Hey, Watcha Reading?

Like many of my friends, I do a lot of reading, usually as many as four or five books at a time. These often include fiction for entertainment, a military history or two on a battle or campaign of interest, perhaps a biography or memoir, and maybe a political science of economics text or other non-fiction work. This year I am re-reading Carl von Clausewitz’ “On War” and will be writing about it as I do. However, I’m also reading a number of other works right now.

My favorite of the books I’m reading is the newly published and very well-written “Lincoln’s Code, The Laws of War in American History” by John Fabian Witt. It’s the story of the “Lieber Code” approved by President Lincoln and published as General Order 100 in April, 1863. But Witt uses that as the framework upon which to present a history of the laws of war in the United States and internationally. This will be of great interest to both students of the laws of war and of the American Civil War – including reenactors and living historians of that conflict!

I’ve just finished reading a book published in 1946 on Front-Line Intelligence, written as a how-to manual for S-2s and G-2s (the staff officer responsible for intelligence in a military unit). Written by several veterans of World War II, it draws extensively on vignettes, anecdotes, as well as personal experience on how to be an effective intelligence staff officer. This was published by the Infantry Journal Press, a favorite source of period texts and articles on war and warfare as practiced or at least as understood at the time. I found this to be a very entertaining and informative work and will be drawing on it for several of my lectures and talks.

Another recently finished but still close at hand book is Barry Rubin’s The Truth About Syria, published in 2008 but which has been extremely helpful as I try to fathom what is now going on in that benighted country. I should note that the author and I are in some ways old acquaintances after I read his earlier book about US policy and relations with Iran in the days of the Shah and then the Iranian revolution.  I am again so impressed by his work that I will be relying heavily on this volume as I prepare to lecture this year at several venues attempting to explain Syria – as best anyone can. I highly recommend that you try and track this down if you are still yourself trying to understand events in Syria.

From World War I, I’m reading Anthony Farrar-Hockley’s Death of an Army about the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fighting in France and Belgium in 1914. This is an often harrowing story as you read about these regiments full of regular army veteran soldiers disappearing one by one under the tidal wave of Prussian and German troops that faced them. The record of their performance in this campaign is not enough recognized today, though they are sometimes remembered as “They Old Contemptibles” because a remark reportedly made before the war by the Kaiser called these pre-war soldiers a “contemptible little army” that he would have arrested by the German police if it dared to land in Germany in the event of war. Farrar-Hockley tells their story cleanly and eloquently as he traces the fate of the BEF – that held the line for the Territorials, Kitchener’s Volunteers, and the conscript soldiers who would follow them to Europe.

In a related but more personal vein, I’ve been reading a series of memoirs by those who fought in the First World War – the latest being Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey, an American who fought in the British Army, and Under Fire, an English translation of a French novel of the First World War based upon the experiences of the author, Henri Barbusse. Empey’s story is a quick and fascinating read as wounds ended his just over a year of service at the Battle of the Somme, but he offers the great details of how the private soldier experienced the war. Barbusse’s novel reflects the not-oft told (in English) story of how the average French soldier (volunteer or reservist) experienced The Great War fought on their own soil.

Finally, for some fun, I’m reading The NPR Curious ListenersGuide to Celtic Music, by Fiona Ritchie, presenter of The Thistle and Shamrock show on NPR. I’ve already learned about the back story to several favorite musicians and groups and their songs even as I’m being introduced to new ones!

The Burden of Command

“General, soldiering has one great trap: to be a good soldier you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. We do not fear our own death you and I. But there comes a time... We are never quite prepared for so many to die. Oh, we do expect the occasional empty chair. A salute to fallen comrades. But this war goes on and on and the men die and the price gets ever higher. We are prepared to lose some of us, but we are never prepared to lose all of us. And there is the great trap General. When you attack, you must hold nothing back. You must commit yourself totally.”

