Battle of Fredericksburg

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  Civil War Journal–The Battles

  The Decisive Battles of the American Civil War, Turning Points in the History of a Nation

  • Thomas Nelson, William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don Troiani(Authors)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • Thomas Nelson

    (Publisher)

  FREDERICKSBURG

  The

  SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR had taken a great toll on the armies of both the North and the South. Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had spent all spring slogging through the swamps of Virginia’s peninsula only to be repulsed and retreat shortly after his army caught sight of the church spires of Richmond. By late summer, Gen. Robert E. Lee, the new commander of the main Confederate army, the Army of Northern Vir–ginia, had routed another Union army under Maj. Gen. John Pope at the battle of Second Manassas, twenty-five miles south of Washington, D.C. Then came the battle of Antietam in mid-September, when Lee was forced to abort his first invasion of the North by an army com–manded again by McClellan. In the early winter months of 1862, the Union seemed poised for victory.

  The Federal forces were rested and reequipped. They were ready to launch a second drive to Richmond. At the halfway point between Washington and Richmond was the colonial-era town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. At first glance on a map, the town appears to be just a stop on the road to Richmond, but it was to become the next great proving ground for the superiority of the Union army. A series of blunders and delays here left the Federal soldiers devastated and demoralized. At Fredericksburg the Rebel forces found new hope, and at Fredericksburg the Union soldier began to doubt the ability of his mili–tary commanders, his political leaders, and his moral cause to restore the Union.

  This was evidenced in the soldiers’ letters home. For example, Henry Hastings Curran of the 146th New York wrote: “Dear Mother, the fearful Battle of Fredericksburg is over. The slaughter is terrible. The result is disastrous. Until we have good generals, it is useless to fight battles. Our real loss is far greater than reported in the newspapers.” There is little doubt that Curran’s feelings reflected those of the entire Union army.

  WCD	William C. Davis
  GWG	Gary W. Gallagher
  AWG	a. Wilson Greene

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  Writing the Civil War

  The Quest to Understand

  • James M. McPherson, William J. Cooper, James M. McPherson, William J. Cooper, Jr.(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • University of South Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  BATTLEFIELD TACTICS JOSEPH T. GLATTHAAR As the morning fog ascended on the thirteenth of December in 1862, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia gazed down from the heights on the small community of Fredericksburg. There, in the streets below and on the expansive grounds to the east, they observed column after column of Federal infantrymen, handsomely adorned in rich blue coats and pale blue slacks, waiting anxiously for the order to advance. In town, an epidemic of apprehension spread through the Yankee ranks as they scanned the objective above them, Marye's Heights. The plan called for waves of Union forces to strike in column and seize the Rebel position by storm. Untested soldiers wisely feared the unknown. Veterans who had slugged it out on half a dozen major battlefields could forecast the results with extraordinary accuracy. They had to charge over open terrain against a well-trained enemy posted on high ground and secure behind a stone wall and fortifications. Worse, the defenders stood several lines deep, armed with rifled muskets and sup-ported by ample artillery. An assault offered dim prospects for success. Yet when the directive came to advance, the Yankees performed their duty to the utmost. Drawing deeply on their commitment to the cause and their obligations to their comrades, they passed through the town and pressed toward the enemy. From their elevated position, quite a few Confederates detached them-selves enough from the impending battle to notice the peculiar splendor of the event. Elegant rows of tightly packed Union troops, emerging from the quaint village and parading up the slopes south of Fredericksburg, offered a rare spectacle of the bizarre beauty of mili-tary operations. Then, suddenly, walls of Confederate flame transformed the visual feast into a chamber of horrors. A thunderous eruption of shot, shell, and bullet ripped through those glorious blue ranks.

