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Maj. Gen. George B.
McClellan affected a smile as he read the fateful orders
from Washington. Turning toward his late night visitor, McClellan
spoke without revealing his bitter disappointment. "Well
Burnside, I turn the command over to you." With these words,
the charismatic, overcautious leader of the Union's most famous
fighting force exited the military stage, yielding to a new man
with a different vision of war.
Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside
inherited the Army of the Potomac on November 7, 1862. Its 120,000
men occupied camps near Warrenton, Virginia. Within two days,
the 38 year-old Indiana native proposed abandoning McClellan's
sluggish southwesterly advance in favor of a 40-mile dash across
country to Fredericksburg. Such a maneuver would position the
Federal army on the direct road to Richmond, the Confederate
capital, as well as ensure a secure supply line to Washington.
President Lincoln approved
Burnside's initiative but advised him to march quickly. Burnside
took the President at his word and launched his army toward Fredericksburg
on November 15. The bewhiskered commander (whose facial hair
inspired the term "sideburns") also streamlined the
army's organization by partitioning it into thirds that he styled
"grand divisions." The blue clad veterans covered the
miles at a brisk pace and on November 17 the lead units arrived
opposite Fredericksburg on Stafford Heights.
Burnside's swift march placed General
Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia at a perilous
disadvantage. After the Maryland Campaign, Lee had boldly divided
his 78,000 men, leaving Lt. Gen. Thomas
J. "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley
while sending Lt. Gen. James Longstreet
to face the Federals at Culpeper. Lee had not anticipated Burnside's
shift to Fredericksburg and now neither of his wings was in position
to defend the old city.
The Federals could not move South, however, without
first crossing the Rappahannock River, the largest of several
river barriers that flowed across his path to Richmond. Because
the civilian bridges had been destroyed earlier in the war, Burnside
directed that pontoon equipment meet him at Stafford Heights.
A combination of miscommunication, inefficient army bureaucracy,
and poor weather delayed the arrival of the floating bridges.
When the pontoons finally appeared on November 25, so had the
Army of Northern Virginia.
Burnside's strategy depended upon an unopposed crossing
of the Rappahannock. Consequently, his plan had failed before
a gun had been fired. Nevertheless, the country demanded action.
Winter weather would soon render Virginia's highways impassable
and end serious campaigning until spring. The Union commander
had no choice but to search for a new way to outwit Lee and satisfy
the public's desire for victory. This would not be an easy task.
Longstreet's corps appeared at Fredericksburg on November
19. Lee ordered it to occupy a range of hills behind the town,
reaching from the Rappahannock on its left to marshy Massaponax
Creek on its right. When Jackson's men arrived more than a week
later, Lee dispatched them as far as 20 miles down river from
Fredericksburg. The Confederate army thus guarded a long stretch
of the Rappahannock, unsure of where the Federals might attempt
a crossing. Burnside harbored the same uncertainties. After agonizing
deliberation, he finally decided to build bridges at three places
- two opposite the city and the other one a mile downstream.
The Union commander knew that Jackson's corps could not assist
Longstreet in resisting a river passage near town. Thus, Burnside's
superior numbers would encounter only half of Lee's legions.
Once across the river, the Federals would strike Longstreet's
overmatched defenders, outflank Jackson, and send the whole Confederate
army reeling toward Richmond.
Burnside's lieutenants, however, doubted the practicality
of their chiefs plan. "There were not two opinions among
the subordinate officers as to the rashness of the undertaking,
"wrote one corps commander. Nevertheless, in the foggy pre-dawn
hours of December 11, Union engineers crept to the riverbank
and began laying their pontoons. Skilled workmen from two New
York regiments completed a pair of bridges at the lower crossing
and pushed the upstream spans more than halfway to the fight
bank; then the sharp crack of musketry erupted from the river-front
houses and yards of Fredericksburg.
