Volume XXV Issue #4 • An Excerpt From:

Fredericksburg:
Attack at the Stone Wall

By Frank A. O'Reilly

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Note: All Blue & Gray feature articles are annotated.

The Union bombardment on December 11 damaged buildings and set many of them on fire.

Ambrose Burnside tried to convince Lincoln that his chances of success had diminished greatly, and the campaign in purely military terms was over. The Northern president continued to press for action, insisting that the campaign must proceed for overriding political reasons. The Federal commander yielded and looked for military alternatives. With Lee’s defenses bristling along the river, Burnside warned his chief that a successful crossing would require complete secrecy and surprise—and then, it promised only a marginal chance of success. Nonetheless, the Union commander determined to accede to Lincoln’s wishes and cross the river at all hazards—or maybe not. Ambrose Burnside informed the president on December 9 that he proposed crossing the river directly at Fredericksburg itself. He justified the move by stating, “I think now that the enemy will be more surprised by a crossing immediately in our front than in any other part of the river.” The decisive, assertive general gave one of the clumsiest reasons for risking battle—and that might have been his point. Burnside may have tried obliquely to show Lincoln that he had run out of options on the Rappahannock, and this was not a good enough reason to cross the river. Regardless, the plan was approved, and Burnside had to make the best of a deteriorating situation.8

Committed to crossing the Rappa-hannock River and securing Fredericksburg as a base, the Union high command mobilized for action. Burnside hoped to surprise the Confederates with a sudden lunge across the river at an unlikely point, and then speedily seize the commanding ridges beyond the city before the Confederates could react and concentrate their forces. Engineers selected three crossing points opposite and below the city to erect pontoon bridges, designating them as the Upper, Middle, and Lower pontoon crossings. Infantry detachments provided protection for the pontooniers. An array of 147 cannon, soon to be strengthened to 183 guns, crowned Stafford Heights, dominating the riverfront around the bridge sites. Engineers marched out of their camps after dark on December 10. As the pontoon trains lumbered through legions of Union troops, “every man knew that the moment of action had arrived for the Pontons were moving for the river.” The bridge-builders halted behind Stafford Heights and waited until 1:00 a.m. When the moon set, they took advantage of the darkness and the early morning fog of December 11, 1862 to steal down to the river undetected.9

Elements of the 50th New York Engineers tackled the assignment of building bridges opposite the city. They would construct two bridge decks at the north end of the city (the Upper Pontoon Crossing, see Pg. 61) and one span at the south end of Fredericksburg, by the city docks (the Middle Pontoon Crossing, see Pg. 64). The 15th New York Engineers worked on erecting a span two miles below Fredericksburg (the Lower Pontoon Crossing). The U.S. Regular Army’s Engineer Battalion prepared to build a second bridge at the lower crossing.

Engineers fumbled through the frigid darkness, wrestling their unwieldy equipment to the river. Starting around 2:00 a.m., construction began in earnest at the Upper and Middle sites. The 15th New York Engineers and the Regulars lagged behind. They had discovered to their dismay that there was no ready access to the Lower bridge site. The Regulars forged a path to the river, while the New Yorkers found an access farther north, and then floated their equipment downstream to the designated point. (The actions of these engineers and the southern end of the Fredericksburg battlefield will be developed in the next issue of Blue & Gray. This article will focus on the events immediately in and around the city of Fredericksburg.)10

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