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Volume XXV Issue #4 • An Excerpt From: Fredericksburg: By Frank A. O'Reilly Click Here to view a sample map from this article |
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Instead, Halleck ordered the engineers to catch up with the Union army idling on the Rappahannock. The pontoon train toiled across northern Virginia, battling a punishing winter storm and execrable mud. The Northerners persisted through the day and made only eight miles progress. An engineer protested that “obstacles seemed to accumulate as they had never done before. The situation was extremely unpleasant.” When they reached Occoquan Creek they found it transformed into a raging torrent. The soldiers wasted two days, using their train to bridge the creek, only to discover the roads beyond the Occoquan were infinitely worse. “South of the Occoquan,” reported Brig. Gen. Daniel P. Woodbury, “the roads become impassable to pontoon trains.” Maj. Ira Spaulding of the 50th New York Engineers divided the wagon train, taking everything that would float to Dumfries. He procured a tugboat from Washington and towed the pontoons down the Potomac River. The rest of the train continued to plod overland to meet the boats at Aquia Landing, near the northern terminus of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad. They reunited on November 25.4
The ground around Fredericksburg did not quite suit Lee’s purposes. It offered marvelous defensive possibilities—with its commanding ridges and open fields of fire—but it prevented the Southerners from seizing the initiative. Lee preferred baiting Burnside into a battle closer to the North Anna River, where he could counterattack if the opportunity presented itself. President Jefferson Davis overruled Lee’s proposal, insisting that Fredericksburg must be held. The war had not intruded much upon the lives of the citizens of Spotsylvania and Caroline counties. The armies had not blighted the area’s natural resources, and President Jefferson Davis wanted those valuable assets protected from the Northerners. Lee immediately yielded to the president’s wishes, and focused on defending Fredericksburg. Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson arrived on the scene on December 3. Without knowing the president’s designs, he encouraged Lee to fall back to the North Anna. When Lee refused, Jackson complained privately to his brother-in-law, Maj. Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill, telling the division commander, “We will whip the enemy but gain no fruits of victory.”6 Committed to holding Fredericksburg, the Southerners spread along the Rappahannock River to cover every likely crossing point. Lee’s legions patrolled the river from Port Royal (20 miles below Fredericksburg) to the confluence of the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers (12 miles above Fredericksburg). The river became too wide and tides too dramatic to bridge below Port Royal in 1862. The difficulty of crossing one river would be magnified by any attempt to cross the Rappahannock and the Rapidan (especially in winter). Confederates erected some hasty and crude earthwork defenses. General Longstreet’s chief of staff, Maj. G. Moxley Sorrel, later mused, “Looking back on the situation, it seems surprising that we did so little in the way of defensive fieldworks.” Still, Lee’s fortifications created a visual deterrent for the Union soldiers camped across the stream, who watched the road to Richmond grow increasingly more difficult by the hour.7 Page 1 • Page 3 • Order this issue
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The bridges had arrived eight days too late for Burnside. The military campaign envisioned by the Union commander had all but collapsed. When Burnside arrived opposite Fredericksburg on November 17, only 1,000 Confederates blocked the road south. By the time the pontoons arrived, Robert E. Lee had figured out Burnside’s purpose and began marshaling 78,000 Rebels along the Rappahannock. “Had the pontoon bridge arrived even on the 19th or 20th, the army could have crossed with trifling opposition,” Burnside lamented to the War Department. “I deem it my duty . . . to say that I cannot make the promise of probable success with the faith I did when I supposed that all the parts of the plan would be carried out.” Burnside never intended to fight for Fredericksburg—seeking instead to use the city as a springboard for his drive south to Richmond. The missing pontoons had doomed the commander’s attempt at speed and surprise. If the army was going to continue its winter campaign, it would have to rely on brawn, and battle for every foot of ground, starting right at the riverbank.5
The Federal descent upon Fredericksburg, indeed, had surprised Robert E. Lee. He initially conceded that he could not save the city from imminent capture, so he ordered Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s First Corps to the next defensible river to the south, the North Anna. He detached Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws’ division to delay the Union advance out of Fredericksburg, until the Confederates could mass their strength behind the North Anna. Burnside’s subsequent inaction also perplexed Lee. The Confederate commander abruptly changed his plans, and redirected all of his forces to quickly gather around the river city of Fredericksburg.