ganized. The task imposed upon them, as upon their predecessors, was beyond the reach of human accomplishment. A thousand of Humphreys' men fell beneath the steady fire of the men of Kershaw, Ransom and Alexander, and added to the horrid harvest of death that already covered all the plain.

Hooker held Sykes' division to cover Humphreys' retreat, while he sent Griffin's division, reinforced by two brigades, up the valley of Hazel run to attempt to turn the right flank, or southern end of the sunken road and its bordering stone wall, and a fierce conflict raged for an hour, at the close of the day, all along the lines of Federal assault. Night ended the bloody conflicts of that raw winter day, which had brought only dire disaster to Burnside's right, where more than 30,000 men, from three different army corps, had been hurled against Longstreet's position, from which 7,000 Georgians and Carolinians had successively beaten them back, strewing their front with nearly 9,000 dead and wounded, while not a Federal soldier had touched the stone wall, fronting the sunken road, that they held in brave defense. When the day ended, the Confederates still held all of their positions, notwithstanding the bold and numerous assaults of the great Federal army of the Potomac. Both armies spent the cold and cheerless winter night where they had formed their lines of battle in the morning.

On the 15th, Burnside intended to renew his attacks upon Lee's positions, especially on his left; but he found all his subordinates bitterly opposed to further assaults, which must inevitably result as had the previous ones. So he abandoned all thought of further conflict and awaited a favorable opportunity for recrossing the Rappahannock, which he found during the storm of that night, leaving behind him 12,653 dead and wounded men, in attestation of their courageous fighting in obedience to his orders.

Lee's loss in this first battle of Fredericksburg was 5,309, mainly on his right, where Jackson had fought outside his slight breastworks. Fifty thousand Federals had been actively engaged in opposition to some 20,000 Confederates. Burnside's flanking movement on Lee's right had been discomfited by Jackson and Stuart, while the assaults on Lee's left, intended to relieve the pressure on Franklin's movement, had only resulted in a fearful loss of life to the Federals, with but a small one to Long

street's Confederates. Burnside attributed his defeat to the fact that the "enemy's fire was too hot." Lee had expected Burnside to renew the battle on the 14th, had every reason to believe that he would do so, and had made every necessary preparation to meet it. When that renewal was not made, he greatly desired to deliver a counterstroke, but the Federal army was so covered by the numerous batteries on the Stafford heights, which could not be reached by flank movement, that prudence forbade any attack on the Federal right. Jackson received permission to attack the Federal left, and just at the close of day of the 14th, he and Stuart opened a fierce artillery fire on Franklin along the line of the Richmond road, but Franklin's hundred field cannon and the heavy guns on Stafford heights compelled an abandonment of the movement. Not satisfied with this, Jackson desired to make an assault with the bayonet, after nightfall; thinking that the Federal batteries would not open on such an attack when they could not discriminate between friend and foe. Lee deemed this too hazardous, as his army was too small for such an offensive movement. He was not only receiving no reinforcements, but was constantly being called on to send away portions of his already small army to defend points in different States.

On the 16th of December, after the retreat of Burnside to the Stafford heights, General Lee wrote to President Davis:

I had supposed they were just preparing for battle, and was saving our men for the conflict. Their hosts crowned the hill and plain beyond the river, and their numbers to me are unknown. Still, I felt a confidence that we could stand the shock and was anxious for the blow that is to fall on some point, and was prepared to meet it here. Yesterday evening I had my suspicions that they might return [to the Stafford heights] during the night, but could not believe that they would relinquish their hopes after all their boasting and preparation; and when I say that the latter is equal to the former, you will have some idea of the magnitude. This morning they were all safe on the north side of the Rappahannock. They went as they came in the night. They suffered heavily as far as their battle went, but it did not go far enough to satisfy me.

In a letter to his wife, written on Christmas day, after the battle, he said, after recounting the mercies of God's providence to his people during the past year:

Our army was never in such good health and condition since I have been attached to it. I believe they share with me my disappointment that the enemy did not renew the combat on the 13th. I was

holding back all that day and husbanding our strength and ammunition for the great struggle for which I thought I was preparing. Had I divined what was to have been his only effort, he would have had more of it. My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant

men.

