"Two armies covered hill and plain,
Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters."
After resting a while at Winchester Lee's army began its march leisurely back toward Richmond, and took up a position near Fredericksburg, a point about half way between Washington and Richmond.
McClellan was relieved of his command, and Gen. Burnside took his place and gathered a large army in front of Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock river.
About the middle of December Burnside crossed the river at Fredericksburg by means of pontoon bridges and attacked Lee and Jackson just outside of the town of Fredericksburg.
A severe battle was fought, and Burnside was defeated with terrible loss. He re-crossed the river and wept when he contemplated the awful slaughter that had been made in his army. This ended the campaign of 1862. It is said that more soldiers fell in this battle in four hours than were killed in the entire Boer War. The historian has placed Burnside's losses at 12,311; Lee's at 5409.
Both armies went into winter quarters, and there was no general battle until the next spring, but frequent skirmishes between bodies of cavalry on both sides as they marched to and fro protecting their respective encampments.
From Harper's Ferry to Staunton, Va., stretches a part of the Blue Ridge mountains that played a conspicuous part in the war.
The mountain is impassable for armies except through the gaps that occur every twenty to thirty miles. These gaps were always closely guarded by the Confederates, and through them the armies frequently marched and counter-marched as occasion required.
If Jackson needed reinforcements in the valley, they were sent to him through one of these gaps; and on the other hand, if the armies defending Richmond needed reinforcements, it was Jackson's custom to give the enemy a stinging blow and send him in full retreat down the valley toward Washington, then cross through one of these gaps with a portion of his army and reinforce the armies defending Richmond.
When the armies fell back from Winchester my company of cavalry was left to guard the Bluemount gap, then called Snickersville. A little later the gap was abandoned, and we were ordered to Ashby's gap, farther up the valley, where we encamped near the little town of Paris, at the foot of the mountain, and put out our pickets on the east side of the mountain below Upperville on the pike that leads through Middleburg and on to Alexandria, Va., just under the shadow of the capital of the Northern nation, I will call it.