494

1862.

WITHDRAWAL OF THE NATIONAL TROOPS.

to storm, these troops were hurled back by terrible volleys of rifle-balls, leaving seventeen hundred of their number prostrate on the field. Night soon closed the awful conflict," when the Army of the Potomac Dec. 18, had nearly fifteen thousand less effective men than when it began the battle on the previous day.' It was evident to the commanders engaged in the conflict that it would be useless to make any further attempt to carry the position by storm; but General Burnside, eager to achieve victory, prepared to hurl his old corps (the Ninth) on the following morning against the fatal barrier which had withstood French, Hancock, Howard, and Humphrey. He was dissuaded by the brave Sumner, who was supported in his opposition to the proposed movement by nearly every general officer; and it was finally determined to withdraw the troops to the north bank of the Rappahannock. For two days they remained on the Fredericksburg side, while Lee, evidently ignorant of the real weakness and peril of his foe, fortunately maintained a defensive position, and was engaged during that time in strengthening his works in anticipation of another attack. On the morning of the 16th he was astonished by the apparition of a great army on the Stafford Hills, and seeing none in front of his line. During the night of the 15th Burnside had quietly withdrawn his entire force and all his guns, taken up his pontoon bridges, and offered Lee full permission to occupy Fredericksburg. The latter accepted the boon, and boasted of a great victory, in terms wholly irreconcilable with truth and candor.?

b Dec. 14-15.

The disaster at Fredericksburg touched Burnside's reputation as a judicious leader very severely, and for a while he was under a cloud. Prompted by that noble generosity of his nature which made him always ready to award full honor to all in the hour of victory, he now assumed the entire responsibility of the measures which had caused a slaughter so terrible with a result so disastrous. That generosity blunted the weapons of vituperation which the friends of the late commander of the Army of the Potomac and the enemies of the Government were too ready to use.3

Although it was plain that his officers and men distrusted his ability, yet Burnside did not stop to offer excuses, but, eager to do what he might to

1 Hooker reported the loss in his Grand Division at 3,548; Franklin in his at 4,679, and Sumner in his at 5,494, making a total, with a loss of 50 of the engineers, of 18,771. Of this number 1,152 had been killed, 9,101 wounded, and 8,234 missing. Many of the latter soon rejoined the army, while seventy per cent, of the wounded ranked as "slightly," and soon recovered.

Lee at first reported his loss at "about 1,800, killed, wounded, and missing," but the detailed reports of Longstreet and Jackson made the number 5,309, including some prisoners. The Confederate loss was probably about one-half that of the reported loss of the Nationals.

2 In a General Order on the 21st, congratulating his troops on their success in repelling the National army, he said the latter had given battle "in its own time, and on ground of its own selection !" Also, that less than 20,000 Confederates had been engaged in the battle, and that those who had advanced in full confidence of vic tory," made their escape from entire destruction" their boast. His own report, given in March the following year, and those of his subordinates, refute these statements. Lee, as we shall observe from time to time, was adroit in the use of "pious frands" of this kind, by which his own lack of that military genius which wins solid victories was artfully concealed from all but his more able subordinates.

In his report to General Halleck on the 19th, be declared that he owed "every thing to the brave officers and soldiers who accomplished the feat of recrossing the river in the face of the enemy. For the failure in the attack," he continued, "I am responsible." Alluding to the fact that the plan of moving to Fredericksburg from Warrenton, instead of pursuing Lee toward the Rapid Anna, was not favorably considered by the authorities at Washington, and that the whole movement was left in his own hands, he said that fact made him "more responsible."

✦ Burnside and his subordinates concurred in the opinion, that had the pontoons arrived earlier, so that the army might have been transferred to the south side of the Rappahannock before Lee could concentrate his forces

BURNSIDE'S NEW ENTERPRISE.

AND

CANAL

BUMNER'S HEAD QUARTERS,

FALMOUTH

495

crush out the rebellion, and knowing well the value of time at that critical moment, he planned and proposed to execute measures for an immediate advance on Richmond. His plan was to make a feint above Fredericksburg, but to cross about six miles below, at the Seddon Farm, with his main body, to turn the position of the Confederates. At the same time twenty-five thousand cavalry, with four guns, were to cross at Kelley's Ford, and sweep through the country in the rear of Lee's army, to cut its communications with Richmond,

raiding

LON

RANSOM

OM MARYE'S

RE

PLANK ROAD

LEE'S H.Q.

CONFEDERATE

SCALE OF MILES

PONTOON

FRANKLIN'S DIVISION

FREDERICKSBURG

SUMNER'S AND HOOKER'S (DIVISIONS

RUN

MKLA

RED

PHILLIPO

BURNSIDE'S HEAD QUARTERS

FINE CORPS

OLD RICHMOND ROAD

D

DERICKSBURGH

A.P.HILI

JACKSON'S

MEADE

CORPS

EARL

=

TAFFORD

HILLS

ANSFIELD

PONTOON B.

2! CORPS

BURRILL

BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

Petersburg, join General Peck, then in command at Suffolk. At the same time other bodies of mounted men were to sweep over the country, to distract the Confederates and conceal the real object of the general movement.

a Dec. 80, 1862.

These movements had just commenced when Burnside received a dispatch from the President," directing him not to enter upon active operations without his knowledge. He was surprised, for the Generalin-Chief had instructed him not to send any thing over the wires concerning his plans, but to act according to his own judgment. He had mentioned his plans to no one. His generals only knew that the passage of the river on the flank of the foe was to be attempted. The order was inexplicable. But Burnside instantly obeyed. He recalled the cavalry expedi

there, the success of Burnside's plans would doubtless have been secured. The delay in getting the pontoons earlier, or rather in the starting from Washington, appears to have been occasioned by a misunderstanding as to who should attend to the forwarding of them.