Michael Shaara wrote the above speech in its original form for General Robert E. Lee speaking to General Longstreet in his novel “The Killer Angels.” The above version is the way it was rewritten for the film “Gettysburg” based upon Shaara’s book. In both book and film, Lee goes on to tell Longstreet that he must not expose himself too dangerously in the coming battle because of his (Longstreet’s) importance to the army.

This speech came to mind as I was finishing William Philpott’s brilliant “Three Armies on the Somme, The First Battle of the Twentieth Century” after recently read several First World War memoirs by junior officers (Robert Graves, Guy Chapman, Siegfried Sassoon, among others). The First World War marked an extreme between the way the soldiers and their generals experienced war.

Veterans of combat, if and when they are willing to speak honestly about it, will generally tell you that ‘combat is a bitch.’ If you look at previous wars, in fact, you will find many generals offering rather similar sentiments that reflected how much more closely their combat experience echoed that of the private soldier. The day after his “near-run” victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington wrote to Lady Frances Shelly, “I hope to God I have fought my last battle. It is a bad thing to be always fighting. While in the thick of it I am too much occupied to feel anything; but it is wretched just after. It is quite impossible to think of glory.” Robert E. Lee reportedly spoke in similar spirit to General Longstreet in the aftermath of the Confederate lopsided victory at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, “It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it.”

Long after their experiences in the American Civil War, commanders on both sides would make similar statements. General Sherman told a Columbus, Ohio audience in 1880, that “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” Confederate partisan leader John Singleton Mosby would write in his memoirs, “War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle.”

The truth that the individual soldier fights more for those around him than for any higher cause is today so widely accepted as to have become a Hollywood movie cliché (and in the process proving again that even clichés often conceal a hard truth). The physical and emotional toll of close combat is heavy and post-traumatic stress syndrome is not a new phenomenon, though soldiers of earlier wars might have referred instead to battle fatigue, battle-happy, cannon fever, chicken-heart disease, combat-happy, gangplank fever, or shell-shock, among other labels used.

The commander, however, even during the time of Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Wellington, Lee, and Grant, fights with his mind far more than with his body and individual weapons. The old pre-Nazi German army was aware of this and several senior officers offered the following commentary, though I came across it as from General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord who reportedly wrote in 1933:

“I divide officers into four classes – the clever, the lazy, the stupid, and the industrious. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the high staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest command. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately.”

Notice the idea that the commander, the decision-maker, must remain calm and contrast this with the battle experience of the individual soldier who often fights with emotion or even passion when the nature of the battle demands it. In the film, “Gettysburg” it is Lee who gives in to his emotions in making his fateful decisions while the frustrated Longstreet finds that his cooler rationality cannot persuade Lee to act differently – and disaster results just as it did in the actual battle. Here, Hollywood and Michael Shaara have reflected if not fully embraced the idea that an army commander needs to avoid making decisions based upon emotion rather than cold, hard truths.

What remains to be addressed here is the further truth that while the commander needs to remain cool and collected, as a leader of soldiers he also needs to be aware of, to connect with, and even to tap that emotion found in those soldiers. That leadership role requires a connection at the personnel level, and that requires a commander who can still find his/her emotions and harness them (because as in the old joke, “it’s all about sincerity, once you can fake that you’ve got it made). I am certain that in the face of the compound strains of maintaining a cool head for command decisions and supporting the soldiers’ morale via that important emotional bond, many commanders must silently echo the wishes of Lt. Gonville Bromhead in the film “Zulu” who as he watched the approaching Zulu, said, “Right now I wish I were a damned ranker.”