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  Oliver Wendell Holmes

  A Willing Servant to an Unknown God

  • Catharine Pierce Wells(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  61 Howe, supra n. 24 at 75. See id. at 79, where he describes Fredericksburg as an “infamous butchery in a ridiculous attempt.” 52 Part I The Soldier’s Faith fredericksburg i After the costly stand-off at Antietam, General McClellan was finally relieved of his command. He was replaced by General Burnside, who decided upon a direct route to the Confederate capital. This meant that Fredericksburg, which lay halfway between Washington and Richmond, became the immediate target. Fredericksburg was a small city protected on the north and east by the Rappahannock River. General Burnside planned to cross the river by the use of pontoon bridges sent from Washington. Unfortunately, the bridges were not delivered on time and, by the time they did arrive, the Confederate Army had moved in and fortified the town. Nevertheless, on December 11, the Union Army attempted to take Fredericksburg. Amidst enemy fire, the engineers began assembling the bridges. As they neared the opposite shore, the firing became so intense they were not able to continue. The Twentieth were assigned to guard them, but were unable to make any progress against the well-hidden snipers. The work soon came to a halt. Burnside faced a dilemma. His army could not cross the river without bridges, and the bridges could not be built so long as no one was fighting the enemy on the other side. To solve this problem, the Michigan Seventh volunteered to cross the river in pontoon boats. General Burnside thought the mission suicidal, but, lack- ing other alternatives, he permitted it and it succeeded. Next across the river was the Massachusetts Twentieth; to them fell the duty of clearing the main street. This meant running a gauntlet with enemy fire from all sides. Shots came from everywhere – windows, doors, roofs, basements, and alleys. The Union soldiers were an easy target while the Confederates shot from cover.

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  Fighting for the Confederacy

  The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander

  • Gary W. Gallagher(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • The University of North Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  A.M . on the 11th, clear, cold, & still, the shots rang out, putting our 60,000 men in motion for their positions, & letting the enemy’s 120,000 know that we were ready for them. Fredericksburg was the most dramatic of all our battles; the opposing hills & intermediate plain affording some wonderful & magnificent scenes.

  And I expect few who heard those two cannon shot, that cold morning, and rose & ate & hastened to their posts by starlight ever forgot the occasion.

  The town itself was held by Barksdale’s brigade (four8 Mississippi, & one Florida, regts.) of McLaws’s division. McLaws was about the best general in the army for that sort of a job, being very painstaking in details, & having a good eye for ground. He had fixed up his sharpshooters all along the river to the Queen’s taste. It was not expected that we could prevent the enemy from crossing but only designed to delay & annoy him as much as possible. Barksdale’s men had reported, early in the night, the noise of boats & material being unloaded on the enemy’s side, & long before daylight they could hear boats being put in the water & work commenced. But they were ordered to let the enemy get well committed to his work & to wait for good daylight before opening fire. Meanwhile, the guns which served as a signal to us, were also taken as a signal by most of the population of Fredericksburg to abandon the town. By every road there came numbers generally on foot, with carts loaded with bedding, &c. preparing to encamp in the woods back of our lines until the battle was over. The woods were full of them, mostly women & children. A few persons remained in the town, & though it was severely shelled, as will be told presently, no one I think was killed. But Gen. Couch, in the Century , speaks of the Federal soldiers looting the houses, & implies that no objection was offered by the officers.9

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  Memoirs of Henry Villard Journalist and Financier 1835 -1900 Vol. I

  • Henry Villard(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Braunfell Books

    (Publisher)

  The great natural obstacle of the river made it impracticable to discover the position and strength of the enemy by regular reconnoissances. Nor did we seem to obtain much information regarding him from spies. It was chiefly through the Richmond papers, which were as indiscreet in publishing army news as their Northern contemporaries, and which reached headquarters from various directions, that we received intelligence from the other side. But even through them we had only circumstantial evidence that Lee’s whole army was distributed over the opposite heights. While an air line to them from the bluffs on the left bank was not much over a mile in length, even with the strongest field-glasses little could be discovered of the rebels beyond the field-works they had immediately undertaken and steadily continued. They probably saw not much more of us than we of them.

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  CHAPTER XXII — THE Battle of Fredericksburg.—1862

  I ASCERTAINED on December 9 that all the preparations for the proposed active operations were completed, and that they would be undertaken immediately. The plan decided upon by General Burnside, and communicated formally to the Grand Division commanders, was as follows:

  To concentrate all the siege and most of the field artillery on the ridge on which the plateau on the left bank abutted, and from which their fire would command the town, the opposite plain, and the encircling hills beyond it.

  To throw five bridges across the river during the night of the 10 th to the 11 th —two at the upper end of Fredericksburg, one at the lower end, and two a mile below the latter; making the total distance between the extreme bridges about two miles.

  Immediately after the completion of the bridges, the Right Grand Division was to cross by the upper bridges and move through Fredericksburg and form beyond the town. The Left Grand Division was to cross by the two lower bridges to the plain on the right bank, and the Centre Grand Division to be held in reserve on the north bank, ready to move either to the support of the Right or Left Grand Division.

  The Right Grand Division to attack the enemy’s left on the Fredericksburg heights with one of Hooker’s corps and with a division of the other as reserve. The Left Grand Division to make a simultaneous and diverting attack on the rebel right, with Stoneman’s division in reserve.

  On the 10th

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