"The day is waning. Franklin has failed. He telegraphs that it is too late to make another attack on the left.

Not

so does Sumner think on the right. . . . He cannot see the day lost without another struggle, and orders a third attack. Humphreys, Morrell, Getty, Sykes, and Howard, or portions of their divisions, are brought up. The troops have been under arms from early daylight. They have had no food. All day they have been exposed to the fire of the rebel batteries, and have lost heavily. . . . It is sunset. The troops move out once more upon the open plain, and cross the field with a cheer. The ground beneath them is already crimson with the blood of their fallen comrades. They reach the base of the hill. Longstreet brings down all his reserves. The hillside, the plain, the crest of the ridge, the groves and thickets, the second range of hills beyond Marye's, the hollow, the sunken road, are bright flashes. Two hundred cannon strike out fierce defiance, forty thousand muskets. and rifles flame!

"The rebels are driven from the stone wall, and the sunken road, and the rifle-pits midway the hill. The blue wave mounts all but to the top of the crest. It threatens to overwhelm the rebel batteries. But we who watch it behold its power decreasing. Men begin to come down the hill, singly and in squads, and at length in masses. The third and last attempt has failed. The divisions return, leaving the plain and the hillside strewn with thousands of brave men who have fallen in the ineffectual struggle." 1

The regiments of New Hampshire had certainly done their part well in that fierce day's work. The Fifth, the Sixth, and the Ninth had added new honors to veteran fame, -honors, though, that found a worthy match in the firstwon laurels of the Tenth, the Eleventh, and the Thirteenth. Resolutely had the men of the Eleventh helped gain the position which they as resolutely had helped to hold through all that dreadful afternoon; replenishing their failing ammunition from newly-coming regiments, or from the car

1 The Union loss in this battle was about ten thousand; the Confederate loss was about half that number.

tridge-boxes of the dead; fixing, now and then, their bayonets, to make or meet the imminent charge; and anxiously, but without fear, awaiting the next perilous move in the dread game of battle. Of those "new troops," fresh from the hills of New Hampshire, who had thus held their ground, till one acre of it was soaked with the blood of more than six hundred slain, the general in command might well say in his address, as he did, in hearty encomium: “To the new troops who fought so nobly on the 13th, on their first battle-field, thanks are especially due: they have every way proved themselves worthy to stand side by side with the veterans of the Second Brigade."

The following emphatic testimony to the regiment's welldoing must here be added, as found in the excellent work, entitled "Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps": 1

"The Seventh Rhode Island, Colonel Bliss, belonged to General Nagle's brigade: the Eleventh New Hampshire, Colonel Harriman, belonged to the brigade of General Ferrero. Both were new regiments, and both received at Fredericksburg their initiation of blood. They stood at their posts with the steadfastness of veterans; they advanced with the enthusiasm of genuine soldiers; they won the encomium of all who witnessed their valor on this, their first day of battle."

This chapter finds its fitting close in the list of the killed and wounded, prepared by Colonel Harriman himself. The regiment went into action with ranks nearly full, and its loss was heavier in this, its first battle, than in any other. It is a fact, too, worth noting, that the loss of Company G, alone, which was much less than that of each of many other companies, was the same as that of the whole American army under Jackson at New Orleans- six killed and seven wounded. In the list, those who died of their wounds soon. after the battle are counted killed. Many of the wounded never returned from the hospitals for duty, having been discharged for disability. Such a list may help the reader to conceive what war is.

1 By Rev. Augustus Woodbury, a chaplain in the service.

List of the killed and wounded of the Eleventh Regiment in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862.

Adjutant C. R. Morrison, wounded. Co. A. James S. Plummer, Plummer Smith, Wm. D. Houghton, John D. Purington, James M. Sleeper, Samuel D. Thurston, Edward T. Rand, killed; Capt. H. C. Bacon, Lt. George N. Shepard, Charles W. Adams, Elbridge C. Brackett, John L. Gilman, Wm. H. Hook, Frank H. Kennard, Jonathan W. Robertson, Henry C. Smith, Charles G. Thing, Herman W. Veasey, wounded.

Co. B. Cyrus E. Poor, Ladd P. Harvey, John W. Marsh, George W. Morrill, Abijah Ring, James S. Whidden, Charles H. Perkins, killed; Lt. Isaac H. Morrison, John L. B. Thompson, Charles H. Boody, John H. Dow, Gayton W. Fuller, James Jenkins, Sylvester McLane, Enoch F. Maloon, Moses B. Nealey, Samuel J. Randall, Stephen B. Robinson, Jr., George F. Small, Moses P. Stevenson, Joseph H. Thompson, Charles C. Tuttle, wounded.

