472

THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

[SECT. XI.

The attack on the left by Franklin's grand division was made by General Meade with about Franklin's attack. 4500 men. He broke through the Confederate lines, reached the heights they had occupied, and got into the presence of their reserves, but the divisions which were to have sustained him failed to do so, and he was driven back. If he could have held his ground, the evacuation of the works in the rear of Fredericksburg must have taken place. He lost more than one third of his force in this attempt.

Snmner's attack on the Confederate batteries.

Sumner, on the right, had been making ready to storm the fortifications on Marye's Heights in his front. He had selected the corps of French and Hancock for that purpose, and had Howard's division in readiness to support them. A little before noon, French's corps, preceded by skirmishers, was seen, as a long black line, deploying in the rear of the city, and steadily advancing to the assault. Behind it followed another black line. It was Hancock's corps. The Confederate batteries were silent until their enemy was half way across the plain, when, in an instant, from the front, the right, the left, they poured forth a tempest of fire. Longstreet says that the gaps made by the artillery could be seen half a mile off. The thin line moved through the focus of death, quivering but still advancing, its own batteries in the distance giving it what help they might a canopy of iron. The line grew thinner and thinner; becoming too weak to hold together, it halted, and was dispersed.

Another attempt was made. The line moved through the rain of grape and canister, and, closing the gaps torn through it, it seemed as if Fortune, unable to resist such daring, was about to smile on it. Two thirds of the plain were passed; a few steps more, and the flaming hill itself would give some protection-one moment

CHAP. LVIII.] THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

473

for taking breath, then a bayonet charge up the heights, and the Confederates would be hurled out of their fortifications.

Attack on the stone wall.

In front was the gray stone wall. The Confederates had artillery that raked it right and left. In an instant it was fringed with fire and hidden in smoke. Enfiladed by the batteries, confronted by a mile of rifles, which were securely discharged behind its protecting cover, the surviving assailants were forced back to the shelter of a ravine, within musket-shot of the enemy. Here a line of assault was once more formed, and a bayonet charge made on the Confederate artillery. Thrice was that attack made-thrice vainly. The storming party, almost annihilated, was compelled to retire. Such was the fate of Sumner's attack on the right. That of Hooker on the centre fared no better. He says: "I proceeded against the barrier as I would against a fortification, and endeavored to breach a hole sufficiently large for a 'forlorn hope' to enter. Before that, the attack along the line, it seemed to me, had been too general-not sufficiently concentrated. I had two batteries posted on the left of the road, within four hundred yards of the position upon which the attack was to be made, and I had other parts of batteries posted on the right of the road, at the distance of five hundred or six hundred yards. I had all these batteries playing with great vigor until sunset upon that point, but with no apparent effect upon the rebels or upon their works.

Hooker's attack.

"During the last part of the cannonading I had given directions to General Humphreys's division to form, under the shelter which a small hill afforded, in column for assault. When the fire of the artillery ceased, I gave di rections for the enemy's works to be assaulted. General Humphreys's men took off their knapsacks, overcoats, and haversacks. They were ordered to make the assault with

474

BURNSIDE RECROSSES THE RIVER.

[SECT. XI. empty muskets, for there was no time then to load and fire. When the word was given the men moved forward with great impetuosity. They ran and hurraed, and I was encouraged by the great good feeling that pervaded them. The head of General Humphreys's column advanced to within perhaps fifteen or twenty yards of the stone wall, which was the advanced position held by the rebels, and then they were thrown back as quickly as they had advanced. Probably the whole of the advance and the retiring did not occupy fifteen minutes. They left behind, as was reported to me, 1760 of their number out of 4000."

In this battle of Fredericksburg the national losses were 13,771; the Confederate loss was about 5309.

Losses in the battle.

another movement.

But he repasses

It was Burnside's intention to renew the struggle on the Burnside proposes next morning, but finding, upon consultation, that his chief officers regarded the enemy's lines as impregnable, he countermanded the order. On the night of the 15th of December, Burnside vacated Fredericksburg, retiring to his former the river. position. He felt that the position in front could not be carried, and that it was a military necessity either to attack or retire. Another repulse would have been disastrous. The army was withdrawn in the night, without the knowledge of the enemy, and without loss either of property or men.

A fortnight subsequently (December 30th) Burnside made preparations for another advance upon Richmond, when he was suddenly called to Washington by the Presi dent. He there discovered that representations had been surreptitiously made by certain of his subordinate officers to the effect that the temper of the army would not justify the movement, and that it would inevitably end in a great disaster. He soon ascertained that the secessionists

CHAP. LVIII.]

in the army.

HOOKER IN BURNSIDE'S STEAD.

475

in Washington had obtained intelligence of the character of his proposed movement, and was therefore compelled to substitute another for it. The attempt to carry this into effect was, however, arrested by a severe sleet-storm, which turned the roads into quagmires, and rendered movement impossible. The march, scarcely begun, was necessarily abandoned, and the troops were ordered back to their old camps. Discovering that the malign Dissatisfaction influence which had before paralyzed the Army of the Potomac was again at work, he had prepared a general order dismissing from the service certain officers, but, before issuing it, he submitted it to the President. It was decided, in view of public necessities, that General Burnside himself should be relieved from command, and that the order should take the form that this was at his own request. Against this he remon strated as unjust, urging that his resignation should be Burnside's noble accepted instead; but, with a patriotism that might have been an example to all the of ficers of that army, he nobly consented at last that any order whatever might be published respecting him personally, if it were considered conducive to the welfare of the republic, and that, instead of resigning, he would serve wherever he was required. In the same order Major General Franklin was relieved from duty in the Army of the Potomac, as was also Major General Sumner-the latter at his own request. Major General command in Burn- Hooker was assigned to command in General Burnside's stead.

conduct.

Hooker assigned to

side's stead.

Condition of the Confederate army.

I can not close this history of Lee's sortie more instructively than by presenting the following extract of a statement written while the Confederate army lay at Winchester (September 26th), after the retreat from Maryland. Certainly nothing can depict more eloquently the military virtues

476

CONDITION OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY. [SECT. XI.

of the Southern soldier. It is an appeal to the people of the Confederacy for contributions for the relief of the army.

Its battles and marches.

In this appeal, the sufferings of that army since it left the banks of James River are likened to those endured by the French in their disastrous retreat from Moscow. It is not only a plea for help, but an apology for those who had left their colors.

"This army proceeded directly to the line of the Rappahannock, and, moving out from that river, it fought its way to the Potomac, crossed the stream, and moved on to Frederick and Hagerstown, had a heavy engagement at Boonesborough (Turner's Gap), and another at Crampton's Gap below, fought the greatest pitched battle of the war at Sharpsburg (Antietam), and then recrossed the Potomac back into Virginia. During all this time, covering the full space of a month, the troops rested but four days. And let it be always remembered to their honor, that of the men who performed this wonderful feat, one fifth were barefooted, one half in rags, and the whole half famished. The country from the Rappahannock to the Potomac had been visited by the enemy with fire and sword, and our transportation was insufficient to keep the army supplied from so distant a base as Gordonsville, and when provision trains did overtake the army, so pressing were the exigencies of their position that the men seldom had time to cook. Their difficulties were increased by the fact that cooking utensils in many cases had been left behind, as well as every thing else that would impede their movements. It was not unusual to see a company of starving men have a barrel of flour distributed to them which it was utterly impossible for them to convert into bread with the means and in the time allowed them.

"Do you wonder, then, that there should have been