The Fredericksburg Campaign

PART OF BURNSIDE’S ARMY CROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOCK AT FREDERICKSBURG

Copyright © 1991 by Stackpole Books

Copyright © 1957 by Edward J. Stackpole

Published by

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Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8

2nd Edition

Cover art: Clear the Way by Don Troiani. Photo courtesy Historical Art Prints Ltd., Southbury, Connecticut.

Cover design by Mark Olszewski.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stackpole, Edward J. (Edward James); 1894–

The Fredericksburg campaign : drama on the Rappahannock / Edward J. Stackpole ; commentary by D. Scott Hartwig ; foreword by Jay Luvaas, — 2nd ed.

p.    cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8117-2337-2

eISBN 978-0-8117-4547-5

1. Fredericksburg, Battle of, 1862.    I. Hartwig, D. Scott.

II. Title.

E474.85.S83   1991

973.7’33-dc20

90-43773

CIP

DEDICATION

To David, living heritage of the past and confident promise of the future

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

THE RISE AND FALL OF GEORGE B. McCLELLAN

The Spark Becomes a Flame. McClellan and Johnston. The Armies Mobilize Slowly. McClellan Maneuvers. Jackson Goes into Action. Lee Takes the Helm. Pope Rides on the Stage. Maryland is Invaded. The Battle of Antietam. Stuart Rides Again. Lincoln Jolts McClellan. McClellan Fades Out of the War.

CHAPTER 2

THE VIRGINIA THEATER OF OPERATIONS

An Historic Battleground. The Shenandoah Valley. Glamorous Harpers Ferry. A Triple Play Captures Harpers Ferry. Major Combat Areas. An Aerial Reconnaissance. Rappahannock Country.

CHAPTER 3

LINCOLN TRIES ANOTHER GENERAL

Changing Horses in Midstream. An Unpromising Selection. Burnside’s Background. Burnside As a Troop Leader.

CHAPTER 4

STRATEGY OF THE FREDERICKSBURG CAMPAIGN

Burnside Adopts a New Plan. Halleck Disagrees; Lincoln Approves Conditionally. Lee’s Strategy. Longstreet’s Appraisal. Composition and Disposition of the Opposing Forces. Burnside Creates Three Grand Divisions. Full Speed Ahead. Jackson Prefers the Valley.

CHAPTER 5

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PONTOONS

Burnside Insists on a Pontoon Crossing. The Lost Opportunity. Was Halleck the Villain? Halleck on Bridges and River Crossings. Sumner Demands That Fredericksburg Surrender. The Pontoon Controversy a Cause Celebré.

CHAPTER 6

AGONIZING INTERLUDE

Burnside Marks Time. He Who Hesitates . . .! Confederate Troop Dispositions. Character of the Battlefield. Disposition of Jackson’s Divisions. Tactical Considerations. Burnside’s Tentative Plan.

CHAPTER 7

THE CURTAIN RISES SLOWLY

The Union Army Prepares to Cross the River. Halleck Withholds Approval. The Crossing Points Are Finally Determined. Lack of Confidence in Burnside. Burnside’s Battle Orders Vague and Indecisive. The Bridges Are Laid Under Enemy Fire. The Shooting Starts. Volunteers Cross in Boats. The Crossing Below Fredericksburg.

CHAPTER 8

CONFEDERATE COUNTERMEASURES

Lee Concentrates on His Right Flank. Two Historic Plantations. Lee Calmly Shifts His Weight. History Repeats Itself.

CHAPTER 9

OVER THE RIVER—AT LAST!

A Busy Morning for the Union Army. Federal Artillery Skillfully Handled. Burnside Temporizes as His Generals Mark Time. Burnside’s Ex-Post-Facto Explanation. The Army Orders Are Still Indecisive.

CHAPTER 10

FEDERAL FAILURE ON SOUTH FLANK

Lee’s Keen Appreciation of Terrain. Franklin Gets Unexpected Orders. A Breath-Taking Military Pageant. Meade’s Division Spearheads the Attack. The Federal Attack Lacked Power and Depth. Whose Fault—Burnside’s or Franklin’s?

