58 ARMY � December 2012

December 13 marks the 150th anniversaryof the Battle of Fredericksburg, a bloody

repulse for the Union. The battlefield, not farfrom Washington D.C., is unevenly preserved.Some parts, including the Fredericksburg andSpotsylvania National Military Park, maintainenough of their original character to allow thevisitor to envision the battle. Elsewhere, subur-ban development has overtaken the landscape.The campaign itself is too often solely remem-bered for the botched assaults that marked itsterminus. This is unfortunate because it alsowitnessed an operational concentration of forcesand an assault river-crossing that did consider-able credit to the reputation of Union arms.

Fredericksburg at 150By BG John S. Brown

U.S. Army retired

December 2012 � ARMY 59

A statue of Union BG Andrew A. Humphreys stands near the entrance of the Freder-icksburg (Va.) National Cemetery, which now occupies a section of Marye’s Heightson the Fredericksburg Battlefield. BG Humphreys’ 3rd Division, 5th Corps, made thelast major assault against the heights on December 13, 1862. Confederate defendersoccupied positions along a sunken road and were protected by a stone wall. Theymowed down wave after wave of Federal troops attacking the heights. A portion ofthe wall, pictured here, has been rebuilt, using the original stones.

Photographs by Dennis Steele

60 ARMY � December 2012

In the September issue we discussed thebloody Battle of Antietam and ConfederateGEN Robert E. Lee’s withdrawal from Mary-land in its aftermath. President Abraham Lin-coln encouraged Union GEN George B. Mc-Clellan to launch a vigorous pursuit, butMcClellan dithered through the fine Octobercampaign weather with organizational andlogistical preparations. Lee built his effectivestrength back up to 85,000, whereas McClel-lan had 120,000 on hand. To add to Union embarrassment,Confederate MG J.E.B. Stuart rode around McClellan’s en-tire army with 1,500 cavalrymen, wreaking havoc as he didso. When McClellan did move he seemed anxious, dilatoryand not in pursuit of any apparent plan. By November 7,Lincoln had had enough and relieved McClellan in favorof MG Ambrose E. Burnside. Burnside had demonstratedcapacity for independent command in amphibious opera-tions along the North Carolina coast, had served loyallyand well as a corps commander, and, unlike McClellan,had no political ambitions.

Burnside quickly developed a plan that was forthright,feasible and practical, if not particularly imaginative.

Despairing of sustaining a deep thrust along the ricketyrail line running through Manassas and Culpeper, Va., inthe face of such envelopment artists as Stuart andStonewall Jackson, Burnside proposed to shift his mainrailhead east to Aquia Landing on the Potomac River.From that point a robust rail line ran due south to Rich-mond, about 60 miles away. Like others before him, Burn-side believed an advance on Richmond would force thedecisive battle of the war. A downside of Burnside’s moredirect approach was the rivers in the way, most notably theRappahannock. Burnside’s preferred rail line crossed theRappahannock at Fredericksburg, but the river was about400 feet wide at that point. Undaunted, he resolved tomuster a pontoon train to support him and to conduct as-

sault crossings of the Rappahannock and subsequent riversif need be.Burnside arrived at Falmouth, on the north bank of the

Rappahannock, on November 17. His subordinates, cor-rectly ascertaining that their shift of axis had achieved sur-prise, urged an immediate crossing even though the pon-toons had not yet arrived. Burnside feared that risingwater from anticipated rains would close the river behindwhatever force he pushed across and preferred to awaitthe pontoons to ensure reliable communications. Ironically,Lee was resigned to giving up Fredericksburg and retiringto the North Anna River had Burnside crossed the Rappa-hannock before the Confederates could concentrate infront of him. Awaiting pontoons, Burnside missed severalopportunities to cross without them or to attack a fragmentof Lee’s army as it maneuvered to, and built up around,Fredericksburg. When Burnside was finally ready to con-duct his assault crossing on December 10, the entirety ofLee’s army awaited him.Burnside forded the Rappahannock with a river-crossing