A Prescient View of the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862

Charles Carleton Coffin, Army Correspondent of The Boston Journal, wrote the following letter to his newspaper from Chatham house on December 9, 1862 (excerpted from "Four Years of Fighting" by Charles Carleton Coffin):

"It is a clear, cold morning. The sky is without a cloud. Standing near General Sumner's quarters, I have a wide sweep of vision. The quarters of the veteran general commanding the right grand division are in a spacious mansion, newly constructed, the property of wealthy planter, whose estate is somewhat shorn of its beauty by the ravages of war. The fences are all gone, the forests are fast disappearing, the fine range of cedars which lined the Belleplain road are no longer to be seen. All around are the white tents of the command, the innumerable camp-fires sending up blue columns of smoke. The air is calm. You hear the rumbling of distant baggage-trains, the clatter of hundreds of axes felling the forests for fuel,--the bugle-call of the cavalrymen, and the rat-a-plan of the drummers, and mingling with all, the steady, constant flow of the falling waters of the winding stream.

Looking far off to the southeast, across the intervals of the river, you see a white cloud of steam moving beneath the fringe of a forest. It is a locomotive from Richmond, dragging its train of cars with supplies for the Rebel camps. The forests and hills beyond are alive with them. Resting my glass against the side of the building to keep it steady, I can count the men grouped around the camp-fires, turning at times to keep themselves warm. Others are bringing in wood. An officer rides along. A train of wagons is winding down the hill toward the town. All along the range of hills are earthworks with sandbag embrasures, and artillery behind,--not quaker guns, I think, but field artillery, so ranged that a movement directly across the river would be marching into the jaws of death,---as hazardous and destructive as the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.

I know that there is a clamor for an onward movement, a desire and expectation for an advance; but I think there are few men in the country who, after taking a look at the Rebel positions, would like to lead in a movement across the stream.

Looking into the town of Fredericksburg we see but few smokes ascending from chimneys, but few people in the streets. It is almost wholly deserted. The women and children have gone to Richmond, or else are shivering in camp. Close upon the river-bank on either side face the pickets, within easy talking distance of each other. There has been no shooting of late. There is constant badinage. The Rebel picket asks the Yankee when he is going to Richmond. The Yankee asks the Rebel if he don't want a pair of boots. I am sorry to say that such conversation is mixed with profane words. Each party seems to think that hard words hit hard.

Last night the southern sky was red with the blaze of Rebel camp-fires. Far off to the southeast I see a hazy cloud, and columns of smoke, indicating the presence of a large army. I do not doubt that if we attempt to cross we shall meet with terrible opposition from a force nearly if not quite as large as our own.

If the President or General Halleck insist upon Burnside's making the movement, it will be made with whatever power, energy, determination, and bravery the army can exhibit. I am as anxious as any one can be to see a great blow given to the Rebellion; but I am not at all anxious to see the attempt made against such disadvantages as are apparent to the most casual observer from this position."

Today you can still visit Fredericksburg, Virginia, and in particular Chatham House (aka Lacey House) and find much of the same scenery and the same scenes that would have presented themselves to those present at the battle. This weekend in Fredericksburg the anniversary of the battle will be marked by reenactors and citizens retelling the story of the battle and on Sunday you will be able to follow the march of the Irish Brigade through the streets of the city to their fatal engagement on Marye's Heights and NPS historian and author Frank O'Reilly narrates.

It's Not Just Art Historians That Plague Museums

I may have left the impression in my last posting that the only problems museums have are with art experts and historians who fail to do proper research on military and war related exhibits. However, the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History has had a similar problem now for several years. In the year before it closed for renovations, the Museum unveiled an exhibition called "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, this presents a survey of America's conflicts and their costs. This exhibition is again on display, unchanged, after these renovations.

An obvious element in such an exhibit would be the American Civil War, described by many historians as the conflict that defined America. The photo included with this article is one that I took earlier this year after the museum was re-opened. I took an almost identical photo before the closure for renovation and attempted to alert museum curators to the errors thus illustrated. Whoever placed the equipment upon the mannequin did it backwards - a fact that as an active reenactor of a Civil War Union soldier immediately struck me when I first visited the exhibit.

