Bold Sons of Erin

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  Regiments broke into an aggrieved trot, impatient to close with the enemy and end their helplessness.

  Twas a spectacle, I give you that. But one to shame a Christian.

  Halfway across the field, there was a ditch, cut at a diagonal to the town, with a stream or a race running through it. The first men clambered into the depression. It broke the last traces of order in the regiments that entered it, even those that had shown well under the guns.

  In most spots along the line of the attack—or attacks, I should say, for the effort had fragmented badly—the Rebel infantry held their fire until our men passed the ditch and tried to re-form in the meadow. When the Johnnies opened up at last, entire ranks dropped in place. Feathers of gore preened from their skulls, blood fanned from legs and backs. Their greatcoats kept most of the corpses neater than you will see them in a summer battle, but the mess would be grisly enough for those in the grip of it.

  Regiments buckled, but smaller groups pressed on. As far as they could. Under the orders of their surviving officers, some of those still alive and whole got back into ranks to level their own volleys at the Rebels. But the Confederates were protected by their defenses, while our men stood in the open. And bravery does not count against a bullet.

  The attack began to dissolve. Nearing the Confederate lines, an uneven swale dipped into the earth, a depression so mild the eye did not mark it until you saw our boys lose height as they entered it. Twas as far as any man got in that first attack.

  Man by man, then company after shattered company, our lads went to ground and stayed there. Clinging to the faint protection the dip in the earth provided. Other soldiers milled about back in the ditch, while the weakest of will skulked off the field, despite the threat of punishment for cowardice. The wounded crawled where they could.

  Perhaps the Rebels had been angered by the misbehavior of our troops in Fredericksburg, for they had eyes and ears and must have known. Anyway, it was the first time that I marked them shooting wounded men as the poor devils dragged themselves off.

  If Burnside meant to make a show, to please the scribblers and senators, that should have been enough. Those first attacks were finished, before a single regiment—or a single Union soldier—reached the enemy lines. Torrents of fire coursed from our enemy’s guns, as if the air itself had been ignited. No man could stand before that storm and live.

  It should have been enough to show any general with a pair of eyes that the odds was hopeless. Yet, more of our brigades had begun to advance. Only to be shot to bits by the rows of enemy cannon and to fade away before the volleys of ten thousand Rebel rifles.

  The madness continued for hours. All piecemeal it was, feeding handsome regiments and brigades into a grinder. It no longer struck me as brave, but only wanton. Somewhere a regimental band mocked all the misery, playing jaunty tunes to urge men on.

  Out on the field, there were stretches of ground where you might have jumped from one body to another, dead and living both, to make a game of never touching the earth. I could see only a portion of that swale, but it was almost solid blue now, with the survivors who could make no further progress toward the enemy seeking safety behind their brothers’ corpses. Some men even rolled and shoved the bodies of the fallen into barricades for the living. Wherever they did so, the dead would begin to move again, slightly and sullenly, as countless rounds punched into them.

  Men burrowed into the wreckage of cloth and flesh. The closer you looked to the forward edge of those bodies, the thicker the piles and the grislier the scene. They were packed in like young snakes in a nest, tormented and writhing. Hundreds of other able-bodied soldiers refused to leave the ditch that divided the field.

  And then I heard another band play, just when I thought our attacks might have been halted. These musicians played with a blitheness careless of the day. Twas an Irish reel, all quickness and jollity.

  I saw them unfold from the alleys and lanes, ordered up at last. They dressed their ranks in good order, not a pistol shot from our perch. Our house had not gone unscathed by shell, and Jimmy and I were dusted over with plaster, but we lacked the sense to tear ourselves from the spectacle. I think I may claim that both of our hearts quickened. For this was the matter of the day to us.

  Meagher did not dismount, but rode along their lines. His men cheered him, as if he were leading them off to a pick-nick, with free beer and prizes for all. Indeed, they did not have the concentration of flags before them that had led all the other brigades. But I saw one field of green unfurl, at which the lads in the ranks stood straighter and prouder. Every man wore a green sprig in his cap.

