The Battle of Fredericksburg.
In December occurred the battle of Fredericksburg. The enemy's position was very strong—almost impregnable. Our men were compelled to lay their pontoons across the river in a pitiless rain of bullets from the Rebel sharpshooters. But they did it without flinching. Our troops, rank, file, and officers, marched into the jaws of death with stubborn determination.
We attacked in three columns; but the original design was that the main assault should be on our left, which was commanded by General Franklin. A road which Franklin wished to reach would enable him to come up in the rear of Fredericksburg, and compel the enemy to evacuate his strong works, or be captured. Franklin was very late in starting. He penetrated once to this road, but did not know it, and again fell back. Thus the key to the position was lost.
In the center, our troops were flung upon very strong works, and repulsed with terrible slaughter. It proved a massacre rather than a battle. Our killed and wounded exceeded ten thousand.
I was not present at the battle, but returned to the army two or three days after. Burnside deported himself with rare fitness and magnanimity. As he spoke to me about the brave men who had fruitlessly fallen, there were tears in his eyes, and his voice broke with emotion. When I asked him if Franklin's slowness was responsible for the slaughter, he replied:
"No. I understand perfectly well that when the general commanding an army meets with disaster, he alone is responsible, and I will not attempt to shift that responsibility upon any one else. No one will ever know how near we came to a great victory. It almost seems to me now that I could have led my old Ninth Corps into those works."
Indeed, Burnside had desired to do this, but was dissuaded by his lieutenants. The Ninth Corps would have followed him anywhere; but that would have been certain death.
Burnside was, at least, great in his earnestness, his moral courage, and perfect integrity. The battle was better than squandering precious lives in fevers and dysentery during months of inaction. Better a soldier's death on the enemy's guns than a nameless grave in the swamps of the Chickahominy or the trenches before Corinth.
Ordered to move, Burnside obeyed without quibbling or hesitating, and flung his army upon the Rebels. The result was defeat; but that policy proved our salvation at last; by that sign we conquered.
Every private soldier knew that the battle of Fredericksburg was a costly and bloody mistake, and yet I think on the day or the week following it, the soldiers would have gone into battle just as cheerfully and sturdily as before. The more I saw of the Army of the Potomac, the more I wondered at its invincible spirit, which no disasters seemed able to destroy.