CHAPTER 11

SLAUGHTER AT THE STONE WALL

Significant Terrain Features. Couch’s Corps Leads Off. The Grim Reaper Has a Field Day. The Stone Wall as a Magnet. Casualties Nearly Equal Pickett’s at Gettysburg. Sykes’ Division Takes Over. The Battle as Seen from the Confederate Side.

CHAPTER 12

THE DEPRESSING AFTERMATH OF BATTLE

How Not to Fight a Battle. Burnside Is Dissuaded from Another Suicidal Assault. The Federal Cavalry at Fredericksburg.

CHAPTER 13

BURNSIDE’S LAST EFFORT

Lincoln Applies a Checkrein. The Mud March.

CHAPTER 14

THE DISINTEGRATION OF A GENERAL

The Battle of the Generals. A Plague on Both Your Houses. Burnside Loses Another Battle.

CHAPTER 15

AN APPRAISAL OF FREDERICKSBURG

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

COMMENTARY

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

Most of the old photographs used in this book were taken during the Civil War by Mathew Brady or an assistant, and have been reproduced from the Library of Congress Collection or from The Photographic History of the Civil War, published in 1913 by the Review of Reviews, New York. Acknowledgment is made to Mr. Carl E. Stange, Division of Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress, for assistance in locating and selecting suitable illustrations. The photos illustrating Confederate weapons and the Richmond arsenal are from the West Point Museum and Library of Congress Collections, and are furnished by courtesy of William B. Edwards, author of The Stackpole Company’s forthcoming book, Civil War Guns. The view of Harpers Ferry was furnished by Mr. R. H. Anderson, Chief of the Visual Section, Branch of Information, National Park Service.

The numerous drawings were mostly executed during the Civil War by staff artists of newspapers and magazines who kept correspondents and illustrators in the field with the armies. These artists were Waud, Forbes, Lovie, Beard, and many others. Their sketches have been reproduced here from Harpers Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion, Harper & Bros., New York, 1868; The Soldier in Our Civil War, Stanley Bradley, New York, 1885; Pictorial Battles of the Civil War, Sherman Publishing Co., New York, 1885; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Century Co., New York, 1887.

The maps were prepared by Colonel W. S. Nye, editor of the text, and Mr. Ray Snow, veteran chief of the art department of The Telegraph Press. Colonel Nye secured the basic maps, prepared the preliminary drafts, and wrote the accompanying descriptive matter. Mr. Snow was the cartographer. Maps referred to were contained in the Official Records of the Rebellion, Volume XXI, the Atlas accompanying the Official Records, and in the following maps from the Library of Congress Collection; several topographic and situation maps prepared after the war under the direction of the Chief of Engineers and known as the Micheler maps; several maps from the Jed Hotchkiss Collection, prepared about the time of the battle by the chief topographer of Jackson’s Corps; three contemporary maps (Confederate), prepared by B. L. Blackford; and one or two maps from the Southern Historical Society. Most of these sources contain discrepancies and errors in topography and in the location of some of the troop units. All these data were, therefore, checked and corrected by a detailed study of the reports of corps, division, brigade, and regimental commanders. Since it was deemed impracticable to employ folded inserts for use in reproducing maps, it was necessary to redraw all of them in order that they might be reduced to page size without too great a loss of clarity. This involved some simplifications, including omission of various minor terrain features, roads, place names, and the like.