Co. C. Enoch F. Farnum, Rufus Merriam, Enoch F. Osgood, Henry C. Patrick, killed; Charles F. Johnson, George A. Gould, Gilman Bickford, Mayhew Clark, George W. Chandler, Wm. W. Fish, Frank A. Flint, David M. Gilman, Alexander Hutchinson, Gilbert Hadley, Israel Henno, James C. Johnson, Charles H. Lancaster, James F. Riddle, Joel S. Sanborn, John A. Tilton, George W. Vickery, Charles Williams, Daniel K. Woodbury, George W. Worthen, wounded.

Co. D. Samuel G. Dodge, Joshua Ordway, John W. Smith, killed; Hamilton F. Green, Charles C. Jones, George E. Barnes, Charles H. Bell, Andrew J. Crooker, Thomas M. Davis, Augustus W. Grey, Samuel O. Gibson, Charles Knott, Imri Osgood, George I. Raymond, wounded.

Co. E. Capt. A. B. Shattuck, Charles H. Shannon, killed; Lt. Henry J. Dillenback, Charles M. Newbegin, Albert C. Brickett, Charles A. Chapman, Thomas D. Barter, Rufus Baker, Nathaniel Corson, Ogilvia Connor, Charles H. Hall, James Johnson, Josiah D. Langley, Charles Lamprey, wounded.

Co. F. David B. Fellows, Benjamin P. Nelson, George H. Philbrick, killed; Robert A. Blood, Andrew Bohonon, David W. Bunker, Alfred J. Bean, Geo. Chadwick, Newton C. Everett, Stephen Heath, George M. Jewett, John Lorder, Charles C. Pike, John Rollins, Warren H. Simonds, James A. Wadleigh, Wm. P. Wright, wounded.

Co. G. Jason S. Barker, George A. Dexter, John. Greeley, Geo. W. King, D. W. Ruthford, Albert M. Willey, killed; Wm. L. Pingrey, Charles F. Burnham, Joseph Chandler, Jr., William W. Coburn, John J. Gilchrist, Henry Judd, George W. Towne, wounded.

Co. H. Sergeant Henry French, Turner S. Grant, Joseph Blake, 2d, John French, wounded.

Co. I. Richard Neally, Edmund Harris, killed; Sergeant R. Baxter Brown, John Underhill, Calvin B. Magoon, Joel P. Bean, Jesse D. Bean, Levi Barker, Jr., Thomas R. Cushing, Samuel H. Dearborn, Robert H. Fisher, John H. Gile, George W. Griffin, John T. Hilliard, John N. Kimball, Charles M. Lane, Dudley J. Marston, Burnham E. Pevere, Thomas O. Reynolds, Sewell W. Tenney, Charles E. Wason, wounded.

Co. K. William H. Davis, Charles H. Flanders, David L. Blaisdell, Geo. K. Faxon, Hezekiah Smith, killed; John A. Babcock, Calvin P. Kingsbury, John A. Babb, John W. Delaney, Joseph Y. Meader, Reuben Nason, Lewis A. Young, wounded.

Killed, 39; wounded, 121; total, 160.

CHAPTER XII.

IN WINTER QUARTERS. A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN.

1862-1863.

THE Union army was back again across the Rappahannock, and the Eleventh Regiment of New Hampshire was in camp once more upon the bleak heights of Stafford. The colonel notes the fact:

Monday night, December 15th, the entire Union army recrossed the Rappahannock, evacuating Fredericksburg, and went into camp on the same ground we had left on Friday, the 12th. Now everybody is wondering why the rebels did not destroy our entire army while cooped up in the city of Fredericksburg, with their powerful force strongly intrenched on high ground in our front, and the river at our rear, with only two little frail ponton bridges over which to make our escape. Perhaps they were waiting for a better opportunity."

His regiment had been among the last - if not the very last to leave the city. At dark on Sunday evening, December 14th, it went on picket duty for twenty-four hours. Just before night on Monday, the general's aide-de-camp informed Colonel Harriman that the regiment should be relieved at dark. At nine o'clock a regiment came to relieve, but suddenly left with the assertion that it had made a mistake. The general had told Colonel Harriman where to find his headquarters, and had directed him to go there for orders. At midnight the colonel went for orders, but headquarters were gone, and nobody was left to tell whither. At one o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th, Colonel Harriman, supposing rightly, doubtless, that his command had been left behind through oversight, took the