Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old TownGoolrick, John T. (John Tackett)
History
Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town
Goolrick, John T. (John Tackett)
Fredericksburg (Va.) -- History
The total Union loss in the whole battle of Fredericksburg was 12,664 and
the Confederates' loss 5,377.
General J. R. Cook, of the Confederate Army, was killed almost at the spot
where Cobb fell. General C. F. Jackson and General Bayard, of the Union
Army, were killed, the latter dying in the Bernard House, "Mansfield,"
where Franklin had his headquarters.
[Sidenote: _The Death of General Cobb_]
General T. R. R. Cobb, the gallant commander of the Georgians, fell
mortally wounded at the stone wall, and tradition has said that he was
killed by a shell fired from the lawn of his mother's home, a dramatic
story that is refuted by evidence that he was killed by a sharpshooter in
a house at the left and in front of the "Sunken Road."
But the brilliant Georgian, who aided in formulating the Confederate
Constitution, was killed within sight of the house, where, more than forty
years before, the elder Cobb met, and in which he married, she who was to
be the General's mother. Journeying late in 1819 North to attend Congress,
Senator John Forsythe, who was born in Fredericksburg, and Senator Cobb,
Sr., were guests of Thomas R. Rootes, Esq., at Federal Hill, a great house
that sits at the edge of the town, overlooking the little valley and
Marye's Heights, and there began a romance that led to marriage of Miss
Rootes and Senator Cobb, in the mansion, in 1820. From the spot where he
stood when he died, had not the smoke of a terrific battle screened it,
their son, the Georgian General, could have clearly seen the windows of
the room in which his parents were married.
General Cobb died in the yard of a small house, just at the edge of the
"Sunken Road," ministered to in his last moments, as was many another man
who drank the last bitter cup that day, by an angel of mercy and a woman
of dauntless courage, Mrs. Martha Stevens.
Her house was in the center of the fire, yet she refused to leave it, and
there between the lines, with the charges rolling up to her yard fence and
tons of lead shrieking about her, Mrs. Stevens stayed all day, giving the
wounded drink, and bandaging their wounds until every sheet and piece of
clothing in the house had been used to bind a soldier's hurts. At times
the fire of Northern troops was concentrated on her house so that General
Lee, frowning, turned to those about him and said: "I wish those people
would let Mrs. Stevens alone."
Nothing in the war was finer than the spirit of this woman, who stayed
between the lines in and about her house, through the planks of which now
and then a bullet splintered its way, miraculously living in a hail of
missiles where, it seemed, nothing else could live.
[Sidenote: _Lee Spares Old "Chatham"_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account