The Day the Stars Wept The majority of fighting at Fredericksburg had ground to a halt as the sun slipped below the horizon on Dec. 13, 1862. Ghastly piles of dead men and horses were scattered in the fields, and the woods were littered with abandoned equipment and debris. Sporadic gunfire continued as exhausted survivors on both sides ventured out into the war-blasted landscape to rescue wounded comrades. In one sector of the battlefield, the men of the Fourth Vermont Infantry had endured a day of intense enemy artillery and infantry fire. The regiment suffered more than 50 casualties, including 18 killed and wounded when a spray of lead balls from single Confederate canister shot tore into one company. The Vermonters occupied a skirmish line in the twilight. George Washington Quimby, the 27-year-old acting major of the regiment, stood conspicuously among the men. A peacetime high school principal, he cautioned his boys to "keep low to avoid danger" while random shots whizzed through the air. They obeyed the command and sat or lay down. On the Confederate side, a soldier leveled his musket and squeezed the trigger. Hammer struck percussion cap and caused a spark that ignited gunpowder and propelled a conical shaped Minié bullet down the muzzle. Quimby never saw it coming. Exactly three years earlier, Quimby was stranded in the Deep South. Fresh out of Dartmouth and eager to change the world, he planned to dedicate his life to education. On Dec. 13, 1859, he wrote to a friend from Mobile, Ala., "I came here expecting to teach in Georgia, but it being a little after that, the Harper's Ferry affair, some of the Trustees of the school would have nothing to do with a Northerner, and so I was shafted, and it is just impossible to secure a school here right now." He added: "It is not safe for a Northerner to go into small places. And they are as likely to have Vigilante Commissions in nearly all such places. And they are as likely to drive a man from the place without a word as any other way. The backlash from John Brown's failed raid at Harper's Ferry contributed to Quimby's decision to return to his family in Lyndon, nestled in the northeastern corner of Vermont. He got a job as principal of the high school in nearby Barton. He set his sights on becoming an attorney, and so during his off hours began to study law. Then the war came. Quimby watched as friends and fellow townsmen enlisted during the heady weeks following the bombardment of Fort Sumter. The decision to go or not to go weighed heavily on him as he carefully contemplated the subject of duty and country. His older sister, Emeline, offered an opinion: "I urged him to wait until he should be drafted. His reply was, I will never go as a drafted man. I must give me life voluntarily or not at all. Quimby joined the Fourth in July 1861 as first lieutenant in Company D. His captain resigned in March 1862, and Quimby took his place. That spring and summer he led the company in several engagements during the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia. His mother wrote with pride: "Here he exhibited the courage of a true soldier and for his coolness and bravery in the hour of fearful danger he was recommended for promotion as Major." Quimby wondered, as did many soldiers, whether he would survive the war. In a letter to his mother written shortly before Fredericksburg he stated, "If I never come back to greet you on earth again, trust all to a kind Providence, and remember that I died at my post." Yet on the day of the battle these thoughts appeared to be far from top of mind. He reportedly marched into action in a cheerful state and again distinguished himself in action. "He fought with iron courage where the leaden hail had been terrific through the day," recalled the regimental chaplain, John L. Roberts. The Confederate Minié bullet pierced his neck as he gave commands to his men on the skirmish line. It severed the jugular vein and caused an immediate and massive loss of blood that poured from the wound and saturated his uniform coat. Quimby's second lieutenant, Charles C. Kinsman, reported, "I was sitting beside him also the 1st Sergt - and we caught him before he fell to the ground - he never spoke and I think from the time he was struck never realized anything." According to one newspaper account, "He fell into the arms of his comrade and died instantly." Kinsman added, "As soon as I could get some men I had his body conveyed to the Hospital." Chaplain Roberts took charge of the remains and arranged to send them home. The next day, he obtained a permit to transport the body to Washington. "Just as I had succeeded in getting a permit," Roberts