The valuable assistance of Mr. Richard S. Ladd, Map Division, Library of Congress, in locating and selecting basic maps, is gratefully acknowledged.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Part of Burnside’s Army Crossing the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg

Off to the War

The First Federals

Confederate Volunteers

Confederate Winter Quarters Near Manassas, 1861

Rebuilding the Army of the Potomac

Major General George B. McClellan

Loading Transports

Pork, Hardtack, Sugar, and Coffee

Map 1. The First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) and the Peninsular Campaign

Army of the Potomac in Camp

Map 2. The Second Battle of Manassas and the Antietam Campaign

The President Visits McClellan After Antietam

Wagon Train Crossing Antietam Creek

Map 3. Stuart’s Ride

Stuart’s Raid

Lincoln and McClellan Discuss Future Operations

Map 4. President Lincoln’s Strategic Concept

Where McClellan Crossed the Potomac at Berlin, Maryland

Jackson Attacks Harpers Ferry

Map 5. The Virginia Theater of Operations

Lieutenant General Thomas J. Jackson

Harpers Ferry in 1862

Fayetteville Confederate Rifle

Manassas Junction

The Orange and Alexandria Railroad After a Confederate Raid

Professor T. S. C. Lowe and One of His Observation Balloons

Part of Doubleday’s Division in Camp

Outposts on the Rapidan

Marye Mansion

War Department Building in Washington, 1862

Culpeper, Virginia

Major General Ambrose E. Burnside

Burnside After Bull Run

Major General Ambrose P. Hill, C.S.A.

Burnside’s Objective—Richmond!

State Arsenal at Richmond

Civil War Weapons

General Robert E. Lee

Lieutenant General James Longstreet

Map 6. The Situation November 7-9, 1862

Major General Edwin V. Sumner

Major General William B. Franklin

Bivouac on the March

Arrival of Sumner’s Troops Near Falmouth

The Shenandoah Valley

Hauling the Pontoons From Aquia

Fredericksburg, November 18, 1862

Transport Difficulties Between Aquia and Falmouth

Major General Henry W. Halleck

Civilians Evacuating Falmouth

Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard

Confederate Snowball Fight

General Haupt Keeps the Railroad in Operation

Port Royal

Major General Daniel H. Hill, C.S.A.

Map 7. The Valley of the Rappahannock, Showing Lee’s Dispositions on December 10

Major General R. H. Anderson, C.S.A.

Map 8. The Battle Area

Dam on the Rappahannock Near Fredericksburg

A. R. Waud, Staff Artist of Harpers Weekly

Brigadier General William B. Taliaferro, C.S.A.

Major General Joseph Hooker

Major General William F. Smith

Bombardment of Fredericksburg

Some of General Hunt’s Artillery

Major General Lafayette McLaws, C.S.A.

Franklin’s Grand Division Passing Burnside’s Headquarters at the Phillips House

Brigadier General Orlando B. Willcox

Colonel Rush C. Hawkins

Major General Darius N. Couch

The Phillips House

Building a Corduroy Road

Barksdale’s Mississippians Resisting the Laying of Pontoon Bridges

Building a Bridge Over the Rappahannock

Brigadier General William Barksdale, C.S.A.

Battlefield As Seen From Hamilton’s Crossing

Major General J.E.B. Stuart, C.S.A.

Generals Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson on Telegraph Hill

Chatham

Federal Units Crossing on the Evening of the 11th

Franklin’s Divisions Crossing the Rappahannock

Major General George E. Pickett, C.S.A.

Brigadier General Jubal A. Early, C.S.A.

Pontoon Bridges at Franklin’s Crossing

Federals Occupying Fredericksburg on December 12

Brigadier General David Birney

Brigadier General Daniel E. Sickles

Federal Reserve Artillery

Provost Detachment Guarding Loot in Fredericksburg

Battery D, 2d U.S. Artillery in Position Near Mansfield

Establishing Communication

Brigadier General George Stoneman

Meade’s Men Charging Across the Railroad

Major General J. B. Hood, C.S.A.

Hay’s Brigade, Early’s Division, Near Hamilton’s Crossing

Map 9. The Situation Just Before Dawn on December 13, 1862

Major General John F. Reynolds

Map 10. Actions on the South Flank Up to About Noon, December 13

Group of Division Commanders

Map 11. The Attack of Reynolds’ Corps. Actions Up to About 1:30 P.M.

