"Why, soldiers, why,
Should we be melancholy,
Whose business 'tis to die?"

Whether induced in his case by an effort to bolster up the courage of
his comrades or not, the sentiment has at all times been largely
practised upon in the army of the Potomac.

CHAPTER XVI.

_The Battle of Fredericksburg--Screwing Courage up to the Sticking
Point--Consolations of a Flask--Pigeon-hole Nervousness--Abandonment of
Knapsacks--Incidents before, during, and after the Fight._

In this wintry weather, striking tents meant stripping the log huts of
the bits of canvas that ordinarily served as the shelter-tents of the
soldiers. The long rows of huts thus dismantled,--soldiers at rest in
ranks, with full knapsacks and haversacks,--groups of horses saddled and
bridled, ready for the rider,--on one of these clear, cold December
mornings, indicated that the army was again upon the move. Civilians had
been sent back freighted with letters from those soon to see the serious
struggle of the field; the sick had been gathered to hospitals nearer
home; the musicians had reported to the surgeons, and the men were left,
to the sharp notes of sixty rounds of ball cartridge carried in their
boxes and knapsacks,--in the plight of the Massachusetts regiment that
marched through the mobs of Baltimore, to the music of the
cartridge-box, in the first April of the Rebellion.

The time intervening between the removal of McClellan and the battle of
Fredericksburg, was a period of uneasy suspense to the nation at large
and its representatives in the field. Dear as the devoted patriotism,
the earnest conduct of the Rhode Island Colonel--the hero of the
Carolinas and now the leader of the Grand Army of the Potomac--were to
the patriotic masses of the nation, the fact of his being an untried
man, gave room for gloom and foreboding. With the army at large, the
suspense was accompanied by no lack of confidence. The devotion of the
Ninth Army Corps for its old commander appeared to have spread
throughout the army; and his open, manly countenance, bald head, and
unmistakable whiskers, were always greeted with rounds for "Burny." The
jealousy of a few ambitious wearers of stars may have been ill concealed
upon that morning, only to be disclosed shortly to his detriment; but
the earnest citizen-soldiery were eager, under his guidance, to do
battle for their country. Time has shown, how much of the misfortune of
the subsequent week wa