A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
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CHAPTER XXXII, GENERAL BURNSIDE'S BLOODY CAMPAIGN
We now return to relate the progress of the war in Virginia. After it was known that Burnside had succeeded McClellan in the command of the Army of the Potomac the abolition press struck up the old cry of "On to Richmond." Burnside was the new pet of the hour. All at once the Abolitionists discovered that he was just the man for the occasion. Though nobody ever imagined that Ambrose Burnside was anything more than the most common of common place mortals, now he was pushed into notice as a very great man. We shall soon see what very small timber is sometimes used to make great men.
On taking command General Burnside at once applied himself to the task of changing the base of the army to Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. This strange movement astonished the authorities at Washington, as they could not possibly see the object of it. He, however, persuaded them that he had discovered the true plan to defeat Lee, and take Richmond. This plan was to leave a small force to make a show of crossing the Rappahannock, near Warrenton, as a feint to deceive Lee, and make him believe that the Federal army was about to throw itself into Virginia, and then by a rapid march to throw his whole army across the river at Fredericksburg. This movement General Burnside thought would catch Lee in a trap. Though even in case his trick were successful nobody but the cunning Burnside could see the trap. The idea of Ambrose Burnside attempting to catch Robert E. Lee in a trap carries with it a certain amount of amusement.
The whole nature of Burnside's movement was as well known to Lee as it was to himself. But the Confederate commander did effectually deceive Burnside by making him believe that he had sent a large portion of his forces down the river.
General Burnside commenced throwing his pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg on the night of the 10th of December. The whole movement was visible to the eye of Lee's troops posted on the bluff which overlooked the whole town on the river.
Lee designedly made but a feeble resistance to Burnside's crossing, just enough to impress that weak man with the idea that none but a small Confederate force was in his front;for Lee was just as anxious to get Burnside on his side of the river as Burnside was to get there.
The whole of the 12th day of December was occupied in the passage of Burnside's army across the Rappahannock, and at night he occupied Fredericksburg. The news flashed over the north of Burnside's great victory; he had successfully crossed the Rappahannock and had taken Fredericksburg! The abolitionists and their sympathizers were wild with joy. It was said that "the right man had been found at last." Large sums were bet that Burnside would be in Richmond in ten days. How far it was to Richmond, or how he was to get there, were questions which they did not think upon. Their wild imagination jumped him into Richmond.
Burnside imagined that on the morning of the 13th of December, after his troops had enjoyed so quiet a night in Fredericksburg, he should make short work with what he believed to be the fraction of Lee's army before him, if indeed Lee did not fly during the night. He little comprehended the fact that the whole of Lee's army was anxiously waiting to receive him.
The sun that morning rose clear, but a dense fog hung over the town of Fredericksburg until nearly nine o'clock. Lee's men on the bluffs and hills around could distinctly hear Burnside's officers commanding and marching their men about in the fog. As soon as this foggy veil lifted, Burnside ordered his men to attack. Lee at first returned the fire slowly and on certain points of his line gradually fell back for the purpose of drawing Burnside's army out into the inevitable jaws of death that awaited it. Lee was personally on the battlefield all day. When the firing began in the morning he might have been seen quietly riding along the whole front, and finally taking up his position on the extreme right of his lines, where Stuart's horse artillery was posted, and which was already hotly at work with Burnside's left flank, commanded by General Franklin.
But Burnside was himself two miles from the battle-field, on the other side of the river, viewing the scene with a glass from the top of the "Phillips House."
It must have been an awful sight to him, for his men were not only shot, they were mowed down. Every charge they made was repulsed with the most terrible slaughter. Actually his army was not so much fighting as being murdered. No men ever fought more gallantly, and no brave fellows were ever slaughtered more mercilessly in consequence of the stupidity of the general commanding. Lee had so placed his army on and around those heights that whichever way the invaders turned they met sure destruction. Lee's whole force was only eighty thousand men, while Burnside's army numbered one hundred and fifty thousand men. But had it been three hundred thousand the results of that day's battle would have been the same. The more that Burnside saw how his attacks were repulsed, the more determined he seemed to be that his men should be slaughtered. Towards night he became so irritated that no one received a civil answer from him.