Brigadier General Maxcy Gregg, C.S.A.

Confederate Line in the Woods

Brigadier General C. F. Jackson

Map 12. The Confederate Counterattack. Situation About 2:30 P.M.

Map 13. Actions on the South Flank From About 3 P.M. to Dark

Colonel Alfred Torbert

Brigadier General E. M. Law, C.S.A.

Brigadier General James Lane, C.S.A.

Brigadier General Abner Doubleday

Cobb’s and Kershaw’s Troops Behind the Stone Wall

Ground Between Fredericksburg and Marye’s Heights

Map 14. Actions on the North Flank, about 11 A.M. to Noon

Brigadier General Winfield S. Hancock

Map 15. The Situation on the North Flank From About Noon to 1 P.M.

The Attack Against Marye’s Heights

Hazard’s Battery

Map 16. The Situation on the North Flank From About 1. P.M. to 2:30 P.M.

Map 17. The Situation on the North Flank From About 2:30 P.M. to Dark

Brigadier General Charles Griffin

Brigadier General A. W. Whipple

Brigadier General George Sykes

The Sunken Road in 1884

Fredericksburg From the Foot of Willis Hill

Washington Artillery Firing From Marye’s Hill

Brigadier General Robert Ransom, C.S.A.

Brigadier General Thomas Cobb, C.S.A.

The Mill on Hazel Run

Burial Party After the Battle

Dead and Wounded of the 8th Ohio in Front of the Stone Wall

Moving the Wounded From Fredericksburg Toward the Railhead

During the Truce

Burying the Dead in Front of Marye’s Heights

The Withdrawal

Part of Fredericksburg After the Battle

Brigadier General George D. Bayard

The Mud March

Franklin’s Grand Division Recrossing the Rappahannock

Brigadier General W. W. Averell and Staff

Pleasonton’s Cavalry Pickets Operating on the Flank of the Army

A Hopeless Task

Phillips House Burning

Frustration

Mansfield in Ruins

Ruins on Willis Hill

Burnside Reading a Newspaper

Federal Troops Returning to Base Camps Near Falmouth

Futility

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The first edition of General Edward J. Stackpole’s The Fredericksburg Campaign was published in 1957. Because of the continued interest in the study of Civil War battles in general and in this work in particular, we are pleased to reprint this new edition of a Stackpole classic.

As is often the case with interpretations of historical events, some of the opinions of the strategy and tactics used during the Fredericksburg campaign have changed. New scholarship and revisionist thinking now disagree with some of General Stackpole’s conclusions. This edition includes a commentary by Scott Hartwig, a longtime student of the Civil War. In his commentary, Hartwig analyzes General Stackpole’s interpretations and explains why some of his conclusions are challenged by historians today.

FOREWORD

Of all the battles fought between the Army of Northern Virginia and its opponents, probably less attention has been paid to Fredericksburg than to any other. For those attached to General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, it seems to lack the operational skills that drove McClellan away from Richmond, destroyed Pope’s Army of Virginia at Second Manassas, or produced the dramatic victory against fearful odds at Chancellorsville. Certainly it falls short of the desperate hours along the Antietam, the fatal attraction of Gettysburg, or the protracted fighting in the Wilderness of Virginia.

Yet the battle of Fredericksburg has long attracted the attention of soldiers interested in their profession. Over a century ago an English officer selected this battle to study because it was fought by armies very largely composed of unprofessional soldiers and for this reason the lessons it teaches and the shortcomings it reveals seemed likely to be of exceptional interest to those preparing for future war on the continent. Captain G. F. R. Henderson cited the use of entrenchments at Fredericksburg as proof that good infantry, sufficiently covered . . . is, if unshaken by artillery and attacked in front alone, absolutely invincible.