remembered, "word came to the place where our sick and wounded were, that the hospital must be cleared at once as we were under fire of the enemy." A detail of soldiers hastily buried the body to keep it out of the hands of the rebels. Roberts evacuated with others across the Rappahannock River. As soon as he learned that the hospital was safe, "I immediately sent across the River for an Ambulance, had the body disinterred, and by 3 of the o clock it was on its way to Washington." In the federal capital, an embalmer removed Quimby's mud-caked and blood-soaked uniform, scrubbed the grime and dirt from the body, and pumped it full of chemicals. The body was packed in a box and loaded on to a train for the journey to Vermont. Meanwhile, news of Quimby's death made its way north by telegraph and through messengers. Shaken family members and friends gathered in Lyndon a few days before Christmas to await the arrival of the remains. We ascertained that his body was aboard the cars. How mournful it seemed to us!" noted Quimby's older brother, Moses, in his journal. We arrived at fathers, about seven in the evening, and what a solemn meeting it was! How we wept for our dear friend layed low by the hound of treason! How grateful we felt to have the body, and enjoy the sad privilege of looking upon that ever pleasant and manly countenance, now cold in death. Capt. George Washington Quimby is no more. Moses Quimby described the funeral, which was held on Christmas Eve day "at the Free Will Baptist house where large numbers met to weep with those who weep, and pay their last respects at departed worth. Our national flag, with its stars and stripes, hung over the pulpit and on the opposite walls, cold in mourning, with its stars weeping over the lifeless remains of the brave man laid low in death by rebellion, while appropriate mottoes, 'Lyndon - weeps for her son' and 'Barton mourns a friend and officer' adorning two beautiful flags, one at each end of the coffin, told how highly the deceased was esteemed. Back in Virginia, Quimby's comrades grieved over the loss of a beloved officer. Kinsman wrote to Quimby's sister Emeline, "I can fully sympathize with you all in your affliction as I had come to look upon him more like a Brother than anything else. And I truly mourn for him as a friend forever lost to me. In 1886, a group of veterans established a post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Barton in his name. Some of Quimby's personal effects are still on display in the legion hall. Kinsman left the Army a few months later due to disease. The Fourth Vermont Infantry fought through the rest of the war and suffered heavy losses in 1864 in the Wilderness and during the Siege of Petersburg. William F. Fox, in his treatise "Regimental Losses in the American Civil War," lauded the Fourth as one of the "Three Hundred Fighting Regiments" in the Union Army, in recognition of its high casualty rate. Sources: William F. Fox, "Regimental Losses in the American Civil War"; George G. Benedict, "Vermont in the Civil War," Vol. 1; George W. Quimby to Henry B. Atherton, Dec. 13, 1859, "The Family Letters of Henry Bridge Atherton, Cavendish, Vermont from 1840-1920," typescribed and edited by Linda M. F. Welch, Cavendish Historical Society, Cavendish, Vermont; Delia Quimby to Mr. Servis, undated, George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont; Emeline Q. Masta to George W. Quimby Post, Grand Army of the Republic, Sept. 28, 1886, George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont; George W. Quimby military service record, National Archives and Records Service, Washington; Second Lt. Charles Kinsman to Thomas Quimby, Dec. 20, 1862; George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont; The Dartmouth, May 21, 1886; The Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, Vermont), Jan. 2, 1863; 2nd Lt. Charles Kinsman to Emeline Q. Masta, Jan. 4, 1863; George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont; Chaplain John L. Roberts to Rev. Moses A. Quimby, January 1, 1863, George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont; Rev. Moses A. Quimby diary, Jan. 21, 1863, Moses Quimby Collection, The New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, N.H.; "Resolutions in memory of Capt. George W. Quimby presented by Company D, Fourth Vermont Infantry, Jan. 1, 1863," George W. Quimby Papers, Special Collections, University of Vermont. Ronald S. Coddington is the author of "Faces of the Civil War" and "Faces of the Confederacy." His new book, "African American Faces of the Civil War," was published in August. He writes "Faces of War," a column for the Civil War News.