These shots came from a brigade of Mississippians
under William Barksdale. Their job was to delay any Federal attempt
to negotiate the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. Nine distinct
and desperate attempts were made to complete the bridge[s] reported
a Confederate officer, "but every one was attended by such
heavy loss that the efforts were abandoned.."
Burnside now turned to his artillery chief, Brig.
Gen. Henry J. Hunt, and ordered him to blast Fredericksburg into
submission with some 150 guns trained on the city from Stafford
Heights. Such a barrage would surely dislodge the Confederate
infantry and permit completion of the bridges. Shortly after
noon, Hunt gave the signal to commence fire. "Rapidly the
huge guns vomited forth their terrible shot and shell into every
corner and thoroughfare of [Fredericksburg]," remembered
an eyewitness.
The bombardment continued for nearly two hours, during
which 8,000 projectiles rained destruction on Fredericksburg.
Then the grand cannonade ceased and the engineers ventured warily
to the ends of their unfinished bridges. Suddenly -impossibly
- muzzles flashed again from the cobble-strewn streets and more
pontoniers tumbled into the cold waters of the Rappahannock.
Burnside now authorized volunteers to ferry themselves
across the river in the clumsy pontoon boats. Men from Michigan,
Massachusetts, and New York scrambled aboard the scows, frantically
pulling at oar's to navigate the hazardous 400 feet to the Confederates'
side. Once on shore, the Federals charged Barksdale's marksmen
who, despite orders to fall back, fiercely contested each block
in a rare example of daring the Civil War. After dusk the brave
Mississippians finally withdrew to their main line, the bridge
builders completed their work, and the Army of the Potomac entered
Fredericksburg.
December 12 dawned cold and foggy. Burnside began
pouring reinforcements into the city but made no effort to organize
an attack. Instead, the Northerners squandered the day looting
and vandalizing homes and shops. A Connecticut chaplain left
a graphic account of some of this shameful behavior:
"I saw men break down the doors to rooms of fine houses,
enter, shatter the looking glasses with the blow of the ax, [and]
knock the vases and lamps off the mantelpiece with a careless
swing ... A cavalry man sat down at a fine rosewood Piano ...
drove his saber through the polished keys, then knocked off the
top [and] tore out the strings ..."
The Battle of Fredericksburg would unfold in a natural
amphitheater bounded on the east by the Rappahannock River and
on the west by the line of hills fortified by Lee. When Jackson's
men arrived from downstream, Longstreet sidled his corps to the
north, defending roughly five miles of Lee's front. He mounted
guns at Strong points such as Taylor's Hill, Marye's Heights,
Howison Hill, and Telegraph (later Lee's) Hill, the Confederate
command post. "Old Pete's" five divisions of infantry
supported his artillery at the base of the slopes.
Below Marye's Heights a Georgia brigade under Brig.
Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb poised along a 600-yard portion of the
Telegraph Road, the main thoroughfare to Richmond. Years of wagon
traffic had worn down the surface of the roadway lending it a
sunken appearance. Stone retaining walks paralleling the shoulders
transformed this peaceful stretch of country highway into a ready-made
trench. Jackson's end of the line possessed less inherent strength.
His command post at Prospect Hill rose only 65 feet above the
surrounding plain. Jackson compensated for the weak terrain by
stacking his four divisions one behind the other to a depth of
nearly a mile. Any Union offensive against Lee's seven-mile line
would, by necessity, traverse a virtually naked expanse in the
teeth of a deadly artillery crossfire before reaching the Confederate
infantry.
Burnside issued his attack orders early on the morning
of December 13. They called for an assault against Jackson's
corps by Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin's Left Grand Division
to be followed by an advance against Marye's Heights by Maj.
Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's Right Grand Division. Burnside used tentative,
ambiguous language in his directives, reflecting either a lack
of confidence in his plan or a misunderstanding of his opponent's
posture -- perhaps both.
Burnside had reinforced Franklin's sector on the morning
of battle to a strength of some 60,000 men. Franklin, a brilliant
engineer but cautious combatant, placed the most literal and
conservative interpretation on Burnside's ill-phrased instructions.