In a later day another solider, an American officer subsequently killed in Vietnam, produced Fiasco at Fredericksburg, a modern analysis of the bloody assaults along the Rappahannock. Captain Vorin Whan concludes:

Strategically, the failure to penetrate the Fredericksburg position led the Union command to favor the strategy of flanking it by crossing the fords on the upper Rappahannock . . . . There were no further occasions in which bridges were constructed from a friendly to an enemy-held bank. The value of field entrenchments was impressed on both armies at Fredericksburg, and, during the remainder of the war, the spade became as important to the front-line soldier as the rifle. The tremendous effect of firepower employed against massed formations was amply proved in front of the stone wall . . . [and] the practical use of field wire communications and aerial observation was demonstrated at Fredericksburg, although neither became vital battlefield necessities until more recent years.

Captain Whan might have added that Fredericksburg furnishes one of the rare instances of street fighting during the Civil War.

The author of the present volume examines the campaign in greater detail than either Captain Henderson or Captain Whan. Major General Edward J. Stackpole, who served in the trenches in World War I and commanded the Panama Security Command during World War II, draws upon his own military background to analyze the generals and the techniques they employed in this exhausting and perhaps hopeless battle. He writes clearly and for the general reader. His analysis of the basis for decisions and description of the fighting will enlighten the soldier and delight the student of the Civil War, and the array of maps, contemporary photographs, and sketches in this volume make it easy to visualize the fighting, particularly along the front of Jackson’s corps, where the terrain cannot be visited except by a contemplative walk.

No book published since this volume appeared in 1957 has diminished the historical value of General Stackpole’s treatment of the battle.

Jay Luvaas

Professor of Military History

U.S. Army War College

PROLOGUE

HALFWAY BETWEEN Washington and Richmond, Virginia, at a point where the Rappahannock River makes one of its many changes of direction, the three centuries old but thoroughly modern community of Fredericksburg entertains an ever-increasing stream of visitors to an area in which four significant campaigns of the War Between the States were fought.

Virginia was the mother of eight Presidents of the United States, two of whom had their roots in Fredericksburg. George Washington spent much of his lively youth, from 1739 to 1747, on the old Ferry plantation just across the river from the town. In the city itself are a monument to George’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, and her home (now a museum) where she lived out the final years of her life and died a few months after her famous son left for his first inauguration. There is also to be seen the well-appointed one-story brick structure where James Monroe built his law practice and the reputation that later brought him the highest honor which his young country could bestow. And at the lower end of Fredericksburg is the two-story white frame house in which John Paul Jones, arrived from Scotland at the age of thirteen, lived for several years with his brother.

Nor is that all! Reminiscent as it is of the very spirit of the Washington family, the atmosphere of early Colonial days can still be felt in the surprisingly large number of architecturally beautiful homes and public buildings, erected in the 1700’s, which are still standing either in their original or restored condition. Two of the more fascinating relics of the early days are the Rising Sun Tavern and the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop. The Tavern, one of the three oldest buildings in the city, built about 1760 on property belonging to George Washington’s brother Charles, was probably a stagecoach stop as early as 1775. In the Apothecary Shop, history was made in medicine and pharmacy by its early proprietor, Dr. Hugh Mercer, a prominent citizen in the Revolutionary period who as a brigadier general lost his life in the Battle of Princeton, fighting under the command of his close friend General Washington.

Notwithstanding its valued colonial heritage, it was not until December 1862 that Fredericksburg, with a population of only four thousand, attained the distinction of being one of a comparatively small number of American cities or towns whose names are synonymous with famous battles. During the Civil War it changed hands seven times, was fiercely fought over in the campaigns of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and by the close of the war had dwindled to two thousand souls. Visitors today gaze with awe at the old buildings, notably the Presbyterian Church at the corner of Princess Anne and George Streets, which was established in 1808. One of its original white columns still carries two cannon balls, imbedded in the shaft, that were fired from Falmouth Heights by the Federal artillery. It was during the first Battle of Fredericksburg that the pews of this church were torn out to serve as beds for many of the wounded after the town was captured by the Union forces on December 13, 1862.

