Two brothers cut down in maelstrom at Fredericksburg

5th New Hampshire Lieutenant Samuel B. Little was mortally wounded at Fredericksburg.
(Library of Congress | Liljenquist Family Collection)

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For Samuel Brown Little, the youngest of the six brothers from Newbury, Mass., life proved difficult almost from the start. His father provided little, so the family became "wholly dependent for support upon the industry and energy of a most excellent mother." Poor Mrs. Little died when Samuel was only eight months old, leaving the brothers — and presumably their father — to rely on the "cold charity of the world."  Samuel somehow persevered.

Historical markers note the U.S. Army crossing
of Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Va.
This is view from Fredericksburg side.

At 10 years old, Little worked for a farmer; at 16, he painted houses. At 18,  Little went into business for himself as a painter in Brookline, Mass., before he moved to Claremont, N.H. There, in 1849, he married Mary Gould and began a partnership in the house painting business with his older brother, Joseph, until the war broke out in 1861.

On Sept. 27, 1861, Samuel enlisted in the 5th New Hampshire as a private, accepting a $10 state bounty, and later was appointed sergeant in Company G. A month earlier, his 38-year-old brother Moses, a shoemaker from West Newbury, Mass., had joined the 19th Massachusetts as a private.

At Bloody Lane at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, Samuel — who had been promoted to lieutenant in August for "bravery and meritorious conduct" during the Seven Days' battles — suffered a severe thigh wound. Sent to Claremont on a furlough to recuperate, Samuel ignored orders from his doctor and traveled south Dec. 8 to re-join the "Fighting Fifth" near Fredericksburg, where a long-expected battle loomed.

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Union engineers and soldiers under fire during the building of a pontoon bridge at
 Fredericksburg on Dec. 11, 1862.  It's unclear whether this sketch is of  the Upper Crossing. 
Visit the Mysteries & Conundrums blog for a detailed exploration.
(Alfred Waud/Library of Congress)

                           Upper Crossing from Falmouth side of Rappahannock River.
                     (CLICK AT UPPER RIGHT FOR FULL-SCREEN EXPERIENCE.)

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Hours before dawn on Dec. 11, 1862, Union engineers began building a pontoon bridge across the 250-yard-wide Rappahannock River for the crossing for thousands of Army of the Potomac soldiers. (Engineers also constructed pontoon bridges downriver at the Middle Crossing and two miles southeast of Fredericksburg.) 

A thick fog hovered, temporarily obscuring the bridge-builders, and the temperature dipped into the 20s. Across the Rappahannock in Fredericksburg, Confederate soldiers from Florida and Mississippi kept a watchful eye.

The bridge-builders' task became dangerous.

"We remained undisturbed until the morning of December 11 when we were ordered to the banks of the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg," a 19th Massachusetts soldier recalled. "Here we found a pontoon bridge partially laid, and the engineers doing their best to complete it. Our batteries were posted on the hills in rear of our line, and were vigorously shelling the city, but the rebel sharpshooters were posted in cellars and rifle pits on the other side and would pick off the engineers as fast as they showed themselves at work."

Colonel Edward Cross (above)
 tried to talk Samuel Little out
of fighting at Fredericksburg,
according to one account.

Among the casualties was Moses Little, a married father of two young children, who was shot and killed as he aided the bridge builders. A day earlier, his youngest child, Carrie, had turned 2.

It's unknown when the news of his brother's death reached Samuel, who, according to one account, arrived in Fredericksburg an hour before the battle began on Dec. 13, 1862. "...Colonel Edward E. Cross and other officers seeing the feeble state Lieut Little was in tried to dissuade him from going into the battle," a history of Claremont noted,  "but he persisted."

After 5th New Hampshire Captain Jacob W. Keller of Claremont suffered a severe wound during one of the futile charges on Marye's Heights beyond town, Little — still weak from his Antietam wound — took command of his company. In the bloody chaos, Samuel was shot in the left calf and shoulder — one of 186 casualties among 249 in the regiment.

 "The Boys look down hearted enough, I tell you," a 5th New Hampshire soldier wrote to his mother in Claremont days after the battle. "I wish they would let us come home now there is so few of us. Lieut. [Samuel B.] Little was all cut up — hit in 3 places."

The bullet that struck Little in the shoulder could not be removed by surgeons, and he died on Christmas Eve at the Lacy House, across the river in Falmouth, Va. **

Days later, hundreds gathered in the Claremont town hall for a funeral service for Samuel, whose remains had been returned home, surely a comfort to his wife, Mary. Shortly after the war began,  enthusiastic supporters of the Union cause had packed the hall for a rally.

"Claremont," a town historian later wrote, "was all on fire to do her share toward putting down the Rebellion."

Little's friend, Reverend Carlos Marston,  delivered a "most appropriate and impressive sermon" at the funeral service. 

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth," he preached, quoting from the 14th chapter and 13th verse of Revelations. "Yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them."

After the service, pallbearers transported Samuel's body to nearby Pleasant Street Cemetery and laid him to rest. A marker for Moses stands in Greenwood Cemetery in Haverhill, Mass.

Lacy House, also known as Chatham Manor, where Lieutenant Samuel Little died
on Dec. 24, 1862. (Timothy O'Sullivan/Library of Congress collection)

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NOTES AND SOURCES

** Some accounts note Samuel Little died on Dec. 23, 1862.

• Moses Little widow's pension records, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.
• Samuel Little's widow's pension records, NARS.
• History of the Nineteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1865, The Salem Press Co., Salem, Mass., 1906.
• Waite, Otis F.R., History of the Town of Claremont, N.H., for a Period of One Hundred and Thirty Years, John B. Clarke Co., Manchester, N.H., 1895.
• Waite, Otis F.R., Claremont, War History, April, 1861 to April, 1865, McFarland & Jenls Printers, Concord, N.H., 1868.