side's head-quarters. For hours the discussion lasted. General Burnside, refusing to believe the disasters of Saturday to be irremediable, and the heights of Fredericksburg impregnable to assault, proposed a second advance. His plan was to hurl a column of fifteen thousand men against the central works, and carry them by weight of numbers. A majority of his corps generals, however, opposed the plan, and it was abandoned. His next plan was to leave a part of his army to occupy the town, and to withdraw the remainder to the opposite side of the river. This also was abandoned. There remained but one alternative more to retreat, with his whole force, across the river, under the full observation of the enemy; an undertaking apparently only little less hazardous than the second storming of the heights. The order was not given until late on Monday afternoon, and was so little anticipated that many of the troops had already bivouacked for the night. During the day the wounded had been carefully removed, and this had been supposed to be an indication of a renewal of the attack.

As soon as the night had sufficiently advanced to conceal our movements from the enemy, the artillery and cavalry were moved to the extreme front, to protect the retreating column in case of a sudden discovery and attack. Two bridges were assigned to the infantry, and one to the artillery and cavalry. General Burnside had made an estimate that, if it were necessary to do so, ten thousand could cross in one hour. Earth was strewed upon the pontoons, to muffle the sound of the rumbling wheels of the heavy trains. But the greatest precautions would have probably proved unavailing to conceal our retreat, had not, providentially, a strong gale of wind set in from the precise quarter necessary to carry all such sounds away from the enemy's camps. Through the entire night the long, dark lines of infantry and artillery filed through the streets of the town, down the river-slopes, over the pontoons, and took up their positions on the opposite shore, pitching their camps in the same spots where they had broken them up three days before. The pickets, at the outposts, were not informed of the movement until it was nearly completed. Then, in the undistinguishable gray dawn, officers went stealthily to each man, and, in a whisper, ordered him to withdraw from his post as silently as possible. The rebel pickets were only a few yards distant; but they were not aware, until daylight, of the deception which had been practised upon them.

One company, of the Sixteenth Massachusetts, belonging to General Sickles's Division, narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the enemy. They had been doing picket duty in the early part of the night, and, after their relief, had fallen asleep from exhaustion, in shelter of a clump of trees on the extreme front. An officer, riding hastily by, chanced to discover them, and shouted to them, as he passed, "For God's sake, men, what are you doing here? Your division has crossed the river some time since." They reached the river too late for the bridges, but swam safely over. Before daylight every regiment had crossed, and the bridges were taken up. A few stragglers were brought over in boats, but not a man was lost. One or two pickets, who were pursued by the rebels, threw away their knapsacks, and, springing into the water, swam for their lives

Tuesday morning revealed to the astonished and mystified rebels the National army in full force again upon the Stafford hills, and relieved them from the anticipations of the second attack which they had been dreading and preparing to meet. It is evident from General Lee's report, that he did not regard the result of the battle as a decisive victory to the Confederates. While he realized our repulse, he apprehended a second attempt. In his anxiety of preparation for that, he failed to perceive that his road to a most brilliant victory was open. Had he made a descent upon our exhausted and disheartened troops on the 14th, or shelled the town while its streets were crowded with our forces, he would have nearly annihilated the army. But a strange blindness, afterwards regretted and clearly seen, fell upon his eyes, usually so far-seeing and sagacious, and we escaped.

The rapidity, secrecy, and masterly combinations with which General Burnside conducted this retreat cannot be too highly praised. The history of wars does not record an instance of a retreat on so large a scale, under the very eyes of the foe, successfully accomplished without the loss of a man, a gun, or a caisson. In this, as in all the other battles of this heartrending war, the Sanitary Commission, with its nurses, stores, and surgeons, was first on the ground to bring relief and salvation from death. In twelve hours after the reception of the report of the battle, a propeller was chartered, laden with stores, and, carrying a relief party of eleven, sailed on Sunday evening for Aquia Creek. They found the wounded men suffering much from the severity of the cold; no stoves had arrived from the hospital-tents, and the supply of army blankets was exhausted. Eighteen hundred blankets and over nine hundred quilts were at once distributed to the shivering sufferers. In one week the Commission issued, solely to hospitals, sixteen barrels of dried fruit, ten boxes of soda-crackers, six barrels of crackers, and nearly one thousand pounds of concentrated milk.