He designated Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's
division -- just 4,500 troops -- to spearhead his attack.
Meade's men, Pennsylvanians all, moved out in the
misty half-light about 8:30 a.m. and headed straight for Jackson's
line, not quite one mile distant. Suddenly, artillery fire exploded
to the left and rear of Meade's lines. Maj. John Pelham had valiantly
moved two small guns into position along the Richmond Stage Road
perpendicular to Meade's axis of march. The 24 year-old Alabamian
ignored orders from Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart to disengage and
continued to disrupt the Federal formations for almost an hour.
General Lee, watching the action from Prospect Hill, remarked,
"it is glorious to see such courage in one so young."
When Pelham exhausted his ammunition and retired, Meade resumed
his approach, Jackson patiently allowed the Federals to close
to within 500 yards of the wooded elevation where a 14-gun battalion
lay hidden in the trees. As the Pennsylvanians drew near to the
Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad north of Hamilton's
Crossing, "Stonewall" unleashed his masked artillery.
Confederate shells ripped gaping holes in Meade's ranks and the
beleaguered Unionists sought protection behind wrinkles of ground
in the open fields.
Union guns responded to Jackson's cannoneers. A full
throated artillery duel raged for an hour, killing so many draft
animals that the Southerners called their position "Dead
Horse Hill." When one Union shot spectacularly exploded
a Confederate ammunition wagon, the crouching Federal infantry
let loose a spontaneous Yankee cheer. Meade, seizing the moment,
ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge. Meade's soldiers
focused on a triangular point of woods that jutted toward them
across the railroad as the point of reference for their assault.
When they reached these trees they learned, to their delight,
that no Southerners defended them. In fact, Jackson had allowed
a 600-yard gap to exist along his front and Meade's troops accidentally
discovered it.
The Unionists pushed through the boggy forest and
hit a brigade of South Carolinians, who at first mistook the
attackers for retreating Confederates. Their commander, Brig.
Gen. Maxcy Gregg, paid for this error with a fatal bullet through
his spine. Meade's men rolled forward and gained the crest of
the heights deep within Jackson's defenses.
Jackson, who had learned of the crisis in his front
from an officer in Gregg's brigade, calmly directed his vast
reserves to move forward and restore the line. The Southerners
raised the "Rebel Yell" and slammed into the exhausted
and outnumbered Pennsylvanians. "The action was close-handed
and men fell like leaves in autumn," remembered one Federal.
"It seems miraculous that any of us escaped at all."
Jackson's counterattack drove Meade out of the forest,
across the railroad, and through the fields to the Richmond Stage
Road. Union artillery eventually arrested the Confederate momentum.
Except for a minor probe by a New Jersey brigade along the Lansdowne
Road in the late afternoon and an aborted Confederate offensive
at dusk, the fighting on the south end of the field was over.
Burnside waited anxiously at his headquarters on Stafford
Heights for news of Franklin's offensive. According to the Union
plan, the advance through Fredericksburg toward Marye's Heights
would not commence until the Left Grand Division began rolling
up Jackson's corps. By late morning, however, the despairing
Federal commander discarded his already-suspect strategy and
ordered Sumner's grand division to move to the attack.
In several ways, Marye's Heights offered the Federals
their most promising target. Not only did this sector of Lee's
defenses lie closest to the shelter of Fredericksburg, but the
ground rose less steeply here than on the surrounding hills.
Nevertheless, Union soldiers had to leave the city,
descend into a valley bisected by a water-filled canal ditch,
and ascend an open slope of 400 yards to reach the base of the
heights. Artillery atop Marye's Heights and nearby elevations
would thoroughly blanket the Federal approach. "A chicken
could not live on that field when we open on it," boasted
on Confederate cannoneer.
