The battle of Fredericksburg was one of the Union’s worst Civil war defeats and was a tragic demonstration that just because you have more soldiers doesn’t mean you will always come out on top. 

        General Ambrose Burnside reluctantly took the place or General George McLean as Army of the Potomac.  His plan was that since Richmond, Virginia remained the popular target he was going to move  his entire force of 120,000 toward the southern capital by way of Fredericksburg.  He had a startling swift advance and his troops marched 40 miles east of their encampments in Warrenton Junction. 

        On November 19 his army had crossed the Rappahannock River and arrived in Richmond to find that Lee’s army was not prepared for an assault.  Burnside was not prepared either because his army didn’t have the pontoons they needed to bridge the river.

        The pontoons arrival was delayed 6 days and even after receiving them Burnside waited another three weeks.  By that time Lee had his forces and was ready to fight and Fredericksburg had been evacuated and the Confederate troops lined the town.  Even though Burnside had lost his chanced he continued with his plan.  He calculated that  his best chance of winning to surprise Lee by attacking his most formidable point on the Confederate line.

        At dawn on December 11 Burnside finally ordered his men to begin constructing a 6 pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River but their progress was delayed by sniper fire.  Lee was satisfied with his defensive position and allowed the Confederates to approach.  By the next day the Union had occupied Fredericksburg and began a looting spree. 

        The Union onslaught began at 9 a.m. on December 13 as Franklin’s corps  advanced against the Confederate right commanded by Stonewall Jackson.  The Confederate forces  lead two cannons out into the middle of a field  and the Southern horse artillery officer John Pelham f

Attack the Union force and startled Lee and the army with his boldness.  Meade’s division of the army managed to breach the Confederate line but had to fall back when they received no reserves. A southern counterassault in turn was repelled by artillery fire and Franklin declined to resume his advance.  “It is well that war is so terrible.  We should grow to fond of it” is what Lee said while watching the battle.

        Burnside had launched his main thrust against Longstreet’s army at Marye’s Heights.  The confederate’s guns were aimed down at the sloping field that the Federals were about to traverse while four ranks of infantrymen waited at the sunken road at the base of the ridge.  “A chicken could not live in that field once we opened onto it,” a Confederate predicted and that wasn’t an exaggerated.  The Federals couldn’t go anywhere near the ridge without being swarmed with bullets.  Many brigades stormed out of Fredericksburg in their heroic but discouraging attempts to invade Marye’s Heights.  Burnside continued to order assaults through the night. 

        That evening as the aurora borealis lit the Southern sky the flustered Union commander discussed replenishing the offensive the next morning, and was planning to lead the charge himself.   Burnside was talked out of the plan by his soldiers and led the Northern army back across the Rappahannock.