aerial
medium between the seer and the thing seen.

Mr. Melchers has no set formula.

In 1918 there was a wonderful "one man" display of his art at the Corcoran
Art Gallery, and in 1919, the Loan Exhibition, held by the Copley Society
at the Boston Art Club, was the second of the two important recent events
in the artist's career since his returning to America. Here his work has
undergone some perceptible change, gaining lightness and freshness of
vision, which shows his reaction to a certain essential Americanism. Mr.
Melchers attacks whatever suits his particular mood, and his art is not
suggestive of a subjective temperament.

"The Sermon"--"The Communion"--"The Pilots"--"The Shipbuilders"--"The
Sailor and His Sweetheart"--"The Open Door" are some of his well-known
canvases. His reputation as a portrait painter rests upon a secure
foundation.

His awards include medals from Berlin, Antwerp, Vienna, Paris and Munich,
Ansterdam, Dresden, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and many other
medals for art exhibitions.

He is an officer of the Legion of Honor, France; officer of the Order of
the "Red Eagle," Prussia; officer of the Order of "St. Michael" Bavaria;
officer of the Order of the "White Falcon," Saxe-Weimar.

Mr. Melchers himself is frank and not chained by minor conventions. He has
a powerful personality and a charming wife, who dispenses a pleasant
hospitality, in a home that leaves nothing to be desired.


[Sidenote: _John Elder's Great Work_]

JOHN A. ELDER

Fredericksburg gave John A. Elder, the gifted painter to the world, for he
saw the light of day in this town in February, 1833; and here he first
felt that call to art which had its beginnings when Elder would, as a mere
boy, make chalk drawings on the sides of the buildings, and took the
time, while doing errands for his father, to give rein to his imagination
through some interesting sketch, which would finally drift into the
possession of his friends. His father's opposition to an artistic career
for his son did not long retard his progress, as so great was the urge
within him that he borrowed from a fellow townsman, Mr. John Minor, the
money to study abroad, and before long Dusseldorf, Germany, claimed him as
a student, and there the love of line and color which he had inherited
from his mother's family gained definition. Details of his life in
Dusseldorf are too vague to chronicle but he returned to this country at
the beginning of the Civil War, with a knowledge of his art which gained
him instant recognition, and success followed in his footsteps.

Elder was a man whose sympathetic personality drew the love of his
fellow-men, and his studio was the rendezvous of such men as
Attorney-General R. T. Daniel, Lord Grant, Peterkin, Fred Daniel, who
represented the United States as consul to Rome for fourteen years, and
many others.

His experiences in war gave to him a sureness and truth in detail, which,
when added to his technique, produced results which challenged the
admiration of all who saw his work.

[Sidenote: _Some of Elder's Paintings_]

His "Battle of the Crater" and "Scout's Prize" were inspired by scenes in
which he had figured. The former hangs on the walls of the Westmoreland
Club, in Richmond, Va., and his canvas "After Appomattox" adorns the State
Library in the same city, along with many portraits which trace their
origin to him.

His "Lee" and "Jackson" are in the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, and
there is a portrait of Mr. Corcoran himself which owes its existence to
his gifted brush.

He visited Jefferson Davis at "Beauvoir" and painted him there.

Of ordinary height and rather thick set, Mr. Elder's appearance was
characterized by distinction and force. His eyes were dark and very
expressive; he wore a moustache and "imperial" and in all his photographs
we notice the "artistic flowing tie." On the left of his forehead was a
scar, the result of some encounter in Germany, and as the artist never
married, one is apt to read a romance into his life. However, this is pure
speculation, as there is nothing to substantiate such an assumption.

"Jack" Elder was a master of the foils, and on one occasion when a noted
Frenchman engaged him in a "bout" Elder disarmed him with ease, and the
Frenchman's foil was thrown against the ceiling.

The artist returned to Fredericksburg, where he lived six years prior to
his death, which occurred on February 25, 1895, and in these last years he
was ministered to by his nieces and nephews, who showed him much devotion.


REV. JAMES POWER SMITH

Rev. James Power Smith was not born in Fredericksburg, but he preached
here for thirty years, at the Presbyterian Church, aiding the poor and
sick, and always smiling. He was highly successful in his church
achievements and in his years of editorship of the Central Presbyterian.

One night in his life proved him to be minted of fine metal, and that
night inscribed his name forever in history. It was the fearful night when
Stonewall Jackson received his death blow.