  Even in the battle’s lull, the valley remained in a tumult. The guns had only slackened, the way a glutton at table slows, although he will not cease eating. Odd rifle shots competed with screams and shouts. I saw Meagher speaking to his men, gesturing with his sword as he restrained his high-spirited horse. But I could not catch his words.

  Twas only one brigade. And its strength had already been sapped by the summer’s battles. Antietam had bled it badly. But those lads showed proud and fine as the Guards on parade.

  They stepped off to the beat of a half-dozen drums, with their bandsmen silent now. The breeze tugged that green flag toward the enemy, as if even nature wished to lead them on. That very same wind, light and cold, swept off a great deal of the smoke, leaving the field of battle unusually clear. A still day would have shrouded the valley, but now the smoke only hung in pockets or drifted above the firing lines of our enemies. It was almost as if General Meagher had been a prophet: All the world could see the Irish advance.

  Those lads had pluck. My heart nearly broke to see them go, yet I tell you I felt like cheering. As some of their comrades did along our lines. The Irish marched as if they were the invincible heroes of old, taking pains to dress their ranks, even keeping step as best they could. Oh, those lads had taken their general’s words to heart. They meant to show us all what they were made of.

  And the Irish always like a good scrap, of course.

  When the enemy’s cannon, confident of range, opened upon the Irish, they did not react as the other brigades had done. They closed up well enough. But instead of gritting their teeth, they shouted defiance, a thousand men and more, threatening revenge as they quickened their pace.

  The guns ripped lanes right through them, dissolving men, detaching limbs, tossing bodies heavenward as bad-tempered girls fling dolls. The blue ranks entered a band of smoke. When they re-emerged, their numbers were markedly fewer. And still an angry core of them were shouting, threatening, cursing and damning their enemies. I could not see Meagher any longer, nor any man on horseback. The officers who did not lie dead were leading their men on foot.

  They reached the ditch where the mill-race ran and fair leapt down into it, shoving stragglers aside and scrambling up the other bank, as if in a contest. I thought they might make a wild charge from the spot. Instead, God bless them, they rallied to their standard and their officers, forming up in perfect order again.

  Impatient, the Confederate riflemen opened fire, knocking down the Irish by the dozen. But Meagher’s lads only closed their ranks and stepped off once again. I saw bayonets now. The Irish intended to reach the enemy, even if they had to do it alone.

  Their attack had been virtually unsupported, with other brigades advancing on faulty lines and out of sequence. But the Irish did not look back or to their sides. Already shot to pieces, they plunged into the chaos of the swale. For the first time, their ranks broke, corrupted by the carpet of survivors and corpses, foiled by our instinctive reluctance to step upon the dead or even the living. They seemed on the verge of coming apart completely, simply because they had trouble placing their feet. I thought they might go to ground with their comrades, joining the roiling blue mass in that shallow dip.

  Above the din of the day, I heard a roar. Of human rage. And I saw the remaining Irishmen, struggling to keep their order, break into a trot, then into a run. Undaunted even t
hen they were, unwilling to give up after coming so far. They rushed the Rebel lines, a handful of men against thousands.

  For a pair of moments, if no longer, I believed the Irish might reach that wall of stone and earth and gray and flashing rifles. Their lines were gone, their flag was either down or shrouded in smoke, but the last of the Irish Brigade charged forward like wild Afghanees or rabid hounds.

  It looked as if a handful would get in among the Rebels with their bayonets. But I was looking at dozens of men, not hundreds nor a thousand. A massed volley from the base of the ridge collapsed their charge in an instant. Farther back, a few stray clots of men still stood and fired their rifles into the gray ranks before them. But those men, too, recoiled, crumpled, fell or dropped to the ground to load then thought better of rising again.

  Not half an hour before, they had been a brigade as fine as any on earth. Now nothing remained but a thickening of the blue cloth dressing the earth.

