Battle of Fredericksburg – Wikipedia

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The Battle of Fredericksburg (Virginia) owes its name to the locality located on the southern shore of the Potomac river in which unionist forces (armed of the Potomac) under the command of the Mag. gen. Ambrose E. Burnside (about 114,000 soldiers) and confederate forces (armed of northern Virginia) under the command of the gen. Robert E. Lee (72,497 soldiers), strong both from an artillery park of over 400 cannons, gave life between 11 and 15 December 1862 to the first trench clash of history.

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The battle was determined by the will of the unionists to resume the initiative against the forces of Lee numerically very minor but much more aggressive. Burnside was appointed commander of the Potomac army in October, replacing the May. gen. George McClellan. Despite having blocked Lee in the battle of Antietam in September, President Abraham Lincoln believed it motivated that he defectively defective and that for this reason he had not chased and destroyed Lee in Maryland and that he had lost excessive time in reorganizing and re -editing his forces after the main battles supported.
Burnside, to respond to the president’s requests and the exhortations of the Commander General, the Mag. gen. Henry W. Halleck, planned an offensive in the autumn forwarded in the hope, crossed the Rappahannock river, to take over the city of Fredericksburg and therefore move south along the streets that led to the confederate capital of Richmond.

This plan was spoiled by the problem of Pontoni’s scarce availability, despite the points of ford they had been detected upstream and downstream. Profiting these slowdowns, the Confederates quickly sent their forces to Fredericksburg to prevent the crossing of the river. In the period in which the Pontoni were laid, Lee had proceeded to dig trenches to the south and west of Fredericksburg thanks to the use of his over 72,000 men.

The RADPPAHANCANC River in front of Fredericksburg (February 1863)

Nonetheless Burnside continued in the advance by choosing to attack Lee at any cost, despite at least two generals of his staff raised the objection that the confederate position had been too strengthened. Burnside counted on the numerical preponderance of his forces, which they took 117,000 effective, to remove Lee from his defensive positions and force him to retire to Richmond. In addition to his numerical advantage of troops, Burnside also had the advantage of knowing that his army could not have been attacked. On the other bank of the Rappahannock, 300 artillery pieces had been positioned on a ridge, known with the name of Stafford Heights, to prevent Lee’s army from organizing any significant counter -offensive.

Lee had great confidence in his men, even if it was quite uncertain about the plans of his opponent since two days before the unionist army had attempted to cross the river. He unfolded 20,000 men on his left side, anchoring them to the ridge known as Marye’s Heights, right to the west of the city, behind a stone wall on the top of the crest. Fearing a unionist crossing downstream, south of the city, he unfolded the remaining of his men to the south, also scattering him in the hills: which gave them an excellent defensive position. Lee assigned to Ten. gen. James Longstreet, his best subordinate for the conduct of defensive operations, the task of dealing with his left side with his body. On the right one, where there was some chances of counterattack if the opportunity had been presented, Lee assigned the assignment to his indomitable ten. gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and his small II body, particularly inclined to conduct operations in an offensive key, whose elements had operated with great value in the recent actions of the Shenandoh campaign.

Battle map (December 13)

On the river bank, over one hundred thousand Nordist prepared to attract the town where George Washington had lived: the Nordist engineers began to assemble the Pontoni in three different points.
To defend the city there were only 1800 southerners under Barksdale’s orders.
The chosen racks of Barksdale took the position and began to shoot, well hidden in homes, to the Nordist technicians on the other side of the Rappahannock.
In the morning fog, the north -nordist genieri were so decimated. In an attempt to stop the snipers, Burnside sided the largest deployment of cannons up to that point of the war: the bombings of the unionist artillery destroyed numerous buildings but without great effect on the defenders well protected in the basements. The practical solution was to send small infantry groups by ferrying them to the other side of the river.
Finally the north -nordist genieri managed to complete the Pontoni and, on 11 December 1862, a large number of troops began to flow to the city.
Despite the numerical inferiority, Barksdale’s men strenuously drew up the position, giving life to one of the greatest urban guerrillas of the civil war, retiring after delaying the crossing of 15 hours and having inflicted heavy losses to the enemy.
After the southerners had abandoned Fredericksburg, Burnside’s men took the city, causing Lee’s wrath that compared such looting to those of the ancient vandals. The destruction also infuriated Lee’s men, many of whom were natives of Virginia. During that day and the next one, Burnside’s men unfold outside the city and prepared to attack the Lee’s army.
On the Telegraph Hill hill, the three southern generals, Lee, Longstreet and Jackson prepared the defense: even if Jackson wanted to conduct a great assault to re -enter the federals in the river was convinced to create a solid defensive line.
In the north headquarters the talks between the generals were much more heated: Burnside had to impose himself to create his plan, considered by many to be bad, in particular his rival, General Hooker, considered the bankruptcy plan.
To General Franklin, commander of the left north -left side, he was ordered by letter who should have attacked Prospect Hill with a division: one amazed and disgusted Franklin did not understand the reason for the order; In fact, a division, about 4000 men, was a minimum fraction of the 65000 soldiers under his command that should have fought Jackson’s 50000 southernists, nevertheless accepted the order.

