BREAKING CAMP AT FALMOUTH.-ADROIT STRATAGEM-CROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOCK.-THE SURPRISE OF GENERAL HOWARD'S CORPS.-BATTLE SCENE.-DEATH OF GENERAL BERRY.ALTERNATIONS OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT.-PERIL OF THE ARMY.-RETREAT.-HOOKER'S PROOLAMATION. THE UNEXPLAINED MYSTERY.

AGAIN let us return to the Atlantic coast. There was a general, almost a universal impression, that General Burnside, in his heroic yet disastrous attack upon the heights of Fredericksburg, was not supported as he should have been by all of his corps commanders. Indeed, party spirit then ran so high that it was very confidently stated that some of the prominent officers, whose cordial coöperation was essential to success, preferred defeat, rather than that the Army of the Potomac should be led to victory by any other commander than General McClellan. Early in April, General Lee held the city of Fredericksburg, and its adjacent heights south of the Rappahannock. General Hooker, who had succeeded General Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac, with about one hundred and twenty thousand troops, was on the northern banks of the

stream.

With great celerity of movement, early in May, he crossed the upper waters of the Rappahannock, and placed, almost without a struggle, the main body of his army, seventy-five thousand strong, in an admirable position in the rear of Fredericksburg, about ten miles southwest of the city. The rebels, strongly intrenched on the heights just behind Fredericksburg, were quite taken by surprise.

This movement of the National forces from their encampment near Falmouth was commenced energetically on the morning of the 27th of April. The pickets of the rebels lined the right banks of the narrow stream, and by tacit consent there had been no firing across the river. The rebel lookouts were upon every eminence, to watch the slightest motion of the army. But concealing themselves in the dense growth of woods which lined the stream, and behind the curtain of hills, the camps were suddenly broken ur, the comfortable log-huts, where the men had sheltered themselves through the storms of winter, were abandoned, and the whole region, for miles in extent, was alive with the moving masses. The army was in splendid condition, and, having full confidence in its heroic leader, was elated with the highest hope. Hitherto, every movement of the army had been known, not only throughout the North, but by the rebels, as soon as

it was contemplated. It was something new to have manœuvres inaugurated under secrecy so profound, that even major-generals knew not the results aimed at, receiving their specific orders day by day. Though all the arrangements had been so perfectly matured that there was no clashing of the divisions, and no confusion, still the most intelligent observers were bewildered, as, along a line twenty or thirty miles in length, columns were moving in different directions, and with great celerity. Three of the seven army corps, those under Generals Reynolds, Sickles, and Sedgwick, descended the stream two miles below Fredericksburg, where General Franklin had crossed in the campaign of General Burnside. Other corps were in the mean time moving up the river, in the direction of Banks's Ford, which was eight miles, and United States Ford, which was eleven miles distant from Fredericksburg.

No one, apparently, but the commander-in-chief himself knew where the main attack would be made. The two points towards which vast bodies of troops were approaching were many miles apart, and manifestly not within the limits of cooperation. Hence, it was evident that the operations at one point would be merely a feint to distract the attention of the enemy; while at the other the main body of the army would be pushed across the stream. Events proved that the feint with twenty thousand men was to be made by General Sedgwick, two miles below Fredericksburg, while the main body of the army were to be rushed across by pontoon bridges and the various fords above the city.

Before the dawn of Tuesday morning, April 28th, under cover of a dense fog, several pontoon-boats were taken from the wagons, behind the hills, two miles below Fredericksburg, and were noislessly carried on the shoulders of the men, to the river's brink, and launched into the stream. With great celerity a bridge was constructed, and General Russell's Brigade of General Brooks's Division of the Sixth Army Corps, with hushed voice and noiseless tread, rushed across. For forty miles up and down the stream, the rebels were posted at every ford, and every spot where a crossing was deemed possible. The National troops, at the point we have alluded to, crossed so suddenly, and in such strength, that the rebels, in their riflepits, about two hundred in number, made but feeble resistance. Both lines of the rifle pits were soon in possession of the patriots, with the loss of scarcely half a dozen men. This feat being accomplished, three pontoon bridges were promptly thrown over the river, and the whole of Brooks's Division crossed. General Sedgwick was here in command, and the movement was a perfect success. A mile and a half below General Sedgwick's pontoons there was an estate called Southfield, where General Reynolds was instructed to effect a crossing.

The day had dawned and the fog had lifted before he was able to get pontoons into the water. The rebels, from their rifle-pits, opened upon him a deadly fire. General Hunt placed forty pieces of artillery in battery, and so effectually swept the field with grape and canister, that not a rebel sharpshooter dared peer above his pit. The patriots, protected by this vigorous fire, pushed over in boats, and charging up the hill, captured the first row of rifle-pits, with all the rebels who were burrowing in them, one