The most visible item of equipment is the canteen covered in brown blanket cloth. This is resting on the mannequin's left leg when it should be resting on top of the oilskin cloth haversack and both lying atop the left hip, out the way yet still accessible. The haversack on this mannequin has been reversed from its proper position and can be made out hanging close to the body at the right front.

On the mannequin's left hip, resting approximately where the haversack should be is the black leather cartridge box which would have carried the soldier's rounds of ammunition. This should be resting on the right hip where the soldier can easily use his right hand to reach back, open the pouch, and pluck out a single paper cartridge containing both one bullet and the black powder that when the weapon is fired would propel the bullet towards the chosen target.

The next most important accessory is the cap pouch, a small coin purse sized leather pouch that contains the soldier's percussion caps. After the soldier has poured the black powder down the barrel of his musket, dropped in the bullet, and then used his ramrod to force all of this down to the bottom of his weapon's barrel, he would hold the musket in his left hand while his right hand would reach down to remove a single cap from this pouch which should be just the right side of the buckle of his waist belt. This cap is placed upon the cone or nipple of the musket where it will be struck by the weapon's hammer when the trigger is pulled. The hammer's blow should set off the fulminate of mercury contained in the percussion cap which should create enough of a spark to ignite the black powder already poured down the barrel, firing the weapon. In this instance, the mannequin's pouch is in approximately the right position though the haversack being incorrectly placed just below it makes it difficult to reach.

It would be reasonable to surmise that neither the mannequin nor the curator or individual who kitted out this mannequin was ever dressed down by a sergeant major or any kind of sergeant for being a "slovenly soldier" because their kit was all a scramble. It is not impossible that the individual was using an original image of an actual Civil War Union soldier as a reference aid when placing the equipment on the mannequin. If this is the case, the individual was either unaware or had forgotten that in some forms of photographs or images from this period, the image is in fact a mirror image of the original subject, i.e., backward or reversed so that the real person's right side is on the leftside of the image. The sad result is that the exhibition misinforms the public and leads knowledgable visitors to conclude that the museum is ignorant on this subject and reluctant to admit that fact.

Military Art and the Art of War: Can We Get Art Historians to Study Military History?

One of my favorite past-times at home or on the road is to visit art galleries in search of artwork that might offer some insights about war, warfare, and its practioners. However, I have learned that these excursions also present the risk of coming within earshot of art museum docents, guides, and experts as they explain the military scenes and subjects depicted, all too often exposing gaps in their knowledge of military history, war, and warfare.

One my first such experiences was at the National Gallery of Art exhibition Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art. This exhibit brought together a small selection of works tracing the career of this American artist, including some of his Civil War drawings and paintings. Of particular interest to me was “Home Sweet Home”, depicting two Union Army soldiers in a moment or relaxation in camp. Also in this exhibit was “The Sharpshooter on Picket Duty”. This image first appeared as an engraving in Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862. It depicts a Union Army sharpshooter in a tree drawing a bead on a long-range target, a scene captured during McClellan’s Peninsular campaign which sought but failed to capture the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia.

As I was studying the two paintings, a National Gallery guide led a group of visitors into the small gallery. The guide presented a general and not inaccurate description of the two paintings, though he skipped over a number of details that I had found particularly interesting and was clearly not as immersed in the Civil War. He was apparently unaware that the sharpshooter in the painting was an image from the Peninsular campaign and insisted on linking it to the later Battle of Antietam fought in western Maryland, apparently not knowing that Winslow Homer was actually present during the former campaign. As for the campfire scene in the first-named painting, my examination of the canvas quickly convinced me that one of the soldiers had placed his tin cup on the fire to make himself a cup of coffee – something I had myself done as a Civil War Reenactor and Living Historian. I also knew from my study and from my reenacting experience that the Union Army (and most modern reenactors) almost literally ran on coffee.