The battle opened on the morning of 13 December, when the very young artillery Pelham positioned a single cannon very close to the left wing of the Union: the unexpected Salve of Pelham confused the Nordist ranks and this revealed their intentions to the southern commands.
The situation unlocked, when the commander of the left wing of the Union, the May. gen. William B. Franklin sent two divisions into a past breach unnoticed on the right of Jackson’s defenses, of whom a guided meade, the future winner of Gettysburg: without the southerners, the men of Meade went through the swamp entering the heart of the Jackson line.
The division of Meade hired battle against the Confederates taking them by surprise and throwing them into chaos.
Meade asked for reinforcements to take advantage of the momentary advantage but did not receive it in time; The situation turned upside down, the confederates, 10 to 1 higher, resumed control of the situation.
Jackson quickly replied with a lightning -side counterattack that would affect heavy losses to the attackers, making Meade escape from the swamp, and Burnside dissuasive from leading other attacks on the confederated right side.

In the following hours later Burnside ordered his army, division after division, to assault the Marye’s Heights, on the confederated left side. Each division was mowed by the defenders of Longstreet as soon as she tried to cross the open field in front of the Marye’s Heights.
The southerners were well defended by a stone wall and were the elevated positions, while the Nordist had to cross a field open under the fire of cannons and enemy rifles.
Seven unionist divisions were sent, generally one brigade at a time, for a total of fourteen individual charges, each of which failed, causing 9,000 to divisional ranks between deaths and wounded. The losses confederated to the Marye’s Heights were in total of about 1,500 men.
During the night, a southern sergeant, in front of that carnage, came out of the trenches and began to give water to the injured Nordisti lying on the battlefield; Faced with that gesture, the Nordist ceased fire and retired.
The drop of darkness and the pleas of the subordinates of Burnside were such and many to end the attacks. Thousands of unionist soldiers passed the night to the flood in the penalties of the month of December in front of the Marye’s Heights, unable to move or assist the wounded caused by the confederated fire.
In Fredericksburg every single building had been transformed into a field hospital in order to host the thousands of injuries.

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The armies remained on their positions on December 14, when Burnside for a short period designed to lead his veteran IX body to the final assault against Marye’s Heights before giving up on it.
The IX body should have arranged in a colossal formation of 36 lines of soldiers, personally guided by Burnside.
The formation would have been easy target for artillery and would have caused the death of many soldiers and almost certainly of his commander, but the subordinates of Burnside managed not to make him undertake that suicidal action.

That afternoon Burnside asked Lee for a truce to help his injuries, which lee is welcome.
Lee could not counterattack for the tiredness of his troops and because the Nordist batteries still constituted a serious danger. The following day the federal forces retired beyond the river and the countryside ended.

The losses suffered by both armies clearly showed how disastrous unionist tactics had been and Burnside was detected by the command a month later, following the humiliating failure of his “march in the mud” (Mud March). The unionist army had more than 12,600 losses, 10,000 of which were the consequence of repeated attacks against Marye’s Heights. In detail there were 1,284 fallen, 9,600 wounded and 1,769 captured or disappeared. The confederate army lost about 5,400 men (in detail 608 dead, 4,116 injured and 653 captured or disappeared), many of which in the first fights on the front held by Jackson. The bodies of Longstreet lost only about 500 men.

The battle had blocked the army of the Potomac, forced to retire and temporarily renounce the conquest of Richmond.
It also showed the generals the little practicality of fighting in the winter months since the rain and snow made the roads muddy by slowing down the movements.
General Lee, however, fully understood the errors of the Nordist Generali, in fact, in the battle of Gettysburg, he also ordered the attack on the well -trenched Nordist positions (the charge of Pickett).

It should be remembered that a second battle took place in the same places on May 3, 1863, in connection with the Chancellorsville campaign (April 27 – May 6, 1863). The battles of Wilderness and SpotSylvania Court House were fought nearby in May 1864.

Parts of the battlefield of Fredericksburg are currently kept in the national military park of Fredericksburg and SpotSylvania.

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