A Federal demonstration was made, opposite Port Royal, on the morning of the 16th, as if an attempt would be made to cross the Rappahannock at that point, far to Lee's right, and there resume the attempt to move on Richmond. This was promptly reported, and Stuart, followed by Jackson, marched to meet it. It was soon learned that this was only a feint, and so the Second corps went into winter quarters, in Caroline county, in the forests just back from the front of the wooded bluffs of the Rappahannock, and Jackson established his headquarters at Moss Neck, near Fredericksburg, while Longstreet's corps occupied the left from the rear of Fredericksburg up the Rappahannock to the vicinity of Banks' ford, above Fredericksburg.

Later in December, Stuart made a cavalry reconnoissance around Burnside's right and rear, to within a few miles of Washington and Fairfax and Occoquan. The larger portion of Longstreet's corps was sent south of the James, with its advance in the vicinity of Suffolk, to winter where subsistence was plentiful. The Federal army went into winter quarters along the line of the railway from Fredericksburg to Aquia creek, with its base of supplies at that Potomac landing, which was easily accessible by ship and steamer. Thus these two great armies, with their camp-fires in sight of each other, disposed themselves in winter quarters in the extensive forests behind the big plantations that bordered both banks of the Rappahannock, and each addressed itself to the work of preparation for another trial of arms during the coming year; the one fairly rioting in the abundance of its supplies of men and material, of all kinds, gathered from nearly the whole world, which was at its command, while the other could only strengthen its great poverty of men and resources by husbanding the scantiest of fare and of military stores, by strengthening its patriotic courage and devotion, and by increasing its trust in Divine Providence by constant religious observances and supplications and prayers from nearly every member of its army, from its humblest private to the noble Christian soldier that led and, by example, encouraged them.

Smarting under his failure to move on Richmond by way of Fredericksburg, Burnside was tempted, by a spell of mild weather, to try a movement toward Richmond around Lee's left, which he began by marching up the north bank of the Rappahannock, in January, 1863. But

a storm set in, just after his movement began, which soon rendered the roads impassable and forced him to retire to his camps. He found the Confederates ready to dispute his crossing the Rappahannock at every point that he reached, and making fun of his attempts by erecting great signboards within their lines, visible to the Federal army, inscribed, "This way to Richmond." This movement is known in history as "Burnside's Mud Campaign."

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CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN AND DEATH OF

D

JACKSON.

URING the winter of 1862-63 and early spring of 1863, Stuart, by frequent raids across the Rappahannock, kept the Federal cavalry busy, protecting Burnside's right and rear, while in the Valley and in the Appalachian region, Imboden and Jones broke the Federal communications with the west by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad.

In one of his humorous moods, on the 3d of March, Lee wrote to his wife:

We are up to our eyes in mud now, and have but little comfort. Mr. Hooker looms up very large over the river. He has two balloons up in the day and one at night. I hope he is gratified at what he sees. Your cousin, Fitz Lee, beat up his quarters the other day with about 400 of his cavalry, and advanced within four miles of Falmouth, carrying off 150 prisoners, with their horses, arms, etc. The day after he recrossed the Rappahannock they sent all their cavalry after him . . but the bird had flown. . . . I hope these young Lees will always be too smart for the enemy.

After the battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart's cavalry corps held the line of the Rappahannock up to the Blue ridge, with a considerable body in Culpeper, near the line of the Orange & Alexandria railroad, having its base of supplies at Gordonsville. Several times during the winter and early spring the Federal cavalry attacked the Confederates, who invariably drove them back. In an engagement, March 17th, at Kellysville, the first real battle between the horsemen of the opposing armies, the brave and beloved Pelham, commanding Stuart's horse artillery, was killed.

While tented in his winter quarters back of Fredericksburg, Lee was considering a plan of campaign for the coming spring, having frequent consultations with Jackson and Stuart; and Jackson, in the Corbin lodge at Moss Neck, although busy all the time strengthening his corps and putting it in a high state of efficiency by drill and inspection, and by using every possible effort to