of raillery from both officers
and men.

When I joined the regiment it was lying in front of the Court-House,
from the steeple of which some sixty or seventy feet high, the flags of
our signal-corps were most actively wagging. It occurred to me that
those signal-men were mighty nervy fellows. They were a beautiful mark
for the rebel batteries, which were evidently doing their best to knock
them out. The steeple was a plain, old-fashioned affair, having an open
belfry, which seemed to be supported by four upright posts or timbers. I
saw one of those uprights knocked out by a rebel shell. A couple more
equally good shots and our signal-fellows would come ignominiously--no,
gloriously--down, for there could be no ignominy with such pluck. But
the wig-wagging went on, I fancied, with a little more snap and audacity
than before, and they maintained their station there in the very teeth
of the rebel batteries until the army was withdrawn. So much for "Yankee
nerve." I afterwards learned that the signal-officer there was none
other than Lieutenant Frederick Fuller, of Scranton, one of my most
intimate personal friends. Lieutenant Fuller told me that he was on duty
at Burnside's head-quarters on that morning; that a station was ordered
opened in the belfry of that Court-House, and another officer was
despatched thither for that duty; that after waiting some time for the
flags to appear he was ordered over to see what the trouble was. He
found the other officer sitting under shelter, afraid to mount the
belfry, nor could any persuasion induce him to face that storm of shell.
Lieutenant Fuller thereupon climbed up into the belfry, opened the
station himself, and ran it during the whole battle.

About ten o'clock the command "Forward" was sounded, and our brigade
moved out towards Marye's Heights. Some idea of the topography of
Fredericksburg and its rear I find is necessary to an understanding of
what follows. Marye's Heights, which encircle the city back some five
hundred yards, are the termination of a plateau which rises from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in an abrupt terrace from the
plain upon which the city stands. These heights form a half-circle from
the river above to a point below the city some little distance from the
river, and are from a mile to a mile and a half long and are most
admirably adapted for defensive purposes. The rebel batteries, numbering
at least one hundred guns, were massed on these hei