operation of unprecedented scope and sophistication.Hundreds of artillery pieces lined the heights along thenorth bank, prepared to pour fire on all who opposed thecrossing. Balloons hovered overhead to conduct reconnais-sance and coordinate fires. Engineers took maximum ad-vantage of fog and darkness to assemble pontoon bridgesand push their ever longer snouts across the river. WhenConfederate snipers that had burrowed into Fredericks-burg interfered, Union volunteers rowed pontoons acrossto flush them out. Impressed with all of this, Lee held back,aligning on Marye’s Heights and ridges extending south-east from them rather than hazarding a close-up fight un-der the Union artillery umbrella. Lasting the better part oftwo days, Burnside’s methodical crossing operationpoured about 100,000 soldiers across the river. Half adozen pontoon bridges stood intact to sustain them and topermit further reinforcements.

A memorial commemorating the compassionateactions by Confederate SGT Richard Rowland

Kirkland is the centerpiece of the Marye’s Heightsbattlefield. Wounded soldiers littered the field inthe aftermath of the battle. When SGT Kirkland

could not stand the men’s moaning and pleas anylonger, he gathered canteens and, under no truce,

went among the wounded to give them a drink.

BG John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history at theU.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998 toOctober 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor, inIraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait ascommander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1995.He has a doctorate in history from Indiana University. His book,Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army,1989–2005, was published in 2011.

December 2012 � ARMY 61

In the early 1900s, a pyramid of stones was erected alongthe railroad that cuts across the Fredericksburg Battlefield tomark the approximate position of an attack by MG George G.Meade’s men on the flank of Marye’s Heights against Con-federate troops under LTG Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson.

Unfortunately for Burnside, his superb rivercrossing had deposited his army into a bowl

facing up into ridgelines bristling with Confeder-ate troops. Numbers and firepower favored theUnion forces already across on December 13, butbroken terrain and leadership failures led them toconduct uncoordinated assaults against an enemywell positioned to receive their attack. By onecount, seven Union divisions conducted 14 sepa-rate charges against Marye’s Heights, generallyattacking a brigade at a time. On the Union left asingle division broke through, only to be sum-marily expelled when other divisions failed to ad-equately support it in the face of counterattacks.Repeated assaults met the same unhappy fate,each leaving behind a residue of dead andwounded along the front of the Confederate line.Union casualties totaled more than 10,000, thoseof the Confederates about 5,000. Burnside wantedto resume the assault on the 14th but was talkedout of it by subordinates horrified by their losses.A truce allowed both sides to bury their dead.Over the night of the 15th, the Union troops skill-fully withdrew, getting all troops and suppliesback across the Rappahannock by stages and then pullingthe pontoon bridges in behind them. A subsequent attemptto march around the Confederate left flank, the infamous

Mud March, disintegrated in heavy rains. Lincoln relievedBurnside on January 25, 1863.Burnside and his army proved both technically profi-

cient and courageous. Unfortunately for them, having ahammer does not make every problem a nail. Mindful ofthe obstacles in his chosen attack axis, Burnside musteredthe equipment and mind-set to conduct a massive assaultriver-crossing. He passed up opportunities to achieve suc-cess in other ways while mustering the resources necessaryfor the plan of action he had committed himself to. In theend he conducted an unprecedented and thoroughly mod-ern operation to cross the river, only to have Lee’s disposi-tions render this success irrelevant. It is not enough to con-duct each phase of an operation well. Each phase mustlead sensibly into the next, and the entire sequence mustend in the achievement of a decisive objective. For Burn-side that objective started out being Richmond and endedup being crossing the Rappahannock. For Lee the objectivewas always the decisive defeat of the Union army. �

Artillery pieces on Fredericksburg National Battlefield Park denote thelocation of Confederate guns on Howison Hill. From this position, theguns joined artillery positioned on Lee’s Hill to pummel Union forces.

Recommended Reading:

Esposito, Vincent J., The West Point Atlas of AmericanWars, Volume I: 1689–1900 (New York: Frederick A.Praeger, 1959)

Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburgto Meridian (New York: Random House, 1963)

McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The CivilWar Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)

Williams, T. Harry, Lincoln and His Generals (NewYork: Gramercy Books, 2000)