Confederate Dead After Battle of Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg is now over, having been a humiliating defeat for the United States Army. Yet death has visited both North and South. An eyewitness account from a North Carolina Baptist soldier–a member of Reeds Baptist Church–written after the battle, recounts the carnage taking place around him in Confederate ranks on the day he was injured (December 13).
The cannon ball struck our ranks for then we were in four ranks. The ball struck a young man nocking off the back of his head and that this same ball struck my gun against my head is the way I got wonded. Mr. Walser and others says that I and this other man fell forward on our faces and that we both kicked like hogs ding after being hit with a nife. We were the first wonded from our regment. It shoked the men and our Colonel seeing this, said Study men, Study, and gave the command to make the charge, which they did and run the yankys back but lost about one hundred kiled of the regiment. Mr. James Craver was kiled in this charge. He had not bin married very long.
The mounting injuries South and North, on a scale never before experienced in America, lead to ever-growing efforts to provide relief for Northern sick and wounded soldiers. Today in New York City, the
Sabbath-school and Choir of the Harlem First Baptist Church, by request … repeat their concert … at the Church in Fifth-avenue, near One Hundred and Twenty-seventh-street, the entire proceeds to be appropriated for the relief of our sick and wounded soldiers.
Sources: Battle of Fredericksburg (link); Richard Barton Myers quote (link); “Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania,” National Park Service, including photo (link); “Concert at Harlem,” New York Times, December 16, 1862 (link)
