The Angel of Marye’s Heights

This installment of ‘When Character Counted’ features a soldier who risked death to bring water to his wounded enemies.

A monument to Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland stands in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park where he brought water to Union soldiers. Something Original/CC BY-SA 3.0

The dates: Dec. 13 and 14, 1862. The place: Fredericksburg, Virginia.

On Marye’s Heights outside the town, Confederate soldiers had crowded into a sunken road buttressed by a stone wall, ready to unleash hell on any Union troops charging over the open ground before them. On the hill above these men were the cannons and caissons commanded by Lt. Col. Edward Alexander Porter. While reviewing his placement of artillery with his commander, Gen. James Longstreet, Porter declared, “General, we cover that ground now so well that we will comb it as with a fine-toothed comb. A chicken could not live on that field when we open on it.”

By nightfall, some 8,000 dead and wounded Union soldiers attested to the accuracy of Porter’s prediction. Wave after wave of brave men in blue had attempted to cross 400 yards of the open incline while being blasted by rifled muskets and cannon. Trapped on the battlefield, some of the attackers built protective barriers from the bodies of their dead comrades.

Nightmare in the Darkness

Nightfall brought the opportunity for escape. The walking wounded and the men hidden among the dead and dying slipped away to safety. A valiant band of stretcher bearers managed to rescue  injured soldiers shot closer to Union lines.

Meanwhile, the wounded soldiers farther up the slope filled the night with shrieks and moans, begging for help, for water, and even for a quick death. In the Sunken Road, the Confederates would have heard this chorus of cries, some undoubtedly with pity, others with grim satisfaction. The long night reinforced a remark made by their commander, Robert E. Lee. While watching the devastation of Marye’s Heights he remarked, “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”

Men on both sides who endured that night would doubtless have agreed. The next morning, one of them decided to do something about it.

Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland, 'Angel of Marye's Heights,' died at the Battle of Chickamauga. Public Domain

The Birth of an Angel

Sgt. Richard Kirkland (1841–1863) of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers was just 19, the son of a yeoman farmer. He joined a volunteer outfit before the outbreak of war and became an experienced soldier, having seen action at Bull Run, the Peninsular Campaign, and Antietam. Like the other men around him, he’d fired away at the attacking Union soldiers as they tried fruitlessly to gain the Confederate lines.

Having listened to the cries of the Union wounded through the night and into the morning, Kirkland approached his superior officers and asked permission to take them canteens of water. Depending on which account we credit, his request was twice refused before he finally went to brigade headquarters in a house behind the Sunken Road and sought permission from Gen. Joseph Kershaw. Years later, Kershaw remembered telling the young soldier, “Kirkland, don’t you know that you would get a bullet through your head the moment you stepped over the wall?” Kirkland acknowledged that possibility, then repeated his request. The general relented.

According to Kershaw’s account, Kirkland left, then returned almost immediately to ask if he might carry a white handkerchief when he crossed into the open field, but Kershaw was not authorized to show a flag of truce to the enemy and had to deny the request.

Kirkland was undeterred. He went to a well near the headquarters house, filled his canteen with water, returned to the Sunken Road, stepped through a breech in the stone wall, and exposed himself to the enemy.

In December 1862, the Union army attacked Fredericksburg, Va. Public Domain

The Controversy

Though his bold appearance must have astonished the soldiers on the opposite side of the field, no one fired at him. Some witnesses, in fact, later attested that the Union troops cheered Kirkland as they grasped his act of mercy. At least one report tells of another Confederate soldier running more canteens to Kirkland and helping him give water to the wounded.

Some investigators have recently raised doubts as to whether this act of compassion took place. They wonder if the passage of years may have embellished the “Angel” story. However, the bulk of the evidence demonstrates that a soldier in gray did indeed deliver water to the thirsty casualties in blue, and that this man was Richard Kirkland.

The poet Walt Whitman, who was then working as a nurse in a Washington hospital, wrote that several wounded soldiers in his care spoke of Confederates giving water to the wounded. Others from Kirkland’s outfit later told of his brave deed of mercy.

Historian Mac Wyckoff spent years studying the battle. After thoroughly investigated firsthand evidence concerning the story of Richard Kirkland, he concluded that while some details in past accounts were wrong, the overall narrative was right on target. Richard Kirkland deserved his title as the “Angel of Marye’s Heights.”

A monument to Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland stands in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park where he brought water to Union soldiers. Something Original/CC BY-SA 3.0

Aftermath

Near the Sunken Road stands a monument to Kirkland, which reads in part: “At the risk of his life, this American soldier of sublime compassion brought water to his wounded foes at Fredericksburg. The fighting men on both sides of the line called him “The Angel of Marye’s Heights.” The east face of the monument reads “Dedicated to national unity and the brotherhood of man.”

As for Kirkland, he fought at the battle of Gettysburg and then at Chickamauga in September 1863, where he was shot and mortally wounded. He urged the other soldiers with him to make their escape from the charging Yankees: “I am done for. You can do me no good. Save yourselves and please tell my pa I died right.”

On that December day in Fredericksburg, Richard Kirkland also lived right.

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