Fredericksburg, 11–15 December 1862

The battle, stage by stage

1. 11 December 1862, 3 AM - about 3 PM

   Bridges under fire

   Burnside's Army of the Potomac, about 120,000 men, has waited for weeks on Stafford Heights for pontoons to cross the Rappahannock. Before dawn the engineers start three crossings: two bridges at the upper end of town opposite Hawke Street, one at the city dock (the middle crossing), and two at Franklin's crossing a mile and a half downstream at the mouth of Deep Run. In the fog, Brig. Gen. William Barksdale's Mississippi brigade, with some Florida companies, waits in the cellars and houses along the waterfront. At about 5 AM it opens fire: by 10 AM the 50th New York Engineers have about fifty men dead or wounded and the town bridges are stalled in midstream. Below town, where there are no houses to hide riflemen, the 15th New York Engineers finish a bridge by 9 AM and the U.S. Engineer Battalion another two hours later. Burnside turns nearly 150 guns on the town (one diarist counted 173); they set buildings on fire for about two hours, but the riflemen in the cellars survive and drive off the engineers again.

2. 11 December, about 3:30 PM to night

   Boats and streets

   Brig. Gen. Henry Hunt suggests sending infantry over in the boats. Men of the 7th Michigan pile into pontoons and pole across under fire (their colonel is wounded midstream), followed by the 19th Massachusetts; they rush the houses on Sophia Street. At the middle crossing about a hundred men of the 89th New York do the same. The 20th Massachusetts crosses and fights up Hawke Street to Caroline Street, losing 97 officers and men in about 50 yards. Barksdale's men fall back street by street, regroup near the Market House on Princess Anne Street, and after dark abandon the town for the heights. The bridges are finished that evening, and at Franklin's crossing a single brigade (Devens's) holds a bridgehead on the far bank.

3. 12 December

   The army crosses; the town is sacked

   All day Sumner's Right Grand Division files over the town bridges and Franklin's Left Grand Division over the lower ones, forming on the plain along the Richmond Stage Road; with no clear orders, the day passes without an attack. In Fredericksburg, many of whose people have fled, Union soldiers loot and wreck houses still smoldering from the bombardment, treating the town as 'a prize of war' while occasional shells fall from the heights. Lee, now sure where Burnside will strike, calls in Jackson's corps from downriver: A.P. Hill's and Taliaferro's divisions take position behind the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad below Prospect Hill, while Longstreet's corps holds the heights from Taylor's Hill through Marye's Heights to Deep Run. Cobb's Georgians stand in the Sunken Road behind a chest-high stone wall at the foot of Marye's Heights.

4. 13 December, about 8:30 AM - 1:30 PM

   Meade's breakthrough

   Burnside's vague orders lead Franklin to send a single division, Meade's 4,500 Pennsylvania Reserves, against Jackson, with Gibbon's division on its right and Doubleday's facing south on its left. As the fog lifts, Maj. John Pelham's two guns on the Stage Road enfilade the Union lines for almost an hour. Jackson's 14 guns on Prospect Hill hold their fire until Meade is within about 500 yards, and an artillery duel follows ('Dead Horse Hill'). About 1 PM Meade's men rush a boggy triangle of woods jutting across the railroad, a gap of about 600 yards that Jackson had left unguarded between Lane's and Archer's brigades. They turn both flanks, surprise Gregg's South Carolinians in reserve (Gregg is mortally wounded) and reach the crest of the ridge. On the Slaughter Pen Farm Gibbon's brigades, attacking one behind another, reach and take the railroad embankment from Lane's men. No support follows them.

5. 13 December, about 1:30 - 3 PM

   Jackson's counterattack

   Jackson sends in his reserves with the Rebel Yell. Early's division, Taliaferro's men and Thomas's brigade strike the exhausted, outnumbered Federals and drive Meade out of the woods, across the railroad and back over the fields to the Stage Road; Gibbon, wounded in the wrist, is forced off the Slaughter Pen. Col. Edmund Atkinson's Georgians chase into the plain until Union guns and Birney's division of the III Corps stop them; Atkinson is wounded and captured. Law's brigade of Hood's division strikes near Deep Run. About 5,000 Union and 4,000 Confederate soldiers fall on this part of the field (the American Battlefield Trust's figures). Five Medals of Honor are awarded for the Slaughter Pen alone; recipients include Sgt. Philip Petty (136th Pennsylvania), Pvt. Martin Schubert (26th New York) and Pvt. George Maynard (13th Massachusetts). Franklin, with some 60,000 men, commits no more.

6. 13 December, noon to dusk

   Marye's Heights and the stone wall

   Hoping to help Franklin, Burnside sends Sumner's men out of the town against Marye's Heights. Each brigade must file over a partly drained millrace (the canal ditch, about five feet deep and fifteen feet wide) on three damaged bridges, form under a low bluff, and cross about 400 yards of open ground under artillery fire to reach the stone wall, where Cobb's Georgians and North Carolinians, later four ranks deep with Kershaw's and Cooke's men, fire volley after volley. French's division goes first, just before noon; Hancock's follows, including Meagher's Irish Brigade, which loses nearly 500 of about 1,200 men. Howard, Sturgis, Griffin and, near sunset, Humphreys's Pennsylvanians follow (one brigade gets within about 25 yards); Hawkins's brigade makes the last attempt after dark, by one count the fifteenth brigade to charge. No Union soldier reaches the wall. Cobb is mortally wounded near the Stephens house. Survivors lie in a shallow swale or behind the bluff until dark.

7. 13 December night - 14 December

   Night on the field

   The wounded lie in the freezing dark between the lines, and soldiers on both sides record their cries. Around midnight Sykes's Regulars replace the survivors in front of the wall; they lie in the swale all through the 14th, pinned by sharpshooters, using the dead as cover, and withdraw after dark. Burnside wants to renew the attack on the 14th and lead his old IX Corps himself, but his generals talk him out of it. Lee's men strengthen their lines; on Jackson's front the railroad line is restored. Local tradition, first published in 1880 and questioned by some historians, holds that Sgt. Richard Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina climbed the stone wall to carry water to wounded Federals; he is remembered as the 'Angel of Marye's Heights'.

8. 15–16 December

   Withdrawal across the river

   After a truce to collect some of the wounded on the 15th, Burnside withdraws on the night of 15-16 December in wind and heavy rain, unseen by the Confederates. By dawn the whole army is back on Stafford Heights and the pontoons have been taken up; Confederate skirmishers move back into the wrecked town. The Union lost about 12,600 men killed, wounded and missing, nearly two-thirds of them in front of the stone wall; Lee lost about 5,300 (National Park Service figures). It was one of the most one-sided Union defeats of the war, but Lee could not follow it up, and the armies faced each other across the river until spring.