As the guide continued to examine “Home Sweet Home,” he referred to the tin cup on the fire as a small pot and declared that the soldiers were making stew. At this point I was unable to restrain myself and said loudly enough to be heard by the guide and the small group of visitors that actually the soldier was making himself some coffee in his tin cup. The guide ignored my comment even when I repeated it more briefly, refusing to even acknowledging my existence. I listened a little longer to his discussion of the paintings before leaving the room unacknowledged and apparently unheard, though I surrendered enough to impulse to tell one of the museum guards that “this fellow may know art but he knows next to nothing about the Civil War.”

The National Gallery’s web site presents this painting for online viewing (link above) with a zoom feature that allows the viewer to enlarge details of the image for closer examination. Using this feature I have found that you can actually make out the curve of the top of the handle of the tin cup just above the rim at the back of the cup as it sits on the fire. You can take advantage of this capability to conduct your own examination of the image and draw your own conclusion. I should add, however, that in the catalog for the 1988 San Francisco exhibition Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War there are citations from a number of critics’ comments upon “Home Sweet Home” dating from its first public showing in 1863. Among these, T.B. Aldrich wrote in The New York Illustrated News (16 May 1863) that this work:

“…shows a Federal camp at supper time. The band in the distance is playing ‘Home Sweet Home’ in the immediate foreground are two of the boys, one warming the coffee at the camp fire, and the other dreamily watching the operation….”

More recently I found myself in similar circumstances at the Seattle Arts Museum where I went to see the traveling exhibit Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery. This is a great exhibit of selected works from the Yale University collections that have been put on the road instead of into storage while their permanent home is undergoing renovations. The exhibition included two works of particular interest: “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill,” painted by John Trumbull, and a photograph of unfinished pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, taken during the American Civil War. Examining the placard describing the photograph of the pontoon bridges I found that it referred to the “unsuccessful siege of Fredericksburg,” described as unsuccessful because the bridges were never completed – according to the caption writer. Unfortunately for the Union troops involved, the “siege” actually did succeed as the bridges were completed, the Army of the Potomac crossed the river, and on December 13, 1862, engaged the Confederates entrenched on the heights beyond the town of Fredericksburg. The Civil War Preservation Trust website hosts an excellent presentation on the campaign and battle that goes into detail both on the bridges and the resulting battle.

As disappointing as I found the erroneous caption, it wasn’t until I returned to examine the photo again that I had another of those encounters with a guide. A Seattle Art museum guide was discussing John Trumbull’s painting “The Death of General Warren” (aka “The Battle of Bunker’s Hill”) depicting the battle fought on Breed’s and Bunker’s Hills in Charlestown opposite the city of Boston on 17 June 1775. At the approximate center of the canvas, the American patriot General Warren is lying in the arms of a comrade who is pushing away the bayonet of a British soldier attempting to thrust it into the dying American’s body. That soldier is also restrained by a British officer, Colonel John Small, who reportedly recognized the prominent American rebel and actually called out to him to surrender to avoid being killed in the final moments of the battle.

The guide attributed the British colonel’s act of restraint to a sense of community and kinship between the British and the American colonials. However, other accounts of the battle make it clear that such a sense of kinship was not universally shared among the British. As the leader of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, Warren was a recognized leader among American patriots and his death was welcomed by many British officers. General Gage is reported to have said Warren’s death alone was worth the death of 500 other rebels. Another British officer, Captain Lane, who had been engaged in the running battle between Concord and Lexington and Boston before participating in the repeated assaults on the American positions, boasted that he had happily buried Warren in an unmarked common grave and hoped that he would never be found and identified. Finally, while elaborating on this point, the guide never chose to mention that the artist John Trumbull actually painted this work while in London, England a few years after the revolution and while studying there under the British artist Benjamin West – known for his own dramatic portrayals of British Army victories – a fact that can reasonably be concluded to have had some influence on how John Trumbull chose to portray the British Army on his own canvas.