  “The sad, sorry bastards” was all that Jimmy said. Even he could not find a joke that day.

  In later years, the survivors of the terrible Battle of Fredericksburg argued, as aging veterans will, as to which regiment come closest to the Rebel lines. None reached it, of course, though more than five thousand men fell in the attempt. The old men argued and nattered and, sometimes, lied. But I was there, and I will tell you: Those bold sons of Erin lay nearest to the enemy, the bravest almost close enough to touch the men who slew them.

  Now, you will think me weak, but the truth is that I wept. Not for long, see. But long enough it was for Jimmy to turn away so his gaze would not embarrass me. Or perhaps his own eyes were teary. I never thought quite so badly of an Irishman after that day.

  But let that bide.

  The slaughter went on, well into the shades of the evening. Stubbornness, folly, madness, ignorance, vanity, and incompetence, that is what our high commanders gave us. General Burnside did his best to throw away an army. The only good I can say of him is that, when the defeat demanded a scapegoat, he took the blame upon himself like a man. But that is not enough, see. He humbled himself, but first he killed men in the thousands, to no purpose. Remorse will not bring any father or son or husband back to life.

  It was going to be a glum Christmas in the North. And all for naught.

  The sacrifice of regiments and brigades only stopped by the light of burning ruins. For the hundreds of men who had crept or crawled back into the sheltering streets, thousands still lay upon the field, thousands dead and thousands wounded, all lying in the frigid cold, and still more men lying among them unscathed, but unable to withdraw with the Rebels shooting at any hint of movement that showed against the backdrop of the town. More buildings burned now, though this time the fires had been lit by Confederate gunnery.

  Jimmy and I abandoned our vantage point, only to find the stairs had been shot away by a Rebel cannonball. We had to drop down to the floor below, which was a bother to my leg, but little matter compared to the day’s other miseries. We had to go a bit slowly through the streets, though, for my blasted leg was unwilling to behave.

  We had to go carefully, too. For Rebel sharpshooters made a game of seeking targets amid the dancing light, and, now and then, a Confederate gun would send a ball down one of the vertical streets, to sweep it clean.

  The lanes were a shambles of wounded men and shocked survivors. Sullen and drained, they sat against walls or in doorways, or sprawled on ruined lawns. Few seemed concerned enough to hunt their regiments, while elsewhere little knots of men were all that remained of brigades. You would think that men would be glad to have survived, that they would find some joy in it and think themselves lucky. But that is not the way the soldier feels things. There was only loss, and shame, and guilt, and a relief so fragile it was not yet quite believed.

  Many feared the fight would resume in the morning. Rumors plagued the living and mocked the dead.

  Even in the streets where houses burned and crackled, or where sergeants called the roll of broken companies, you heard the screams of the wounded off in the night. In the ravaged heart of the town, ambulances rolled along in columns, efficient in this second year of war. But the vehicles were still too few in number, for no one had expected such a bloodbath.

  We found the house where the Irish brigade had quartered its staff the night before. Meagher was there, uniform scorched and muddy, his fair face stunned. A much-diminished knot of officers had gathered about him. They were drinking quietly.

  “My brigade,” Meagher said to no one. “My lovely brigade. All gone.”

  THE SOLDIERS WHO had not regained the town lay out all night, exposed to a frost that fell hard. Many a wounded man who might have lived froze upon those fields. In that crowded swale, men robbed canteens from corpses, only to find the water frozen through. The living sneaked against one another for warmth, regardless of identities, ranks, or old animosities. In the ditch that cut the field, the water thickened to ice tinged pink with blood. Merciless, the Rebels watched for any sign of life.

  And the lads still alive come morning, who had not scuttled back to safety in the dark, remained upon the field all through the next day, freezing, thirsty, terrified, hungry, dying. Twas only during the second night after the battle that the Rebels eased their vigilance and the other survivors crawled back.