Captain Smith (now Reverend) was a theological student when war broke out,
and was immediately made a military lieutenant (not a chaplain).
Throughout the war he followed close to Jackson, on his staff. Religion
brought them together and their friendship was deep.

[Sidenote: _When Jackson Was Wounded_]

When in the darkness of the trees that overhang the Chancellorsville road,
"Stonewall" Jackson was mortally wounded and others about him killed by
their own troops there were a few men, among them General A. P. Hill, at
hand to help him. He had hardly been taken from his horse when two aides,
Lieutenant Morrison and Lieutenant Smith, arrived. With General Hill
directing, they arrested the bleeding. General Hill had to hurry back to
form his men for an attack. Lieutenant Morrison had just seen a field
piece, not 200 yards away, pointing down the Plank Road. There was no
litter, and General Jackson offered to walk to the rear. Leaning on Major
Leigh and Lieutenant Morrison, he began struggling toward his lines. They
had just placed Jackson on a litter that had been sent up, when the
Federal cannon began to rake the road with canister. Every figure, horse
or gun toward the Confederate lines disappeared. They tried to take him
back, but a litter-bearer was struck down and the Great Leader was dropped
and bruised.

In a moment, on the dark road swept by awful fire, there were but three
men, and, as the subject of this sketch, Lieutenant Smith, was one of
them, it is apropos to quote what Prof. R. S. Dabney says in his Life of
Jackson:

"The bearers and all the attendants, excepting Major Leigh and the
general's two aides, had left and fled into the woods. While the sufferer
lay in the road with his feet turned toward the enemy, exposed to the fire
of the guns, his attendants displayed a heroic fidelity which deserved to
go down in history with the immortal name of Jackson. Disdaining to leave
their chief, they lay down beside him, leaning above him and trying as far
as possible to protect him with their bodies. On one side was Major Leigh,
on the other Lieutenant Smith. Again and again was the earth torn by
volleys of canister, and minnie balls hissed over them, the iron striking
flashes from the stones about him."

Finally when the firing ceased, General Jackson was removed from the
battlefield to a hospital, and then to Mr. Chandler's house at Guinea
Station, where he died, May 10, 1863.

Lieutenant Smith became The Reverend when war ceased, and married Miss
Agnes Lucy Lacy, a daughter of Major J. Horace Lacy.

He was well known in Fredericksburg. For thirty years he was pastor here;
for fifty years Secretary of the Presbyterian Synod, and for years editor
of the Central Presbyterian. Many know his works. All men know the deep,
immovable courage it took that night to lie as a barrier, to take whatever
death might be hurled down the shell-swept road toward "Stonewall"
Jackson.

He still lives, in 1921, in Richmond. His voice is low, his smile soft,
and his religion his life. He is the last surviving member of "Stonewall"
Jackson's staff.


MAJOR J. HORACE LACY

There are many living now who remember him. The strong, stolid figure, the
fine old face traced with the lineage of gentility, the cane that pounded
down the sidewalks as he went where he willed. There are some left who
knew the power and poetry and kindliness of the man.

Major Lacy was a graduate of Washington and Lee and an attorney at law,
though he seldom practiced. He was married in 1848 at Chatham, when he was
twenty-four years of age, to Miss Betty Churchill Jones, and later became
the owner of "Chatham" and of the "Lacy House," about each of which clings
grim traditions of war; both the Wilderness place and Chatham became known
in those two battles as "The Lacy House."

Washington Irving was his guest while spending some time in Virginia;
General Robert E. Lee was his guest, and many other widely known men.

His service in war was well done. He was made a lieutenant at the
beginning and promoted to major on the field of battle at Seven Pines. He
served under General Joseph E. Johnston until the latter surrendered, some
time after Appomattox.

When the war was ended he went North to do a brave thing. He spoke through
Pennsylvania and Maryland, pleading for funds to bury and put grave
stones over the Confederate dead. He had experiences there. But his
splendid oratory and the courage of his presence usually kept order.

[Sidenote: _Winning a Hostile Audience_]

He spoke once at Baltimore, and among his audience was an Irish Federal
regiment, clad half in uniform, half in civilians, as forgotten
ex-privates usually are. Major Lacy was told that most of the audience was
hostile and threatening.