496

PATRIOTISM ON TRIAL.

The

tion and hastened to Washington, to ask a reason for the interference. President informed him that general officers of his army had declared that such was the feeling in that army against its commander, that its safety would be imperiled by a movement under his direction. Of these clandestine complaints to the President the General-in-Chief and the Secretary of War were ignorant, and they had nothing to say.

Never was the spirit of a man more sorely tried than was that of Burnside at this time. The country looked to him for acts that should retrieve the misfortunes at Fredericksburg, yet the General-in-Chief would not sanction any forward movement, and it was evident that there was a secret conspiracy among some of his general officers to effect his removal. His patriotism soared high above self, and he returned to the army with a determination to take the responsibility of doing something more for the salvation of his country. He ascertained that some of the details of his cavalry expedition had been communicated by traitors in his army to secessionists in Washington, and by them to Lee, and he abandoned that movement and proposed to cross the Rappahannock at Banks's and United States fords, above Fredericksburg, and endeavor to flank his foe and give him battle. For that purpose his army was speedily put in motion. The Grand Divisions of Franklin and Hooker ascended the river by parallel roads, while Couch's made a feint below the city. The reserve corps, now under Sigel, was ordered to guard the line of the river and the communications with the army.

Every thing was in readiness to cross the river stealthily on the night of the 20th, when a terrible storm of wind, snow, sleet, and rain came on, such as had seldom been known in that region, and for hours the troops who had approached the fords were hopelessly mired and almost immovable. They were discovered by the foe at dawn, and Lee was soon fully prepared to meet them. Even under these circumstances Burnside would have attempted to cross and give battle at an early hour, could he have gotten his bridges in position. This was impossible, and there that army remained until its three days' cooked provisions in haversacks were nearly exhausted, and the supply-trains could not come up. It was led back to its old camps

munications to the President concerning the defection of the troops toward their leader, and for other purposes. These he charged with "fomenting

991

BURNSIDE SUPERSEDED.

497

discontent in the army." He was competent to issue the order on his own responsibility; but, in compliance with judicious advice, he submitted it to the President. Mr. Lincoln was perplexed. He appreciated the patriotism and soldierly qualities of Burnside, yet he could not consent to the suspension or dismissal of the officers named, even had there been greater personal provocation. He talked with Burnside as a friend and brother, and it was finally arranged that the General should be relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac, and await orders for further service. This was done, and Major-General Hooker succeeded him in the command. The arrangement made at that time, whereby the country might be best served, was highly creditable to the President and to General Burnside.

Here we will leave the Army of the Potomac in winter quarters on the Rappahannock, and consider the stirring events in the great Valley of the Mississippi since the siege of Corinth, and the capture of New Orleans and Memphis.

1 In that order Generals Hooker, Brooks, and Newton were named for ignominious dismissal from the service, and Generals Franklin, W. F. Smith, Cochran, and Ferrero, and Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Taylor, were to be relieved from duty in the Army of the Potomac. Generals Franklin and Smith, without the knowledge of Burnside, wrote a joint letter to the President on the 21st of December, expressing their belief that Burnside's plan of campaign could not succeed, and substantially recommending that of McClellan, by the James River and the country on its borders. The President replied that they were simply suggesting a plan fraught with "the old difficulty," and he appeared to be astonished, as Franklin had distinctly advised bringing the army away from the Peninsula.

2 January 26, 1868. By the order relieving Burnside from the command, Franklin was also relieved. So also was General Sumner, at his own request. He soon afterward died, at Syracuse, New York.

498

CONDITION OF KENTUCKY.

CHAPTER XIX.

EVENTS IN KENTUCKY AND NORTHERN MISSISSIPPL

E left the Lower Mississippi, from its mouth to New Orleans, in possession of the forces under General Butler and Commodore Farragut, at the beginning of the summer of 1862; and at the same time that river was held by the National forces from Memphis to St. Louis. General Thomas was at the head of a large force holding Southwestern Tennessee,' and Generals Buell and Mitchel were on the borders of East Tennessee, where the Confederates were disputing the passage of National troops farther southward and eastward than the line of the Tennessee River. Beauregard's army was at Tupelo and vicinity, under General Bragg. Halleck had just been called to Washington to be General-in-Chief, and Mitchel was soon afterward transferred to the command of the Department of the South, with his head-quarters at Hilton Head.

3

Although the great armies of the Confederates had been driven from Kentucky and Tennessee, the absence of any considerable Union force excepting on the southern borders of the latter State, permitted a most distressing guerrilla warfare to be carried on within the borders of those commonwealths by mounted bands, who hung upon the rear and flanks of the National forces, or roamed at will over the country, plundering the Union inhabitants. The most famous of these guerrilla leaders was John H. Morgan, already mentioned. He professed to be a leader of cavalry attached to the Confederate army, and so he was, but such license was given to him by the Confederate authorities, that he was as frequently a commissioned free-booter in practice as a leader of horsemen in legitimate warfare.

Morgan's first exploit of much consequence having the semblance of regularity was his invasion of Kentucky with about twelve hundred followers, under the conviction that large numbers of the young men of his native State would flock to his standard, and he might become the liberator of the commonwealth from the "hireling legions of Lincoln." He left Knoxville, in East Tennessee, on the 4th of July, crossed the Cumberland Mountains, and entered Kentucky on its southeastern border.

On the 9th of July, Morgan, assisted by Colonel Hunt, routed a detachment of Pennsylvania cavalry under Major Jordan, at Tompkinsville, in Monroe County, when the commander and nineteen others were made prisoners, and ten were killed or wounded. The assailants lost ten killed, inclu

1 See the latter part of chapter XIII.

2 See page 296.

See page 294.

4 See page 264.