  On that second night, the cries of the wounded were far less of a bother. So many had died in the absence of a truce, lying under that winter sky until they could no longer cling to life. Later, of course, there was a brief cease-fire, to bury the dead.

  Jimmy and I were weary men, for we had done our best in the night after the battle to help bring in the nearest of the wounded. My leg would not allow me to manage a stretcher, but I did my best to crawl out to the boys with Jimmy and we lugged in several dozen of them between us. Enough to leave us covered with blood and stinking. I hope some of them lived.

  The hardest wounded men with whom you must cope are the boys who beg you not to move them, to let them lie there and not add to their pain. Some ask you to kill them. You must bring all those in, too, for that is our Christian duty. But it is a hard thing. Especially when a broken boy uses his last bit of strength to make a fist, threatening to kill you if you do not let him be. You bring them in legless and robbed of arms, with their manhood shot away or their faces shorn off. The conscious ones think of their sweethearts and dread their lives. You bring them in begging and screaming, or deeply unconscious. And you pray to God that you have done a good service.

  That second night, we went again to seek General Meagher, but only saw him from a distance, for the fellow was holding a grand reception for visiting politicians. I believe they brought him his flags, after all. There were speeches and oaths and food and drink, and the Good Lord knows how they managed it. His brigade was ruined, true enough, with less than half the names answered at the muster. Yet, Meagher would not quit—not yet—nor would his Irishmen. The lot of them acted as if they were a grand brigade again, though barely the strength of a regiment. The Irish pluck hope from the lip of the grave. The men were certain their ranks would fill back up, although our army’s regulations would finally do what the Rebels had not accomplished. But that is another tale.

  An officer who recognized us invited us into the party, where the general was holding forth with heady grandiloquence. Amid the smoldering ruins of the town, with the wounded still lying about and the army a savaged thing, General Meagher was describing the liberation of Ireland, to be effected by our Irish veterans, once we had taken Richmond and trounced the Rebels. The prospect seemed little better than a fairy tale that night, and the fellow’s flights of fancy left me sour. But perhaps that is the very heart of the matter: The Irish have endured so much they must resort to fantasies and find their refuge in dreams.

  We would have been welcome at a back table, but neither Jimmy nor I had the stomach for it. We thanked the fellow who greeted us, but begged off.

  Twas the final time I saw General Meagher, wh
o would leave the war in bitterness not long after, angry that he was not allowed to rebuild his brigade. He applied himself to politics then, not always for the better. He never was disloyal, but his heart was broken by our government’s callousness. And by Fredericksburg. He died but a short time after the war, still young, out in the West and in a sorry circumstance. When last I glimpsed him, he was laughing at his own joke as he raised a cup.

  Jimmy and I walked along toward the pontoons, without further companionship. For the name of Daniel Boland had not found an answer when the roll was called. Nor did he appear later on, among the lists of the wounded and convalescing. I cannot even say where his body lies, for the Rebels held the ground. We buried our men at their sufferance and in haste.

  We walked through the shame of ravished streets, past men who had fought honorably and less so, past the bivouacs of fresh regiments put over to stave off a possible Confederate attack, and along by the squalid remains of units shot to pieces and waiting for orders, or for officers, or simply for the vigor to lift themselves from the spot. We walked in dreary light, almost in darkness, between campfires built at streetcorners and the hurricane lanterns at sentry posts. And then I heard singing.

  We were passing through a rough encampment of Irishmen—not those of the Irish Brigade, but some of the tens of thousands of others who served our Union. And from the next crossing we heard a well-sung hymn. Welshmen the singers were, I could not mistake it. They were singing an anthem of Charles Wesley’s, reverent and warm, in a harmony of two parts, then of three.

  I expected the Irish to make a fuss, to call cats and shout and complain. But the strangest thing happened. Those Irishmen, though their souls belonged to Rome, began singing along with the Welshmen. Perhaps it was a result of months in encampments, but many knew the words to the hymn and near all knew the tune. In another minute, the street resounded with song.