These experiences have not totally dampened my enjoyment of these military scouting trips in the world of the fine arts. Just recently I toured a now closed National Gallery of Art exhibition – Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age – which brought together a collection of 17th century Dutch works focused upon the cities and urban scenes of the then newly independent United Provinces. These presented great views of the extensive fortifications that protected many of these cities from the forces of Spain during their independence struggle. There were also several canvases that presented the Dutch soldiers and militia in full regalia and kit, offering excellent information regarding their armaments, uniforms (such as they were), and even their level of drill and military training. But the sum total of my experience in such excursions is to tread warily when an art expert or even art historian describes for you the details of military history, war, warfare, etc. based upon the art work presented by that expert. Try doing some research of your own or find a military historian or expert on the war or period presented and compare the museum works to what these experts can tell you about the relevant military art.

Note: For the works of Winslow Homer, I have found two especially good sources: Winslow Homer, Paintings of the Civil War, by Marc Simpson with contributions by others, published by The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the publishers Beford Arts, to accompany the 1988 exhibit of the same name (ISBN 0-88401-060-0 paper/ISBN 0-938491-15-6 cloth). For his engravings, I have The Wood Engravings of Winslow Homer, edited by Barbara Gelman, published in 1969 by Crown Publishers (LoC 73-75096).

Which is the mightiest - pen, sword, or gospel?

The study of history offers many rewards, but sometimes it’s the unexpected discoveries that are the most interesting – the individual stories that are often overshadowed by the grand scale of events as we look back. It is also sometimes surprising to see how individuals in the past lived within a different frame of reference or with different expectations, for example, of how a journalist or a military chaplain should behave.

I recently began researching the story of Arthur B. Fuller, whose name appears on the Freedom Forum’s Journalists Memorial at the Newseum (Museum of News) in Washington, DC, as a special correspondent for The Boston Journal killed during the Battle of Fredericksburg. He is one of eight journalists reportedly killed or reported to have died while covering the war for newspapers in the south or the north. Finding his name associated with both the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Boston Journal was a surprise because I have spent much of my time researching both the battle and another Boston Journal correspondent, Charles Carleton Coffin, and yet I did not remember reading about the death of any of fellow journalist. Fortunately, in world of the Internet, I was able to quickly confirm that an Arthur B. Fuller had been a special correspondent during the war and was killed at Fredericksburg, but the story still offered some surprises.

Arthur Buckminster Fuller was born on August 10, 1822 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Timothy Fuller, was elected to Congress from 1817 to 1825, where he served as Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. Congressman Fuller was described as frank and vigorous, a defender of the Seminole Indians against the federal authorities, and an opponent of the Missouri Compromise. Despite financial obstacles following the death of his father in 1835, Arthur was able to attend Harvard College and graduated in 1843. He then used his remaining few hundred dollars to purchase a small academy in Belvidere, Illinois and embarked upon teaching as a full time career. However, during the following two years, Fuller found his interest and energies increasingly drawn to the Sunday school he taught there and his related preaching. As a result, he returned to Harvard’s Divinity School from which he graduated in 1847.

The new Unitarian minister proceeded to pursue his religious vocation over the following years, filling several pulpits in succession and acting as chaplain for the branches of the state legislature. At the same time he served as editor of his sister Margaret’s writings preparing them for successful publication. He also acted upon his interest in education, serving on various school boards, and was active in support of anti-slavery reforms. These endeavors came to an end with the secession of the southern states and the expected onset of a war between North and South.

