#OTD in 1862, #Confederate soldiers repulsed a massive #Union assault on the second day of the #Battle of #Fredericksburg. Wave after wave of Union soldiers were mowed down during a full frontal assault against Confederate troops positioned at Marye’s Heights. Image
After the Battle of #Antietam a few months earlier, General #McClellan allowed Lee's Army to retreat back to #Virginia to fight another day. #President #Lincoln then relieved McClellan of command and replace him with General Ambrose #Burnside. Image
Burnside quickly planned a fall offensive to move on #Richmond. However, the Union Army's operation faced logistical setbacks, allowing Lee to settle in at Fredericksburg. Burnside chose to attack Lee head on, a decision that proved disastrous.
Engineers began constructing a pontoon bridge across the #Rappahannock on #December 11. Confederate resistance slowed Burnside's advance and most of his men did not cross until December 12. Burnside planned to attack the next morning. Image
The Confederates were well positioned on the high ground at Marye’s Heights. In order to take the Confederate position, Union soldiers had to charge uphill over open ground under heavy rifle and artillery fire. Image
The open ground between Fredericksburg and Marye’s Heights became known as the Slaughter Pen. Confederate artillery commander Lt. Col. Edward Porter Alexander predicted the carnage. He told General Longstreet "A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it."
Brigade after of brigade of Union soldiers were sent forward in an attempt to take the high ground but were cut down by the thousands. Burnside planned to lead another assault himself the next day but was eventually talked out of it. Image
Burnside retreated across the Rappahannock on December 15. His forces suffered 12,500 casualties while the Confederates lost 6,000 men. Approximately 5,000 Union soldiers fell at the Slaughter Pen alone.
After the battle Lincoln The Union defeat at Fredericksburg had a profound effect on Union and Confederate morale and sent the Lincoln administration reeling. Upon learning of the defeat, Lincoln wrote: "If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it."

#Onthisday #History

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More from @TheCivilWarDoc1

Dec 15
#OTD in 1864 Brig. Gen. Henry H. Lockwood wrote to his superiors about his concerns regarding Maryland's apprenticeship system, especially as it applied to newly emancipated children. Lockwood explained how former enslavers were exploiting the system to their own advantage. Image
#Slavery was abolished in #Maryland on November 1, 1864, when the state legislature adopted a new state constitution. The new constitution did not outlaw forced labor. Children of "unfit" parents could legally forced into apprenticeships that often times resembled slavery.
The children of newly emancipated people were overwhelmingly subject to forced apprenticeships, often times being forced to work for the people that formerly enslaved them and their parents. This development was concerning to General Lockwood.
Read 7 tweets
Dec 14
"Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.” Those words were spoken by #President #McKinley during a speech in #Atlanta #OTD in 1898 only four days after the end of the Spanish American War.
By 1898, the #LostCause narrative of the #CivilWar had made much headway in the minds of white Americans, North and South. The #JimCrow South was emerging by the late 19th century and was accompanied by a tidal wave of white supremacist terrorism.
McKinley's message of reunion was only meant for white Americans. Only a month earlier white terrorists violently overthrew #Wilmington, #NorthCarolina's biracial government, killing hundreds of Black Wilmingtonians in the process.

ncdcr.gov/1898-wilmingto…
Read 8 tweets
Nov 17
Prominent Black physician and abolitionist James McCune Smith passed away #OTD in 1865. Smith, who penned the introduction of Frederick Douglass' second autobiography My Bondage My Freedom (1855), was the first Black person to receive a medical degree in the United States.
Smith was born enslaved in 1813 in Manhattan and received a formal education as a child under New York's gradual emancipation laws. He was free at the age of 14 on July 4, 1827. He graduated from African Free School in NYC and enrolled at the University of Glasgow.
He received his medical degree in Glasgow in 1837 and moved back to New York to establish a medical practice. According to Bryan Greene of @SmithsonianMag, Smith also opened the first Black-owned pharmacy in the United States.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 16
William Breedlove, a free Black man and future member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1867, was convicted of harboring a fugitive enslaved man #OTD in 1863. Breedlove was pardoned in December, sparing him the punishment of being sold into slavery.
Breedlove was born free around 1820 in Virginia. His father, James Davis, was white and his mother, Polly Breedlove, was a free Black woman. William became a blacksmith and also captained a ferry that crossed the Rappahannock River
He was able to purchase real estate that in 1860 was valued at $1,500. On November 2, 1863, Breedlove and his ferry employee unknowingly transported a fugitive enslaved man across the Rappahannock.
Read 7 tweets
Sep 20
This photograph of Silas Chandler (right) and Andrew Chandler (left) has been used by Neo-Confederate groups to perpetuate the Black Confederate myth for decades. The following is a 🧵 about who Silas Chandler was and the truth behind this image.
Silas Chandler was born on January 1, 1837, in Virginia and was enslaved by Roy Chandler. When Roy Chandler received a land grant in Mississippi in 1839 he moved Silas and 38 other enslaved people to a new plantation in Palo Alto, near the town of West Point.
Silas was trained as a carpenter and married an enslaved woman named Lucy Gardner in 1860. He was then forced leave Lucy to join Roy Chandler's son, Andrew, after he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. The photograph is believed to have been taken around that time.
Read 18 tweets
Sep 19
#OTD in 1868, approx. 300 (mostly) Black Republicans embarked on a 25 mile march from Albany, Georgia, to the town of Camilla. They were protesting the expulsion of 33 Black state congressmen (known as the Original 33). Armed white Democrats were waiting for them in Camilla.
The white mob was incensed by Georgia's new state constitution that was ratified in April of 1868. The new constitution granted Black men the right to vote and hold political office.
Many of the marchers were armed as well. When they reached Camilla the local sheriff, Mumford S. Poore, ordered them to put down their guns or face the wrath of the white mob. The marchers refused to back down and continued to the courthouse lawn to hold a political rally.
Read 6 tweets

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