As soon as the wounded were in a state to be transported without danger, they were removed from the field hospitals to the general hospitals in Washington and Point Lookout-a dreary, sad, jarring journey, from the ambulance to the cars, and from the cars to the steamboat. Here, also, came in the mercies of the Commission. At Aquia Creek, where the transfer was made from the cars to the steamboat, a building was erected for distribution of supplies, and for shelter; in which, on the first night after its erection, six hundred men took their comfortable and comforting supper. Each night, a hundred men, too feeble to go on immediately, slept and were refreshed under this hospitable roof, and nourished by kind and Christian hands. On the 25th of December, only twelve days after the battle, the last man was removed. The Sanitary agents struck their tents, and turned their steps to meet the next cry for succor. So long as the history of this war is read among men, so long will the names of the Christian men and women who have labored in and with the Commission be held in high and tender honor.

It would require a volume to record the individual and regimental acts of heroism displayed in this memorable battle. As the rebels fought, as usual, in comparative safety behind their intrenchments, they had but

little occasion to display that valor which, beyond all controversy, they possessed. But never was the bravery of soldiers brought to a more severe ordeal than that to which the Union troops were exposed.

General French's Division, which led the fatal charge on the works back of the town, a column of seven thousand men, recrossed the pontoons on Monday night with twenty-two hundred.

The Irish Brigade, under General Meagher, which went into the action on Saturday one thousand two hundred strong, mustered on Sunday morning but two hundred and eighty men.

The Thirteenth New Hampshire, and part of the Twenty-fifth New Jersey, reached a point nearer to the stone wall than was reached by any other troops. Their colonel, A. F. Stevens, in his official report, says: "Behind that wall, and in rifle-pits on its flanks, were posted the enemy's infantry, according to their statements four ranks deep, and on the hill, a few yards above, lay in ominous silence their death-dealing artillery. It was while we were moving steadily forward that with one startling crash, with one simultaneous sheet of fire and flame, they hurled on our advancing lines the whole terrible force of their artillery and infantry. The powder from their musketry burned in our very faces, and the breath of their artillery was hot upon our cheeks."

The Eighth Connecticut Regiment, one of the most heroic bands of men who ever marched beneath a battle-flag, distinguished itself upon this occasion, as upon all others, for great bravery and endurance. On the morning of Friday, ninety of its members responded to the call for volunteers to lay the bridges, from which the engineers had been again and again repulsed with terrific slaughter. One of the first to come forward was the heroic chaplain of the regiment, the Rev. John M. Morris. They laid one breadth of the bridge under a very severe fire, and were then ordered to retire by the engineer officer in charge of the construction.

During the entire day, one of the signal-officers was stationed on the roof of a house in Fredericksburg. The shot and shells from the guns of friends and foes rained over and around him, but he continued his task unmoved, signalling conspicuously with his flags, and night found him unhurt.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE WAR IN KENTUCKY.

July and August, 1862.

PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN THE BORDER STATES.-GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN.-HIS TREASON.-PATRIOTISM OF THE PEOPLE.-HEROISM OF ROUSSEAU AND WALLACE.-NOBLE ADDRESS OF JOSEPH HOLT.--DRAWING OF THE LINES.-GUERRILLA BANDS.-RAVAGES OF MORGAN.-GATHERING FOR THE WAR.-INVASION OF THE STATE.-BATTLE OF RICHMOND, KENTUCKY,

We must leave our armies struggling in Virginia, to contemplate the progress of the war in the West. The rebel conspirators, in the commencement of their traitorous enterprise, had made the most earnest, though secret efforts, to carry the border slaveholding State of Kentucky with them. The slaveholding aristocracy of Kentucky, dreading the progressive influence of free institutions, were determined at every hazard to convey the State over to the great slaveholding obligarchy which was to be established in the South. But the masses of the people were in favor of the Union. Yet they had been so operated upon by their ambitious and unscrupulous leaders, that they were, as a body, not very ardent in their Union feelings. In the slaveholding section of our country-vastly more than in those sections where schools, and churches, and lyceums, and a prolific press enlighten the community-the masses of the people are guided by a few leaders. It is confidently asserted, by those best acquainted with the facts, that ten men in the slaveholding South had attained such control, that they could with ease have arrested this bloody rebellion, and have raised shouts for the Union from the lips of those very men whom they hurled so mercilessly against the arms of the National Government.

