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The Battle of Fredericksburg, fought on December 13, 1862 between General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, is today remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War.
The battle was the culmination of an effort by the Union Army to regain the initiative in its struggle against Lee's smaller, but more aggressive, army. Burnside was appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac in October in spite of the fact that his predecessor, Maj. Gen. George McClellan, had stopped Lee at the Battle of Antietam in September. Much of the reason for this was McClellan's lack of aggressiveness.
Burnside, in response to requests from President Abraham Lincoln and general in chief Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, planned a late fall offensive in which he hoped to cross the Rappahannock River, seize the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and then move southward along the roads to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. But Halleck spoiled this plan by delivering the required pontoon bridges to Burnside too late to effect the quick river crossing this plan required. By the time the pontoons were laid, Lee was dug in south and west of Fredericksburg with a force of 72,564 men.
Nevertheless, Burnside went ahead with the crossing and elected to fight Lee anyway. He counted on the numerical strength of his army, which numbered 117,000 effectives, to drive Lee out of his defensive positions and force him to retreat toward Richmond. In addition to his numerical advantage in troop strength, Burnside also had the advantage of knowing his army could not be attacked effectively. On the other side of the Rappahannock, 300 artillery pieces on a ridge known as Stafford Heights were enough to dissuade even the pugnacious Lee from attacking Burnside.
Still, Lee was certain he would win the battle and had great faith in his army. He deployed approximately 20,000 men on his left flank, which was anchored on the ridge known as Marye's Heights, just to the west of the city, behind a stone wall at the crest of the ridge. The rest of his men were deployed to the south, also interspersed with hills which made for an excellent defensive position. He assigned Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet, his best subordinate for defensive operations, to handle the left flank with his First Corps. On the right, where there was some chance of counterattacking if the opportunity presented itself, Lee posted the fiery Lieut. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and his offensive-minded Second Corps.
Map of the events of the Battle. Crossing the Rappahannock on December 11 was very difficult because Confederate sharpshooters in city buildings could pick off the Union engineers attempting to assemble the pontoon bridges. Union artillery bombardments destroyed many of the buildings without much effect, but the workable solution was to send small teams of infantry across in boats to engage and drive off the sharpshooters. After the five bridges were in place, Burnside's men looted the city of with a fury that enraged Lee, who compared their depredations with those of the ancient Vandals. The destruction also enraged Lee's men, many of whom were native Virginians. Over the course of that day and the next, Burnside's men deployed outside the city and prepared to attack Lee's army.
The battle opened on the morning of December 13, when the Union left wing commander Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin sent two divisions into a gap in Jackson's defenses on the right. However, Jackson quickly responded with a withering counterattack that inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers, and dissuaded Burnside from any more attacks on the Confederate right. Instead, he decided to attempt to break the left.
For the next several hours, Burnside ordered division after division of his army to assault Marye's Heights, only to see Longstreet's defenders mow them down like blades of grass. In fact, Longstreet boasted to Lee that he could hold off a million attackers from his position if only Lee would provide him with enough ammunition. Seven Union divisions were sent in, generally one brigade at a time, for a total of fourteen charges. Fortunately, darkness and the entreaties of Burnside's subordinates were enough to put an end to the attacks. Thousands of Union soldiers spent the cold December night on the fields leading to the Heights, unable to move or assist the wounded due to Confederate fire.
The armies remained in position throughout the day on December 14, when Burnside briefly considered leading his old IX Corps in one final attack on Marye's Heights, but thought better of it. That afternoon, Burnside asked Lee for a truce to attend to his wounded men, and Lee graciously granted it. The next day, he retreated across the river unmolested, and the campaign came to an end.
The casualties sustained by each army showed clearly how disastrous the Union army's tactics were, and Burnside was soon relieved of command. The Union army lost over 13,000 men, with more than 10,000 of them coming as a result of the repeated attacks on Marye's Heights. The Confederate army lost about 4,500, most of them in the early fighting on Jackson's front. Longstreet's corps lost only about 500 men.
Portions of the Fredericksburg battlefield are now preserved as part of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, administered by the National Park Service.
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