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guished as a cavalry leader, and worthy to rank with. Sheridan, had he lived. He was to have been married shortly, and his last moments were spent in speaking of his fiancée and of his beloved parents.

Meanwhile, the rest of the army had attacked in front of Fredericksburg. A mist hung over the river and the valley all the morning; but toward noon this lifted, revealing the Confederate heights bristling with bayonets and cannon, and swarming with soldiers. The key of the position was Marye's Hill, just back of Fredericksburg, and we were ordered to assault that impregnable height at all hazards and whatever cost.

During the morning I had been sent with a report or dispatch to Burnside's headquarters, and while galloping through a wood road my horse slipped on a root extending across the road, and fell heavily upon me. He was a large, jet black, handsome fellow, captured at Fair Oaks in June, in the rush of the battle there, and we both came down so hard I thought my right leg broken and done for, for sure. Neither of us could rise. But, fortunately, a squad of stragglers happened to be near, cooking a pot of coffee, and, rushing to our assistance, they soon got us on our feet again. I was badly shaken up and in great pain; but presently managed to climb into the saddle again, and ride on to headquarters. Here all was confusion and indecision, and I was detained considerably. But as I rode back over the brow of a hill overlooking the Rappahannock, en route to my division, as the fog lifted and the sun came out bright and clear, across the river I beheld our lines in motionFrench and Hancock-and soon on the double-quick with a rush and a cheer they attacked the whole Confederate front there.

It was indeed a gallant sight; never one more so. Without a glass I could count the banners and distin

guish the brigades from where I sat on my horse. How the muskets gleamed, and the bayonets flashed, and the flags streamed in the glorious sunlight! But scarcely had they started forward before the whole Confederate heights were a circle of fire. A hundred cannon were in skillful position there, and shot and shell opened great gaps through our regiments. But still our lines swept onward till the Confederate infantry opened, and then suddenly a cloud of smoke like the breath of hell rolled over the battlefield, and our brave boys disappeared from sight. It was a constant earthquake. It was a live volcano. The roar of battle was deafening and continuous even from where I sat; but it did not last. In twenty minutes or so it was all over. The cloud slowly lifted, and our men were back in their lines again—what were left of them. The field was strewn with the dead and the dying. Riderless horses galloped wildly at will. The wounded were being borne to the rear. Thousands of men had become cripples for life; and thousands of firesides were desolate forever. Ah, me! but it was a pitiful spectacle; and I turned and rode on to my division, sick at heart over such useless slaughter of brave

men.

But Burnside was not yet satisfied. He thought French and Hancock did not know how to do it; though they had sacrificed one third of their men. Down at the Phillips House, on the opposite or Stafford side of the river, a mile or more away from the battlefield, he strode up and down the terrace, and, shaking his fist at Marye's Hill, still thundering with artillery, insanely declared: "That height must be carried before nightfall!" So he sent for Fighting Joe Hooker, and ordered him to take it.

A smaller man than General Hooker would have blindly obeyed the order; but he first sent an aid to inquire

about it, and then he himself (ever thoughtful of his men) recrossed the river under a heavy artillery fire, and endeavored to dissuade Burnside from such a useless butchery. His only answer was "to obey orders,” and so, of course, Hooker went in, with all his accustomed ardor and intrepidity. But he might as well have stormed the fiery mouth of hell. Night came on in the midst of the furious fighting.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them,

Volleyed and thundered;"

but Hooker did not give it up until thousands more of our brave boys were hors de combat.

First and last, we left over six thousand men at the foot of Marye's Hill and up its bloody slope; and, altogether, lost at Fredericksburg over twelve thousand men; while the Confederate loss was about half as much more. Burnside, however, was not yet content, and meditated another attack next day at the head of his own old corps (he was no coward), but was finally persuaded to give this up.

We'lay still the next day, and the next, with only occasional artillery firing and skirmishing; and finally on the night of the fifteenth Burnside made up his mind to withdraw, and before morning we had recrossed the Rappahannock and were back in our old camps again, or well on the way to them. Why Lee did not attack and destroy us and our pontoon bridges, in the midst of our night retreat, I do not know. Suppose he had trained his artillery on our bridges or bridge-heads? If he did not know of our retreat, he must have been kept poorly informed by his pickets. If unable to profit by

1 Our exact losses were 12,353 men, of whom 1,180 were killed, 9,028 wounded, and 2,145 taken prisoners.-Comte de Paris, vol. ii, p. 596.

it, he must have been used up worse than we knew, or else have "lost his head" also in the magnitude of his victory.

Now what was to be done? Evidently, General Burnside did not know. But after pondering various projects, he finally decided to cross the Rappahannock again, above Fredericksburg, and try conclusions again with the Confederates. This was his famous "Mud March" in January, 1863. The campaign began all right-it was splendid weather; but a general thaw and rain set in soon afterward-the bottoms dropped out of the Virginia roads-and our pontoons and artillery seemed bound for China. After floundering around for three or four days in fathomless mud, with scores or hundreds of men attempting to haul a single piece of artillery, besides the horses, the advance was countermanded, and back we went to our old camps again. Of course, his generals (and the army) by this time were criticising him considerably, and his only plan to meet this was to request the President to dismiss General Hooker and others from the service, and relieve General Franklin and others from their commands. A brilliant idea, surely-magnificent strategy, splendid tacticsworthy of such a commander in chief! And Mr. Lincoln responded by relieving Burnside himself, and placing the gallant Hooker in command!

I do not want to be unfair or unkind to poor General Burnside. He was certainly loyal and patriotic, and meant to do his best. But I think history will declare he was utterly incompetent for such a great command, and ought never to have accepted it. It is true, he distrusted himself, and was averse to accepting it. But then no man ought ever to accept such a job, if he thinks he cannot accomplish it. A due self-confidence is essential to success in any line of business, but in none

more so than in military affairs. A favorite maxim of Frederick the Great was: "The tools to him who can use them." But he never will use them, if he thinks he cannot. Grant selected Sherman as his right arm and Sheridan as his left, because they believed they could whip the enemy. It is to General Burnside's credit, that he did not disappear when relieved, like General McClellan, but later on went out to Tennessee and tried it again with a smaller command. But here also he got into trouble, and would have been compelled to capitulate to Longstreet at Knoxville, had not Sherman marched promptly to his relief the very day Grant and he finished up Bragg at Chattanooga. Sherman, indeed, knew well the value of time. He did not even ride into Chattanooga (to see and enjoy the victory a little, as most generals would have done), but instantly put his column in motion, with orders to make forced marches to East Tennessee (without overcoats or blankets even, though late in November, and bitter cold), and thus saved the day at Knoxville.

General Burnside no doubt would have done well as a brigade or division commander, where he would have had somebody else to do his thinking and furnish him orders. But to swing an army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men; to think and plan and execute great things on a great scale, sometimes instanter-in short, to take the initiative and win against such a Confederate gamecock as Robert E. Lee-evidently this was a job beyond his caliber; and good and clean as he was in many respects, yet history will find it hard to forgive him for the Slaughter House at Fredericksburg.

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