When night at last drew the veil over the awful scene the shattered masses of the charging army were huddled under the shelter of the houses in Fredericksburg leaving the field piled high with the dead and the wounded. The wounded were freezing to death in the pitiless cold.
Burnside had lost thirteen thousand men—the flower of his troops—the bravest men the North had ever sent into battle.
Jackson's keen eye was quick to see the shambles into which this demoralized army had been pushed. The river behind them could be crossed only on a narrow pontoon bridge. A swift and merciless night attack would either drive the bleeding lines into the freezing river, annihilate or capture the whole army. He urged Lee to this attack. Lee demurred. He could not know the extent of the enemy's losses. It was inconceivable to the Southern Commander that Burnside with his one hundred and thirteen thousand picked soldiers, could be repulsed with such slight losses to the South. Only a small part of the army under his command had been active in the battle and their losses were insignificant in comparison with the records of former struggles. Burnside would renew the attack with redoubled vigor. He refused to move his men from their entrenchments into the open field where they would be exposed to the batteries beyond the river.
Jackson turned his somber blue eyes on Lee:
"Send my corps into Fredericksburg alone to-night. Hold the hills with the rest of the army. I'll do the work."
"You cannot distinguish friend from foe, General Jackson—"
"I'll strip my men to the waist and tie white bands around their right arms."
"In this freezing cold?"
"They'll obey my orders, General Lee—"