McClellan was a sore puzzle to the people of the loyal States. But large numbers of his men still believed in him, and—as is usual in such cases—intensified their personal devotion in proportion as the distrust of the people at large was increased. After crossing the Potomac, he left a corps at Harper's Ferry, and was moving southward on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, while Lee moved in the same direction on the western side, when, on November 7, the President solved the riddle that had vexed the country, by relieving him of the command.
The successor of General McClellan was Ambrose E. Burnside, then in his thirty-ninth year, who was graduated at West Point fifteen years before, had commanded cavalry during the Mexican war, had invented a breech-loading rifle which was commercially unsuccessful, and at the breaking out of the rebellion was treasurer of the Illinois Central Railroad. When the First Rhode Island Regiment went to Washington, four days after the President's first call for troops, Burnside was its colonel. He commanded a brigade at the first battle of Bull Run; led an expedition that captured Roanoke Island, New Berne, and Beaufort, N. C., in January, 1862; and commanded one wing of McClellan's army at South Mountain and Antietam. Whether he was blameworthy for not crossing the Antietam early in the day and effecting a crushing defeat of Lee's army, is a disputed question. It might be worth while to discuss it, were it not that he afterward accepted a heavier responsibility and incurred a more serious accusation. The command of the Army of the Potomac had been offered to him twice before, but he had refused it, saying that he "was not competent to command such a large army." When the order came relieving McClellan and appointing him, he consulted with that general and with his staff officers, making the same objection; but they took the ground that as a soldier he was bound to obey without question, and so he accepted the place, as he says, "in the midst of a violent snow-storm, with the army in a position that I knew little of." These two generals were warm personal friends, and McClellan remained a few days to put Burnside in possession, as far as possible, of the essential facts in relation to the position and condition of the forces.
| ATTACK ON FREDERICKSBURG, DECEMBER, 1862. |
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THE STONE WALL UNDER MARYE'S HEIGHTS. (From a War Department photograph.) |
At this time the right wing of Lee's army, under Longstreet, was near Culpeper, and the left, under Jackson, was in the Shenandoah Valley. Their separation was such that it would require two days for one to march to the other. McClellan said he intended to endeavor to get between them and either beat them in detail or force them to unite as far south as Gordonsville. Burnside not only did not continue this plan, but gave up the idea that the Confederate army was his true objective, assumed the city of Richmond to be such, and set out for that place by way of the north bank of the Rappahannock and the city of Fredericksburg, after consuming ten days in reorganizing his army into three grand divisions, under Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin. On the 15th of November he began the march from Warrenton; the head of his first column reached Falmouth on the 17th, and by the 20th the whole army was there. By some blunder (it is uncertain whose) the pontoon train that was to have met the army at this point, and afforded an immediate crossing of the river, did not arrive till a week later; and by this time Lee, who chose to cover his own capital and cross the path of his enemy, rather than strike at his communications, had placed his army on the heights south and west of Fredericksburg, and at once began to fortify them. His line was about five and a half miles long, and was as strong as a good natural position, earthworks, and an abundance of artillery could make it. He could not prevent Burnside from crossing the river; for the heights on the left bank rose close to the stream, commanding the intermediate plain, and on these heights Burnside had one hundred and forty-seven guns. What with waiting for the pontoons and establishing his base of supplies at Acquia Creek, it was the 10th of December before the National commander was ready to attempt the passage of the stream. He planned to lay down five bridges—three opposite the city and the others two miles below—and depended upon his artillery to protect the engineers.
Before daybreak on the morning of the 11th, in a thick fog, the work was begun; but the bridges had not spanned more than half the distance when the sun had risen and the fog lifted sufficiently to reveal what was going on. A detachment of Mississippi riflemen had been posted in cellars, behind stone walls, and at every point where a man could be sheltered on the south bank; and now the incessant crack of their weapons was heard, picking off the men that were laying the bridges. One after another of the blue-coats reeled with a bullet in his brain, fell into the water, and was carried down by the current, till the losses were so serious that it was impossible to continue the work. At the lower bridges the sharp-shooters, who there had no shelter but rifle-pits in the open field, were dislodged after a time, and by noon those bridges were completed. But along the front of the town they had better shelter, the National guns could not be depressed enough to shell them, and the work on the three upper bridges came to a standstill. Burnside tried bombarding the town, threw seventy tons of iron into it, and set it on fire; but still the sharp-shooters clung to their hiding places, and when the engineers tried to renew their task on the bridges, under cover of the bombardment, they were destroyed by the same murderous fire.
At last General Hunt, chief of artillery, suggested a solution of the difficulty. Three regiments that volunteered for the service—the Seventh Michigan, and the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts—crossed the river in pontoon boats, under the fire of the sharp-shooters, landed quickly, and drove them out of their fastness, capturing a hundred of them, while the remainder escaped to the hills. The bridges were then completed, and the crossing was begun; but it was evening of the 12th before the entire army was on the Fredericksburg side of the river.
On the morning of the 13th Burnside was ready to attack, and Lee was more than ready to be attacked. He had concentrated his whole army on the fortified heights, Longstreet's corps forming his left wing and Jackson's his right, with every gun in position, and every man ready and knowing what to expect. The weak point of the line, if it had any, was on the right, where the ground was not so high, and there was plenty of room for the deployment of the attacking force. Here Franklin commanded, with about half of the National army; and here, according to Burnside's first plan, the principal assault was to be made. But there appears to have been a sudden and unaccountable change in the plan; and when the hour for action arrived Franklin was ordered to send forward a division or two, and hold the remainder of his force ready for "a rapid movement down the old Richmond road," while Sumner on the right was ordered to send out two divisions to seize the heights back of the city. Exactly what Burnside expected to do next, if these movements had been successful, nobody appears to know.
The division chosen to lead Franklin's attack was Meade's. This advanced rapidly, preceded by a heavy skirmish line, while his batteries firing over the heads of the troops shelled the heights vigorously. Meade's men crossed the railroad under heavy fire, that had been withheld till they were within close range, penetrated between two divisions of the first Confederate line, doubling back the flanks of both and taking many prisoners and some battle-flags, scaled the heights, and came upon the second line. By this time the momentum of the attack was spent, and the fire of the second line, delivered on the flanks as well as in front, drove them back. The divisions of Gibbon and Doubleday had followed in support, which relieved the pressure upon Meade; and when all three were returning unsuccessful and in considerable confusion, Birney's moved out and stopped the pursuing enemy.