He walked on the platform and spoke a few words about the unknown men he
came to get funds to decently bury, of the women away where the starlight
was twinkling over cabin and home, of those who waited, listening for a
step; of those who were never again to see the men they loved.

Shuffling feet and laughter dulled the simple pathos of his words. Then
turning half away from his audience he recited a poem called "The Irish
Immigrant's Lament":

    "I am sitting on the stile, Mary,
    Where we sat, side by side,
    On that bright May morning long ago,
    When first you were my bride."

He began it thus, and into his voice, filled with the sorrows of the
"Mary's" who wept down in his Southland, he put the full strength of his
expression. The hostile audience was silent as he finished.

    "And often in the far-off world,
    I'll sit and close my eyes,
    And my heart will travel back again
    To where my Mary lies.
    And I'll think I see the little stile
    Where we sat, side by side,
    Mid the young corn on that bright May morn
    When you were first my bride."

The Irishmen who had fought against the cause which Lacy loved were quiet
now, and when he said, "Wouldn't you want a bit of a stone for 'Mary' to
remember you," they yelled and rushed to grasp his hand. From his
"hostile" audience he collected $14,000.00 that night. In the whole tour
he gathered a great sum for Confederate cemeteries.

During his later years, with his wife, who represented the ladies of
another era, as he did its men, he lived on Washington Avenue, in
Fredericksburg. To few did he ever show the deeper side of his character,
but those who knew him until he died in 1906, knew how much kindly
manliness dwelt therein.


MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL RUGGLES

Although Major General Daniel Ruggles was born in Massachusetts, he
married Miss Richardetta Mason Hooe, a great granddaughter of George
Mason, and the greater part of his life was spent in Fredericksburg, of
which he became a citizen and in which he died.

During his life in Fredericksburg he concerned himself with the business
of the town, and was known to almost all of its residents.

He was graduated into the army from West Point in 1883 and lead a small
band into the west and explored the Fox river the same year.

[Sidenote: _General Ruggles' Career_]

When the Seminole Indian war broke out Lieutenant Ruggles with fifty men
penetrated the everglades and was commended for his services. In the
Mexican war he stopped the Mexican advance at Palo Alto and was promoted
to Captain on the field.

Captain Ruggles and his men reached Chapaultepec, drove into the city,
made a determined stand and were the first of the advancing American Army
to raise the American flag over the fort. He was breveted Major by
President Polk "for gallant and meritorious conduct at Chereubusco" and a
little later was made Lieutenant Colonel "for gallant and conspicuous
bravery at Chapaultepec." In 1861 he joined the Confederate Army.

[Sidenote: _The Real "First Battle"_]

Placed in command of the most important of the Southern departments at
Fredericksburg, the "gateway to the South," he organized and equipped a
small army. When the Confederacy found that they had no gun caps,
necessary on the old "muzzle loaders," and no copper from which to make
caps, General Ruggles invented a cap made from raw hide and dried in the
sun (specimens are in the National Museum), which were used by the whole
Southern Army during the first three months of the war.


[Illustration: OLD "CHATHAM"

_One of the Most Characteristic of All Virginia Colonial Mansions_]


General Ruggles planted artillery and, using these caps with match heads
to explode them, drove off the Union gunboats and a lading force at Aquia
Creek May 31, 1861, nine days before "Big Bethel", and weeks after
Virginia seceded. He thus fought and won the first battle of the Civil
war.

His career during the war won him wide recognition. His movements won the
battle of Shiloh through finding a weak point in the enemy's line. He was
made Major General March 25, 1865, and surrendered at Augusta, Ga., after
Appomattox. Although he fought in five Indian wars, the Mexican war and
the Civil war, from the start to finish, and was recognized as a man who
would lead his men anywhere, he never received a wound of any kind in his
life.

Many people in Fredericksburg remember him now, with his fine face, his
erect figure and his long gray whiskers. In his latter days some people
laughed at him, not understanding that there was genius in the man,
because of his first experience with "rainmaking." He invented the method
which is used now by the United States Government, under his patent. He
earned the name of "raincrow" which sometimes reached his ears. He
patented the first propeller which was ever used on a steam boat (model in
the National Museum). He also invented the first principles of the
telephone. He invented in 1858 a system whereby an electric bell on a ship
would ring on the approach of the ship to any rock or point on the shore
equipped with the same apparatus. This was tested by the navy and
proclaimed impractical, but it contained the principles of wireless
telegraphy. It i

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