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Authors: Robert M Poole
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Malvern Hill. The morning revealed “an appalling spectacle … Over five thousand dead and wounded men were
on the ground in every attitude of distress. A third of them were dead or dying, but enough were alive and moving to give
the field a singular crawling effect.” 16
That scene would be repeated at intervals in the months ahead—at the Battle of Second Manassas, at Antietam Creek in Mary
land, in the tangled woods around Chancellorsville, below the heights of Fredericksburg, Virginia—as blue and gray armies
traded blows, each striving for a knockout punch. Most of the victories of 1862 went to Lee, culminating in the frigid weeks
before Christmas at Fredericksburg, where the armies massed along opposite banks of the Rappahannock River. There Lee watched
thousands of Union soldiers cross the river and charge uphill where his men, entrenched above town, mowed down wave after
advancing wave of Federals. Caught in the open between the river and the town, Union troops lay flat on the ground to avoid
getting hit. “At one point the exposure was absolute,” a Federal officer recalled, “and stillness as absolute was the only
safety. A slight barrier was afterward formed at this point by a disposal of the dead bodies in front, so that the dead actually
sheltered the living.” 17 Observing the slaughter, Lee was at once delighted and disgusted. “It is well that war is so terrible,” he famously said
that day. “We should grow too fond of it.” 18
A few days later, Lee celebrated another Christmas in camp, where his thoughts once more turned to home and family. Things
were going so well that he even indulged the hope that he might spend a future Christmas at Arlington, as in the old days.
“I have pleased myself in reminiscences to day, of the many happy Xmas’ we have enjoyed together at our once happy home,”
he wrote to his daughter Mildred. “Notwithstanding its present desecrated & pillaged condition, I trust that a just & merciful
God may yet gather all that He may spare under its beloved roof. How filled with thanks & gratitude will our hearts then be!” 19
Lee had reason for optimism as 1862 wound to a close. Despite horrific losses, his ragtag army had accomplished a lot with
very little, while in Washington, President Lincoln was still frustrated with the Army of the Potomac. The president had shuffled through one commander after
another—from McDowell to McClellan to John Pope and back to McClellan again; then to Ambrose Burnside, who was soon to be
replaced by Fighting Joe Hooker, who would, in his turn, flame out to make room for yet another temporary commander. Meanwhile,
the federal war debt was soaring—it was $600 million at last count—and new enlistments were sorely needed to replace casualties. 20 Lincoln’s cabinet quietly discussed the possibility of recruiting black soldiers, a proposal the president resisted in this
early phase of the war.
Neither side had anticipated the war’s cost in blood. More than 100,000 soldiers, Union and Confederate, would be killed,
wounded, or captured in the eastern campaigns of 1862, as the armies fought back and forth between Washington and Richmond. Even before the casualties climbed into the tens of thousands, Lee was protesting that he lacked manpower for
burying the dead. 21 Meanwhile, citizens and military planners in Washington watched with growing distress as the war’s human wreckage became evident. Newspapers printed long gray columns listing casualties
each day, which lengthened with the fighting. Friends and relatives scrutinized the papers for some word of missing loved
ones. 22 Some anxious mothers and fathers even made the long journey to Washington to search for a familiar face in the city’s crowded hospitals and temporary morgues. 23
From the opening shot of the Peninsula Campaign, Washington was swamped with a tide of the wounded and dying, who arrived from the front by the hundreds, packed so closely on
on the ground in every attitude of distress. A third of them were dead or dying, but enough were alive and moving to give
the field a singular crawling effect.” 16
That scene would be repeated at intervals in the months ahead—at the Battle of Second Manassas, at Antietam Creek in Mary
land, in the tangled woods around Chancellorsville, below the heights of Fredericksburg, Virginia—as blue and gray armies
traded blows, each striving for a knockout punch. Most of the victories of 1862 went to Lee, culminating in the frigid weeks
before Christmas at Fredericksburg, where the armies massed along opposite banks of the Rappahannock River. There Lee watched
thousands of Union soldiers cross the river and charge uphill where his men, entrenched above town, mowed down wave after
advancing wave of Federals. Caught in the open between the river and the town, Union troops lay flat on the ground to avoid
getting hit. “At one point the exposure was absolute,” a Federal officer recalled, “and stillness as absolute was the only
safety. A slight barrier was afterward formed at this point by a disposal of the dead bodies in front, so that the dead actually
sheltered the living.” 17 Observing the slaughter, Lee was at once delighted and disgusted. “It is well that war is so terrible,” he famously said
that day. “We should grow too fond of it.” 18
A few days later, Lee celebrated another Christmas in camp, where his thoughts once more turned to home and family. Things
were going so well that he even indulged the hope that he might spend a future Christmas at Arlington, as in the old days.
“I have pleased myself in reminiscences to day, of the many happy Xmas’ we have enjoyed together at our once happy home,”
he wrote to his daughter Mildred. “Notwithstanding its present desecrated & pillaged condition, I trust that a just & merciful
God may yet gather all that He may spare under its beloved roof. How filled with thanks & gratitude will our hearts then be!” 19
Lee had reason for optimism as 1862 wound to a close. Despite horrific losses, his ragtag army had accomplished a lot with
very little, while in Washington, President Lincoln was still frustrated with the Army of the Potomac. The president had shuffled through one commander after
another—from McDowell to McClellan to John Pope and back to McClellan again; then to Ambrose Burnside, who was soon to be
replaced by Fighting Joe Hooker, who would, in his turn, flame out to make room for yet another temporary commander. Meanwhile,
the federal war debt was soaring—it was $600 million at last count—and new enlistments were sorely needed to replace casualties. 20 Lincoln’s cabinet quietly discussed the possibility of recruiting black soldiers, a proposal the president resisted in this
early phase of the war.
Neither side had anticipated the war’s cost in blood. More than 100,000 soldiers, Union and Confederate, would be killed,
wounded, or captured in the eastern campaigns of 1862, as the armies fought back and forth between Washington and Richmond. Even before the casualties climbed into the tens of thousands, Lee was protesting that he lacked manpower for
burying the dead. 21 Meanwhile, citizens and military planners in Washington watched with growing distress as the war’s human wreckage became evident. Newspapers printed long gray columns listing casualties
each day, which lengthened with the fighting. Friends and relatives scrutinized the papers for some word of missing loved
ones. 22 Some anxious mothers and fathers even made the long journey to Washington to search for a familiar face in the city’s crowded hospitals and temporary morgues. 23
From the opening shot of the Peninsula Campaign, Washington was swamped with a tide of the wounded and dying, who arrived from the front by the hundreds, packed so closely on
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