The Battle of Fredericksburg- Returning to the Story of W. B. Rogers

One of the five pontoon bridges being laid across the Rappahannock

For the Battle of Fredericksburg, we have to rely for and account of movements on the historic record. No doubt, Winslow B. didn't want to worry his wife and family. The stories in the paper at the time were lurid enough.

The History of the 36th Regiment tells us this:

After shelling failed to dislodge the Rebel forces from the city, five pontoon bridges were laid and the order was given to cross and advance on the city. W.B.'s unit was part of the Ninth Corps. under  General Burns.

    "That morning, several divisions of the Ninth Corps. were early in line; and as they reached the Fredericksburg side of the river,  they were placed in position to the left of Sumner's Grand Division, and just below the city. In crossing, a few men were killed by the enemy's shells that fell short of our batteries at which they were aimed. Two men of the Thirty-Sixth were in this way slightly wounded.

    That night we moved up into the city, and stacking guns spent the night on the sidewalk and in the deserted homes in rear of the guns. Early on the morning of December 13th, preparations were made for the approaching battle. Burns' division of the Ninth Corps., to which our brigade belonged, was assigned to a position below the city. There, across Hazel's Run, behind a rise of ground, we remained under arms in reserve, listening to the roar of artillery and musketry as the battle raged along the line from left to right expecting every minute to be called to participate in the terrible conflict; but no orders came until afternoon when we moved further down the river, crossed Deep Run and were placed in front of the Barnard House covering the lower pontoon bridge. At dark, the 36th moved forward and supported a battery in front of the Sligo House."

    There was apparently a plan to engage the Ninth Corps. in battle the following day, but it was abandoned. The army advanced into the city and found it deserted. To the great disappointment of the men, they fell back to their previous encampment.

Map of the Battle showing the position of the 36th Massachusetts

We know that the battle raged for four days and despite some advances was not considered a success. The 36th seems to have been held in reserve for a second charge that never came, a disappointment for the men, but fortunate for W.B. There were many Union losses.

The attack at Fredericksburg

Here is W.B.'s account:

Fredericksburg, Virginia 

December 15, 1862

Dear Wife,

       It is Sunday noon and I am sitting on the wharf of the Rappahannock. The bank of the river is crowded with troops and stacks of arms. We are having a terrible battle. It commenced on Wednesday at 6 o'clock in the morning and this is the fourth day. The firing has been less for two hours but I don't know but it will be resumed again worse than ever. We are in the possession of the City. We encamped in the city night before last and stayed on the floor of a little shanty in the yard of a nice rebel mansion. The buildings are completely riddled with shells and some are burned. The city is worse than burned. Oh the horrors of war no one can imagine unless they see it. I will give you an account of my experience of the battle. We were ordered to be ready to march at 8 o'clock Wednesday morning without knapsack. We formed our brigade just before our camp and stood until most sundown. We marched down towards the city about 3/4 of a mile and then turned about and marched back to our old camp and pitched our tents and stayed until morning. We were then ordered to fall in about daylight and started for the City. We crossed the pontoon bridges onto the wharf about where we are today and stayed there until dark and then we marched up on to the street and stayed until morning. We then started and marched about half a mile out and stood until most night. We were then ordered to fall in. We double quicked it a little farther through the mud and were drawn up in line of battle and stood until dark and then laid down on the ground until half past two. We then started and marched through the mud and water I suppose several miles and formed in line and were ordered to lay close on the ground expecting every moment a shell would come over. We laid until it begun to be light. We were then ordered to march back to where we lay the day before which proved to be about a hundred rods. We stayed long enough to make a little coffee. We were then ordered to fall in and marched double-quick to where we are now. I have not spoke of the firing. We have not fired a gun in the 36th Regiment yet but there has been a continual roar of canon and popping of musket shot but the shells have been flying over our heads the whole time and some burst near us. One piece came within a rod of me and some were wounded in sight of me. Most sundown. We are laying here yet and I must finish my letter as the chaplain is ready to take the letters.

From your husband,

W. B. Rogers

    Seven years ago this month, I began writing this blog. I had done just enough genealogy to discover a few things about Winslow Brainard and his family. There are still some mysteries to be uncovered. I hope this inspires my readers to delve into their own family stories. 
Happy Blogiversary to me!

A Life's Mission

Sister Columba (Belinda Cooke) probably on an celebration of her vows

Meet Belinda Cooke. Belinda would be my first cousin, twice removed. She was my great-grandfather Michael's  niece. Here's a small tree to help keep it straight.

Add caption

Belinda had five brothers and lived on the family farm in Clooningan. She was born in 1898, so this would have been long before much knowledge of modern illnesses, much less treatment. At some point in her childhood, she got polio. The family story is that she prayed that if she were cured, she would devote her life to missions.