The slaveholders of Kentucky had succeeded in placing a thorough traitor, B. Magoffin, entirely pledged to their purposes, in the gubernatorial chair. When the rebels made their infamous attack upon Fort Sumter, and were preparing to march for the capture of Washington, and the President of the United States called for the patriot troops to hasten to the protection of the Capital, this perjured traitor, who had taken a solemn oath to maintain the Constitution of the United States, replied:

"Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."

This traitorous response did not carry with it the sympathy of the noblehearted yeomanry of the State. Immediately the lines began to be distinctly drawn between the rebels and the patriots. The "National Union," published at Winchester, Kentucky, commenting upon this action of the

Governor, expressed the sentiments of a large majority of the people in the following words :

"Mark what we say. Any attempt on the part of the Government of the State, or any one else, to put Kentucky out of the Union, is an act of treason against Kentucky. It is therefore lawful to resist any such ordinance. We hope that we now are fully understood thus far."*

Within four weeks after the fall of Sumter, notwithstanding the treacherous action of the Governor, fourteen companies of Kentuckians, from the northern border counties, tendered their services to the Secretary of War, through Colonel T. V. Guthrie. Ten were accepted, with orders to encamp on the Ohio side of the river. Governor Magoffin, disappointed in his plan of carrying the State over to the rebels, as the next best step to favor their cause, endeavored to maintain a position of neutrality. On the 20th of May, 1861, he issued a proclamation forbidding the citizens of Kentucky from assisting "either of the belligerent parties." Assuming that the rebels were entitled to be recognized as an independent nation, with lawful claim to the mouths of the Mississippi, and to all the United States forts and territories which they had seized, he said, "I especially forbid all citizens of Kentucky, whether incorporated in the State Guard or otherwise, making any hostile demonstrations against any of the aforesaid sovereignties." In accordance with the spirit of this unpatriotic proclamation, the slaveholding Senate of the State immediately passed a decree that the State "will not sever her relations with the National Government, nor take up arms for either belligerent party." This tricky and truckling spirit excited the contempt it merited, in every magnanimous mind. There is a certain degree of respect which every one feels for Milton's Devil. He had at least the virtues of boldness open and avowed. But for conduct like this-alike perfidious, hypocritical, and dastardly-one can cherish no other sentiments than those of unmitigated scorn. The Hon. Joseph Holt, one of the noblest of the sons of Kentucky, and one of the most illustrious men in the councils of the nation, addressed, in this crisis, the citizens of his native State, in an appeal from which we take the following extracts:

"The Legislature, it seems, has determined, by resolution, that the State, pending this unhappy war, shall occupy neutral ground. I would as soon think of being neutral in a contest between an officer of justice and an incendiary, arrested in the attempt to fire the dwelling over my head. The Executive of the State has forbidden the Government of the United States from marching troops across her territory. This is, in no sense, a neutral step, but one of aggressive hostility. The troops of the Federal Government have as clear a constitutional right to pass over the soil of Kentucky, as they have to march along the streets of Washington.

"The conspirators who set this revolution on foot, while affecting to despise these (border) States, as not sufficiently intensified in their devotion to African servitude, knew that they could never succeed in their treason

* The "Louisville (Kentucky) Journal," in one of its characteristic witticisms, says, "The secessionists ask,Where will Kentucky go?" When the countryman was asked, 'Where does this railroad go?' he answered, 'The road don't go at all.' Kentucky won't 'go.' She'll stay." VOL. II.-12