‘FORGED IN FIRE’

‘KNOW THIS, IF I FALL IT SHALL BE IN DEFENSE OF OUR BELOVED CONSTITUTION.’
-MAJ. JACOB BABBITT

Just past noon on December 13, 1862, the 7th Rhode Island Infantry stepped off as part of the disastrous Union assault against the well-entrenched Confederate forces on Marye’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg. By the end of that bloody day, which cost Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac more than 13,000 casualties, 49 members of the 7th Rhode Island had been killed and 150 were wounded or missing. That appalling 40 percent casualty rate proved a costly initiation to Civil War combat for the green regiment. But rather than destroying the 7th, the battle strengthened it and produced a tough, disciplined combat unit that went on to serve resolutely during the 1863 Mississippi Campaign and the 1864-65 Overland Campaign.

Orders to recruit the unit that became the 7th Rhode Island were issued by Governor William Sprague on May 22, 1862. Serious recruiting did not begin, however, until after President Abraham Lincoln’s July call for 300,000 additional volunteers. Spurred on by promises of bounties averaging $400 (worth nearly $10,000 today), men flocked to sign up. Those who joined the 7th were largely farmers and mill workers, native-born men hailing primarily from the Ocean State’s rural regions.

Regular Army Captain Zenas Randall Bliss was commissioned by Sprague as the regiment’s commander. An 1854 West Point graduate, Bliss had served on the Texas frontier, where he was captured in 1861 when the state’s U.S. forces capitulated to Confederate authorities. Released in 1862, he returned home to command the 10th Rhode Island for three months, followed by his permanent assignment to lead the 7th.

Leaving Rhode Island on September 10, 1862, the 7th spent several weeks drilling in Washington, D.C., then was assigned to the 1st Brigade in the 9th