In the early twenties she made good on this promise and went to the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Limerick. From there she went on to France, probably the mother house in Angers for her training as a teacher. At some point she took her vows and became Sister Columba. She took a trip home before going on her assignment and announced to the family she would not be back. Her assignment took her to a convent and school in Mysore, India. 

Sister Columba on the right with Anne Leonard

You can get some idea by checking out the background in the picture. You can see the students and a bit of the school and convent. My cousin, Anne Leonard, worked for an airline and was able to visit her.

And this also gives you some of the "flavor" of her world.

She also kept up a lively correspondence with her nieces and nephews in Ireland, Canada, and the United States. The letter I'm quoting from is from her to her grand-nephew Jimmy. My cousin Denise kindly shared.

"You asked what subjects I teach. Well, dear I teach every subject except 2nd language and that is always the language of the country so I cannot teach it. Our classes here are very big I have over fifty. They are mostly all bright intelligent children. Last year I taught the boys, this year I have girls. Of course they are mostly all pagans; that is the sad part of it."
I suppose this attitude, though a little uncomfortable for us, is not unexpected for a nun at the time. And she devoted her life to teaching them, so I can't fault her for that. I used to think classes of thirty were too big, I can't imagine fifty! She wrote another letter to Denise herself, but it is mostly personal and about family.

I usually do a lot more research on the people I blog about, but with a nun that's rather hard. Plus her order has fallen under a bit of a cloud, so information is hard to come by.  This isn't the only person in the family to take vow, but she is in more recent memory so there are picture and relics to tell the story. And she kept her promise in a way I find admirable.

Plague

Katherine Rhodes-Fields from The Plague Doctor series. All rights reserved.

What could be more appropriate today than a plague doctor in his mask? It is certainly nothing new in the history of mankind. You might remember my post about how one small town where my Rogers ancestors lived dealt with an outbreak of smallpox. And how some surrounding towns took a more bloodless approach. Check that out here.

The plague of the 19th Century was tuberculosis. Before it was understood that a particular bacteria caused the disease, crowding, poor sanitation and poor hygiene killed large numbers of people in this country who contracted TB. No surprise, when people were removed to cleaner sanitariums they often recovered. I was startled to discover how many of my relatives died of tuberculosis as I worked on my tree. Finding them all to list them would have taken the better part of my month at home. So I chose the most striking examples. I would find some really well-kept registers that listed "consumption" or "phthisis pulmonalis" as the cause of death. That's TB. There were probably many others, but before good records were standardized, an early female death would easily have been either childbirth or TB.

Jennie R Smith- Nov 1880

This is one of the saddest records I found. Jennie was my great-great-grandfather's youngest sister. She died at just nineteen. The worst part was that out of twelve children in this family, only 3 lived to adulthood. Jennie almost made it. On the same page recording her death in Waltham I found many other TB deaths.

Another story was that of the family of Moses Rogers of Holden. He was my third great grandfather's brother. In his family he lost 4 children to tuberculosis, one to typhoid, one to typhus and one to cancer. Seven out of his eight children. Some in adulthood, to be sure, but still... 

I think  about the things that killed people in the 19th century: disease and childbirth. Old age was a luxury. People were accustomed to death in a way we just aren't. And accustomed to outbreaks of diseases we have long left behind. On the register page with Jennie's death I found tubercular meningitis, tuberculosis and six cases of diphtheria.  The outbreak at one point was so severe that people blamed vampires and began doing strange rituals to stop it. You can read about that here. Bleach and toilet paper hoarding may be more logical, but no less hysterical.

Josephine Payne Fitzgerald 1910

This last record is the death of my great-uncle Robert Fitzgerald's wife Josie in 1910. Even then, tuberculosis was taking lives. Her infant son died the same month of  "lumbar pneumonia", but who knows whether she passed it along to him?  Robert was left to raise my cousin Katherine until 1917 when a freak accident killed him and she went to live with my grandparents.

I found stories like this all through the family tree as I have worked along. Now to be sure, tuberculosis was a slow death. People knew the outcome and had some time to accustom themselves to the eventuality; the average TB patient lived three to five years. There were no airplanes. People traveled less. The spread would have been slower. And living in an age where we are inoculated against the biggest killers of previous ages, we have no reference for what we are seeing today.

Here's a thought. Picture your family tree as a very large inverted triangle with you, the "distillation" at the very bottom. That image reminds me again of something that struck me early on in genealogy: I am the result of survival of every possible type of calamity. My ancestors survived pandemics, deaths in accidents, death in childbirth, war, famine  just to name a few. My very existence is a kind of miracle. Until I did genealogy, I never really grasped or appreciated that. 

Today, I do even more.

Throwback Thursday

This is Ann Cooke, the widow of Michael Stinson Cooke in front of her home at the corner of Geary and Cooke St.. (San Francisco) I don't know the year, but Michael died in 1897 and she died in 1905 so my guess is somewhere in that time period.

This is that same corner today. Based on a previous much older photo, the house actually faced what is now Geary and sat where the tire store is located at about the spot you see the small tree.