Nearly all of his division commanders were able and experienced generals, and they fought with a heroism that won the admiration of even the enemy. General Hancock led five thousand men into the fight in the morning, and before it closed he had lost two thousand and thirteen, of whom one hundred and fifty-six were commissioned officers. Burnside's total loss was twelve thousand three hundred and twenty-one, killed, wounded, and missing. An English officer, who was in this battle on the Confederate side, in giving a description of it says: "Our total loss was two thousand." The same writer says: "Again and again were the Federals re-formed, and advance succeeded advance as fresh regiments rushed over heaps of slain, to be themselves torn in an instant into mangled and bleeding shreds. The position was unassailable-a sheet of flame streamed across our whole front, and destroyed everything mortal that approached it. The sight was horrible. It was not a scientific battle, but a wholesale slaughter of human beings for the caprice of one man (Burnside) who, two miles across the river, sat upon the heights, glass in hand, complacently viewing the awful panorama below."
Thus ended Burnside's horrible slaughter. It ought not to be called a battle on his part-it was a slaughter-pen. This new road to Richmond had ingloriously terminated in a grave-yard.
For two days Burnside's mangled and bleeding army lay quiet in the valley, without making any attempt to renew the engagement. It has been a matter of surprise that Lee did not follow up his victory by attempting to drive the Federal army across the river, by which he might have captured a considerable portion of it, had the attempt been made at daylight the next morning. But he probably supposed that it was Burnside's intention to renew the fight, in which case he expected to be able to pretty nearly annihilate the abolition army, without any considerable loss of his own men. This saving the lives of his men seemed always to be a paramount study of the Confederate commander.
But, in the darkness of the night of the second day after the slaughter, Burnside withdrew his whole force over the river, and was safe from the reach of Lee. In one day he had won an immortality of shame. If Pope had proved himself a failure, Burnside had proved himself a disgrace to the profession of arms.
And the shocking Vandalism of his army in Fredericksburg proved that he was morally as deficient in the qualities of general as he was intellectually. The town was literally sacked and pillaged. It was barbarously destroyed. Even the churches were wantonly defaced. Arson, robbery, the insult and torture of women and children, were the only monuments of Burnside's generalship.
The army correspondent of the New York Tribune rejoiced in giving the following record of abolition barbarity:"The old mansion of Douglas Gordon-perhaps the wealthiest citizen in the vicinity-is now used as the headquarters of General Howard, but before he occupied it, all the elegant furniture and works of art had been broken up and smashed by the soldiers. When I entered it early this morning, before its occupation by General Howard, I found the soldiers of his fine division diverting themselves with the rich dresses found in the ladies'wardrobes; some had on bonnets of the fashion of last year, and were surveying themselves before mirrors, which an hour afterwards were pitched out of the windows and smashed to pieces upon the pavements; others had elegant scarfs bound round their heads in the form of turbans, and shawls around their waists."
The soldiers had also helped themselves to all such things as spoons, jewelry, and silver plate. Never since the march of the Huns and Vandals was an army permitted to commit such robberies of private property.
It would be certain death for soldiers to commit such thefts under a general who meant to conduct the war upon the recognized rules of civilized warfare.
After his disgraceful defeat, General Burnside floundered about in the mud up and down the banks of the Rappahannock for nearly a month, when he became satisfied that many of the officers in his army held him in great contempt, and he determined at once to make an example of them for daring to distrust his ability.
So he, with one bold stroke, dismissed from the service of the United States, Generals Hooker, Brooks, Newton, and Cochrane; and removed from command in the Army of the Potomac, Generals Franklin, W.F.Smith, Sturgis, Ferrero, and Colonel Taylor.
On this order the madman posted to Washington, and demanded of the President an approval of his removal of all these officers, or accept his own resignation. Of course the President could not hesitate a moment, so he immediately accepted Burnside's resignation, and appointed General Hooker to his place as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Thus, exit Burnside!
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