Today Fredericksburg serves as host to travelers who if needs be can between sunrise and sunset in a single day tour a group of battlefields upon which were fought the four major engagements of the Civil War—Fredericksburg in 1862, Chancellorsville in 1863, the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House in 1864—all within a few miles of one another and each sharing with the descendants of a mighty host of brave men the memories of bitter fighting on and near the banks of the broad Rappahannock, in the heartland of Virginia.

There is no comparable area of like size on the American Continent, perhaps even on the face of the globe, where in a comparatively short space of time such heavy and virtually continuous fighting has occurred. Strategically located about fifty miles in opposite directions from the Federal capital at Washington and the Confederate capital at Richmond, Fredericksburg at the very beginning of the war attained a position of great military importance. Nestling at a sharp right angle bend of the Rappahannock River, which was navigable from Richmond right up to Fredericksburg’s front steps, it was, more importantly, on the line of an excellent railroad which provided the shortest route to Richmond and was directly in the path of the natural invasion route from the Northern capital to the Southern.

Thus the Rappahannock River for many miles along its line of flow served as an important Confederate barrier to invasion. In that fact is found the compelling reason for the locale of the series of bloody battles, fought in the immediate vicinity of Fredericksburg, in which the Blue and the Gray together suffered over 100,000 casualties.

From time immemorial the natural features of the military theater of operations have played an influential and frequently decisive role in the movement and tactical employment of troops, whether large armies or smaller units. The more skillful commanders have always built their strategic concepts and specific battle plans on carefully constructed foundations, composed partly of known facts, partly of considered judgment—what is modernly called a military estimate of the situation, in the development of which a careful analysis of the pertinent terrain invariably played a vital part.

Rivers and bridges; railroads, roads, streams, and canals; ridges, mountains, and mountain gaps; valleys, woods, road junctions, and other terrain features were all-important to the opposing forces, although in the last analysis the experience and capabilities of the troop commanders have determined whether these inanimate tools of war were to prove an asset or a liability to their commands.

The conditions under which the Civil War was fought were such that in every important campaign rivers and mountains were major factors in the calculations of army, corps, and division commanders—difficult obstacles to overcome on the offensive, powerful deterrents in defensive operations.

In sharp contrast to the type of warfare that has been waged since the nineteenth century bowed out, battles of the Civil War were relatively uncomplicated affairs, displaying many of the characteristics of the chivalrous contests between knights of olden days. It was customary in the sixties to take plenty of time to prepare for the shock of battle, and when the armies finally clashed, the antagonists were prone to conduct themselves in a more or less gentlemanly fashion. The hectic tempo of modern warfare was nonexistent; there were no airplanes, machine guns, self-propelled artillery, tanks, rockets, or guided missiles; the weapons available were effective only at close range, signal communications were primitive by today’s standards, and battle control of the troops was accomplished chiefly by word of mouth and an occasional hastily written message.

Bridges over rivers were infrequent and easily destroyed; troops moved for the most part under their own power. Supplies and ammunition were usually conveyed by slow moving, horse-drawn vehicles. When the rains descended, roads became mud baths, so that both men and animals bogged down into immobility more often than not. Fighting usually ceased at sundown and even the temper of the soldiers cooled to the point where friendly exchange of newspapers, tobacco, and other items of temporary value took place between the lines or across streams that served as No Man’s Land.

This book is the story of the Fredericksburg campaign, in which General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia successfully against Generals George B. McClellan and Ambrose E. Burnside, who in turn commanded the troops constituting the Army of the Potomac during the period October 1862 through January 1863. The Drama on the Rappahannock is acted out along a noble river that, like two or three others, is featured in America’s history as a setting for the combat phases of the Civil War. The Rappahannock loomed importantly in the strategic planning of the generals on both sides and served repeatedly in a tactical sense to afford both comfortable security and tragic discomfiture to the hundreds of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers who learned to know it so well.

OFF TO WAR

CHAPTER 1

THE RISE AND FALL OF GEORGE B. McCLELLAN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S inauguration as