Sumner's first assault began at noon and set the pattern
for a ghastly series of attacks that continued, one after another,
until dark. As soon as the Northerners marched out of Fredericksburg,
Longstreet's artillery wreaked havoc on the crisp blue formations.
The Unionists then encountered a deadly bottleneck at the canal
ditch which was spanned by partially-destroyed bridges at only
three places. Once across this obstacle, the attackers established
shallow battle lines under cover of a slight bluff that shielded
them from Reel eyes.
Orders then rang out for the final advance. The landscape
beyond the canal ditch contained a few buildings and fences,
but from the military perspective it provided virtually no protection.
Dozens of Southern cannon immediately reopened on the easy targets
and when the Federals traversed about half the remaining distance,
as sheet of flame spewed forth from the Sunken Road. This rifle
fire decimated the Northerners. Survivors found refuge behind
a small swale in the ground or retreated back to the canal ditch
valley.
Quickly a new Federal brigade burst toward Marye's
Heights and the "terrible stone wall," then another,
and another, until three entire divisions had hurled themselves
at the Confederate bastion. In one hour, the Army of the Potomac
lost nearly 3,000 men; but the madness continued.
Although General Cobb suffered a mortal wound early
in the action, the Southern line remained firm. Kershaw's Brigade
joined North Carolinians in reinforcing Cobb's men in the Sunken
Road. The Confederates stood four ranks deep, maintaining a ceaseless
musketry while the gray artillerists fired over their heads.
See Kershaw's Official Report and the report for Cobb's Brigade
on the battle.
More Union units tested the impossible. "We came
forward as though breasting a storm of rain and sleet, our faces
and bodies being only half- turned to the storm, our shoulders
shrugged," remembered one Federal. "Everybody from
the smallest drummer boy on up seemed to be shouting to the full
extent of his capacity," recalled another. But each blue
wave crested short of the goal. Not a single Union soldier laid
his hand on the stone wan.
Lee, from his lofty perch on Telegraph Hill, watched
Longstreet's almost casual destruction of Burnside's divisions
as Jackson's counterattack repulsed Meade. Turning toward Longstreet,
Lee confessed, "It is well that war is so terrible. We should
grow too fond of it."
Burnside ordered Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Center
Grand Division to join the attack in the afternoon, and late
in the day, troops from the Fifth Corps moved forward. Brig.
Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys led his division through the human debris
of the previous assaults. Some of Humphreys' soldiers shook off
well-meaning hands that clutched at them to prevent their advance.
Part of one brigade sustained its momentum until it drew within
25 yards of the stone wall. There, it too melted away.
The final Union effort began after sunset. Colonel
Rush C. Hawkins' brigade, the fifteenth such Federal unit to
charge the Sunken Road that day, enjoyed no more success than
its predecessors. Darkness shrouded the battlefield and at last
the guns fell silent.
The hideous cries of the wounded, "weird, unearthly,
terrible to hear and bear," echoed through the night. Burnside
wrote orders to renew the assaults on December 14, wishing to
lead them personally, but his subordinates dissuaded him from
this suicidal scheme. On the evening of December 15-16, Burnside
skillfully withdrew his army to Stafford Heights, dismantling
his bridges behind him. The Fredericksburg Campaign had ended.
Grim arithmetic tells only a part of the Fredericksburg
story. Lee suffered 5,300 casualties but inflicted more than
twice that many losses on his opponent. Of the 12,600 Federal
soldiers killed, wounded, or missing, almost two-thirds fell
in front of the stone wall.
Despite winning in the most overwhelming tactical
sense, however, the Battle of Fredericksburg proved to be a hollow
victory for the Confederates. The limitless resources of the
North soon rectified Burnside's losses in manpower and materiel.
Lee, on the other hand, found it difficult to replenish either
missing soldiers or needed supplies. The Battle of Fredericksburg,
although profoundly discouraging to Union soldiers and the Northern
populace, made no decisive impact on the war. Instead, it merely
postponed the next "On to Richmond" campaign until
the spring. |
