Crossing the Millrace (Part 5, In the Footsteps of the Irish Brigade)

We have four fields that we need to get across, you have successfully gotten across one. The edge of that first field is the street behind you. In 1862, that was not a street. Instead of being a street, this was a watercourse, it was a millrace. It was a belt around the back side of the city of Fredericksburg. There is a slack water canal about 700 yards in that direction at the north end of the city: a major water source and a transportation source for the city before the war.

01:05 - By tapping into that, making a watercourse around the back side of the city also opened up a means for using water for mills. It has an industrial purpose. It is about 15 feet wide. It is about seven feet deep. It normally has about six feet of water in it. There are a couple of streets that traverse it, and they have bridges. This street had a bridge. There’s only three exit routes out of the city, and the Confederates have been here since November. They know this city they know this watercourse. They know the bridges.

On the day of the battle, the Confederates picked up all 01:58 - the floorboards off the bridges and just left the runners, or stringers, in place. Just enough to lure you there, but not enough for you to get across quickly. The Union army knew about this watercourse yesterday. The chief policeman of the army, the Provost Marshal Marcena Rudolph Patrick, came up with a happy idea to shut off the sluice way on the north end of the city and open up the duct on the south end, and then he would just drain it. He was a great policeman, he was not a very good engineer.

The water dropped to about three 02:52 - to three and a half feet and then leveled off. We still have a major obstacle here. Water in July is not a big problem. Water in December might be the difference of life or death. Even on a day like today. So, as the Irish Brigade come charging down the hillside they run into a watercourse. And these men do what we would expect them to do. The 69th New York break ranks, and tiptoe across the stringers and form up on the far side of the street on the right.

03:37 - The 88th New York follow their lead and also break ranks to get across the stringers. The 28th Massachusetts, this is their first time out with the Irish Brigade. The 69th and 88th, they’re the old season veterans, if they’re gonna break ranks and do this, the 28th Massachusetts gonna follow their lead. So we got three of our five regiments tiptoeing across stringers. How long does that take? We’re talking about 800, 900 men. It’s going to take us 20 minutes to get from this side of the millrace to the other side of the millrace. 20 minutes that we are under perpetual shell fire. Now, as you look across the street, you will see that the ground rises very abruptly. That’s the last bit of cover we’re going to see. The soldiers are going to form up under that crest, literally hugging that slope. But the Confederates are going to do something that we don’t expect. Cannon crews are taught to fight by line of sight. You only fire at the target you can see. They can’t see us down here. We’re hidden. We’re in defilade.

05:13 - But that doesn’t stop the shells coming, because the Confederates know this ground so well. They’ve laid the trap so perfect with the bridge, that they just blindly drop shells into this area. How effective is it? Numerous soldiers are going to get hit down here. One Union soldier, trying to get across the bridge gets jostled by another soldier anxious to get across faster than him. As he pushed one person out of the way a shell caught him right in the chest and went right through him.

Dropped him dead on the end of the stringer, and lit his uniform on 05:58 - fire. The body emulated right on the end of the bridge. Because it hit him with such suddenness, his body continued to quiver, and the soldiers had to step over his quivering body. They knew sensibly from the nature of his wound he was dead, but looking at his body still react, they couldn’t be certain of it. It was a horror to step over such a thing. It wasn’t the only horror. Another soldier attempting to get across this bridge, he’s going to get hit by a shell as well.

Hit him 06:40 - right above his eyebrows, and it cleaved off the top of his skull perfectly flat. And as he dropped the men in the ranks were literally horror struck. They stopped cold. That means nobody’s moving. If we’re not moving we’re going to become targets as well, it was vital to the officers to get their men moving past this horror. Past this person. So they did what General Hancock did. They made fun of the thing that scares them the most. An officer pointed at this dead man and said, “Hey! Look at the watermelon!” Because that’s what his cleaved head looked like. Such a horrible picture.

07:35 - And many of you found it ghastly, but many of you still had a ghastly smile about you. That’s what they did too, and they kept going. They’re reminded of what they need to do. It’s not to look at these people. It’s to live. As they go across this bridge, General Thomas Francis Meagher has a personal problem. The general is lame. He has an ulcerated knee. Because he thought they were going into winter camp, because he could retire their colors home, he had surgery on his knee. And then they went into battle. He’s lame. He needs to rely on his horse, but as we get here, a person mounted above everyone else is an easy target. It invites destruction.

General Hancock will give the order, 08:39 - all officers will go forward on foot. If nothing else, for self- preservation. General Meagher surrenders his horse where we stand, and needs the assistance of two soldiers to walk him across the stringers. What about our last two regiments? As we’ve been lingering here, 20 minutes to get three-fifths of our brigade across, how long is it gonna take to get the last two? We don’t have that time anymore. So Meagher is gonna order them to go straight through the water. The 63rd New York, seasoned veterans, obey implicitly.

They march right into the water, 09:29 - they wallow through it, and they claw their way out the other side. All of them drenched from the belt buckle down. You’ll have a miserable day. The 116 Pennsylvania, the newcomers, they got brand new uniforms, they look sharp. They don’t want to get muddy. They don’t want to get wet. This isn’t their ideal of being a soldier. So they break ranks and they start grabbing tree limbs and throwing them in the water. Trying to build an impromptu bridge for themselves. Now if stringers are too slow, how good are tree branches? Doesn’t work. Many of them lose their footing and wind up not getting wet from the belt down, but ducked from the head down. And they have a very miserable day. Their introduction to soldiering. This was the most inhumane thing they’d ever seen. They’ll change their minds in about five minutes.

10:37 - The 63rd New York’s on the right, there is nobody else beyond us on the right. If we go forward and there’s nobody out past the end of this Union line, what prevents the Confederates from coming around them? Nothing. So 63rd New York is going to be ordered to send two of their companies, about 60 men, and three of their officers, to go off to the right, just to protect the end of the line. They don’t get into the fight but they’re still significant because in the next 10 minutes those three officers will be the only officers left in the 69th New York. Everybody who goes forward in this attack is gonna go down.

11:30 - As General Meagher hobbles to the top of that hill, he gives a fateful order. He orders the men to fix bayonets, large sword-like implements attached to the end of their rifles. According to Saint Claire Augustine Mulholland, second-in-command of the 116th, just listening to the clink-clink- clink of the bayonet, the cold steel against the barrel of these rifles, literally sends a shiver through your spine, where you realize that everything now has come to earnest. We’re not going to rely on bullets, we’re going to rely on a sword-like implement, and it will only work if we meet our enemies face-to-face. We have three fields that we still have to get across and we’re gonna rely on a bayonet, not a bullet.

12:36 - What are their chances? Why do they do it? They do it because it is their duty. This is what they’ve been commanded to do. This is what they will execute. You’re asking a lot of every individual soldier. but you also have an implicit trust in every one of those soldiers to do their full duty. The Irish Brigade did not disappoint. Just like those that had preceded them those that would follow them. They fixed their bayonets, they made that bone jarring clink of steel, and they waited for the order to go. .