Reverend Arthur B. Fuller became the Chaplain of the newly raised 16th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers on August 1, 1861, a regiment primarily representative of his own Middlesex County. The regiment left Boston on August 17, 1861. While on service, Reverend Fuller was ever attentive to his men, holding weekly Sunday School classes and services as well twice-daily prayer meetings during the rest of the week in his “chapel-tent.” He distributed Bibles, religious volumes, and songbooks that included both religious and patriotic musical selections through the regiment. As did many chaplains throughout the Union Army, Reverend Fuller offered educational classes to the soldiers. Consistent with his religious views, he formed a Division of the Sons of Temperance within the regiment, bringing together more than one hundred officers and men who would continue to hold weekly meetings. Finally, following a tradition already more than a hundred years old in Europe and now the United States, Reverend Fuller regularly reported by letter to various newspapers on the events of the war. His letters were featured in a number of newspapers including the Boston Journal, Boston Traveller, New York Tribune, and Christian Inquirer. His most famous report was a graphic account of the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack).

Unfortunately, upon his enlistment Arthur Fuller was already almost 40 years old and he found that even for chaplain, army service was a young man’s work. His health soon began to fail him and he was several times forced to remain behind as his regiment went to the field. On December 10, 1862, he received an honorable discharge from this service with a surgeon’s certificate of disability, and with the promise of a commission as chaplain for a hospital or stationary camp. However, on the day following his discharge, December 11, while he was still with the army, the call came around for volunteers to cross the Rappahannock River and drive off the Confederate sharpshooters who were preventing Union army engineers from completing their bridge across the river to Fredericksburg. Despite having been discharged the day before and his lack of training as a soldier, Arthur Fuller stepped forward and armed himself with a borrowed musket and accoutrements.

We have an eyewitness account of what happened in the town from Captain Moncena Dunn of the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers who commanded some 25 volunteers out of the force that crossed the river, including Chaplain Fuller. While not previously acquainted, Captain Dunn recorded that he had heard of Chaplain Fuller’s work in the 16th Regiment and had hoped to meet him. However, their first acquaintance would come in the streets of Fredericksburg, at Carolina Street at about half past three in the afternoon as Captain Dunn commanded his line of skirmishers. It was at this point that Chaplain Fuller approached, saluted, and said to him, “Captain, I must do something for my country. What shall I do?” Captain Dunn replied that there was no time like the present and that he should take his place on the captain’s left. He described Reverend Fuller as being “perfectly cool and collected” and anticipated that he anticipated good service from the chaplain.

The Captain’s account went on, “His position was directly in front of a grocery store. He fell in five minutes after he took it, having fired once or twice. He was killed instantly, and did not move after he fell. I saw the flash of the rifle which did the deed. I think the Chaplain fell from the ball which entered the hip. He might not have been aware of the wound from the ball entering his arm, sometimes soldiers are not conscious of wounds in battle, or he may have been simultaneously hit by another rifle. We were in a very exposed position. Shortly before the Chaplain came up, one of General Burnside’s aids accosted me, expressing surprise, and saying, ‘What are you doing here, Captain?’ I replied that I had orders. He said that I must retire, if the Rebels pressed us too hard. In about half an hour I had definite orders to retire, and accordingly fell back, leaving the Chaplain and another man dead, and also a wounded man, who was unwilling to be moved. It is not usual, under such pressing circumstances, to attempt to remove the dead. In about an hour afterward, my regiment advanced in line with the Twentieth Massachusetts. They occupied the place where Chaplain Fuller fell; and they suffered very severely, it being much exposed. The Chaplain’s body we found had been robbed, and the wounded man bayoneted by the Rebel Vandals, while the ground was left to them.”

Arthur B Fuller’s remains were sent home to Massachusetts at the earliest opportunity. Later in December 1862, private funeral services were held in his brother’s house in Boston, and then on December 24, a heavily attended and reported public funeral took place at the First Church, Chauncey Street, Boston. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge. The Massachusetts State Adjutant General would record his death as having taken place on December 12, 1862 in Fredericksburg, possibly reflecting the date of removal of his remains from the field. Later that same month, the United States Congress would vote a special bill to award Mrs. Fuller the pension otherwise denied her on the grounds of her late husbands' December 10 discharge.


"There is no conceivable human action which custom has not at one time justified and at another time condemned." -- Joseph Wood Krutch