Sunday, the 14th, dawned; Burnside wished to renew the attack, but his subordinate generals, who knew better the temper of the troops, begged him to desist, and the day passed in comparative quiet, broken only by skirmishing, and an occasional shot from the heavy guns. All day the wounded and dead lay intermingled in front of the Confederate lines; Burnside refused to acknowledge his defeat by sending a flag of truce, and Lee, resolved to maintain his privilege as the victor in the battle of the 13th, awaited its arrival, and refused to listen to any terms proposed by the subordinate generals of the advanced divisions. On Monday, the 15th, most of the wounded were removed; and during the night, under cover of the darkness, the Federal general withdrew his forces across the river: a high wind blowing from the south prevented the noise of the wheels of the guns and the tramp of the men from reaching the Confederate camp, and on the morning of the 16th General Lee looked down with surprise on the deserted plain, and the town unoccupied, except by the wounded, too badly injured to bear removal.

Such was the battle of Fredericksburg. With but the comparatively slight loss of 1,800 men, General Lee had repulsed his opponent, and diminished the Federal army by 13,771 men killed, wounded, and missing.*

13th, or the afternoon of the 14th or 15th, a general advance of the Confederate lines might have turned the Federal rout into what is known on this continent as "a Ball's Bluff affair," still it is more in accordance with the well-known humanity of such men as Generals Lee and Jackson that not one life, even the life of an enemy, should be unnecessarily sacrificed, when already a sufficient lesson had been taught to the foe.'

* See General Lee's official report, and the estimate of the Federal losses in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the conduct of the war.

Through bad generalship, confusion in orders, and want of unity, the strength of the Federal army had been wasted. The assault on so strong a position as that held by General Lee may have been rash, but having been decided on it ought to have been carried through with unanimity and vigour. A large portion of the Federal army was not engaged, and vast numbers of troops not belonging to the Army of the Potomac, but within a short distance of the battle-field, lay idle and unemployed, when every serviceable man was in the ranks of the Confederate army. What was Sigel doing during the battle of Fredericksburg, and why were large bodies of men encamped near Alexandria, whilst Richmond. was almost destitute of defenders? There was no lack of men in the Federal armies, but there was an absence of talent to command them. The Northern Americans -unread in history-failed to appreciate the lesson so often taught by its pages, that large armies are not the only requisites for victorious campaigns.*

For the passage of the river, and for the failure of the attack, General Burnside took the whole responsibility, thereby relieving the Government of much anxiety and securing the gratitude of the President. But he had lost the confidence of his officers and men; and on a plan of another advance having been formed, a series of remonstrances were addressed not only to him, but to the President in person. General Burnside expostu

* About the time the battle of Fredericksburg was fought, the author travelled from Richmond to Washington; he saw only a few irregular troops of cavalry and a small detachment of infantry belonging to the Confederate army, whilst in the vicinity of Alexandria and between it and Bull Run there were many thousands of Federal troops in continual expectation of attack by some large and unknown Confederate force.

lated, and issued a stringent order, dismissing and removing several general officers of high rank from their commands, and decreeing death as a punishment for the crime of desertion, which had much increased, and threatened considerably to reduce the army. The President, to whom this order was referred, refused to sanction it, but was yet unwilling to accept Burnside's consequent resignation. When, however, he found that the

army was in a complete state of demoralisation, and that he must either punish the malcontents-of which General Hooker was among the most conspicuousor remove General Burnside, he decided on the latter course, and Burnside was relieved of his command, and Hooker appointed to succeed him. This change was pleasing to the Republican party and to a portion of the army, but there were men who doubted whether so loud a talker as General Hooker was known to be would prove a discreet commander, and not a few entertained a personal dislike against him on account of the discourtesy and absence of good feeling which he had shown in his conduct towards M'Clellan.

Thus terminated for the present the winter campaign of Fredericksburg. Seldom have so many lives been so fruitlessly sacrificed, and seldom has a nation been called on to bear with equanimity misfortunes occasioned by so great mismanagement. Commencing with the miscarriage of the orders relating to the pontoons,* and

Captain Chesney, in his review of the recent campaign of Virginia, thus refers to the mistakes which occurred in reference to the transport of the pontoons. And it should be noted that these blunders were not made-as in the Crimean war, so sharply criticised by American officers-at the commencement of hostilities, but at the end of eighteen months of war conducted on the very largest scale.'

VOL. II.

continuing during nearly the whole campaign, the general mismanagement of its conduct was redeemed solely by the masterly manner in which the retreat of the Federal army was secured during the night of the 15th—a retreat which might have been rendered disastrous if the Confederate General had been aware that it was in progress. It is indeed difficult to read the account of the battle of Fredericksburg without counting it as another among the many lost opportunities of the war. Had the Federals been followed after their last repulse, or had they been pressed during their retreat, the Rappahannock might have been more fatal to their army than was the Elster at Leipsic to the rearguard of Napoleon.

For several months the two armies continued to watch each other across the Rappahannock, nor was it until the spring that active operations were resumed in Virginia. The Campaign of the West, less influenced by weather, continued during the winter months, and in that direction, although gallantly opposed, the Federal armies pursued a steady but not uninterrupted advance.

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CHAPTER XI.

THE WINTER CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST.

THAT the importance of the Western Campaign was fully appreciated by the Government of the Confederate States is clear both from the words and acts of the President. During the month of December he undertook the long and tedious journey from Richmond to Chattanooga, and after passing in review the army of General Bragg near Murfreesboro, proceeded onwards to his own state, Mississippi. There he addressed the State Legislature, urging the people of the West to renewed exertions, and putting before them the sufferings of those who had been brought under the power of the Federal armies, drawing a vivid and perhaps highly coloured picture of the savage character of the war, and showing how reunion with such a race as the hated Yankee was impossible. He pointed out that there were two prominent objects in the programme of the enemy,-one to get possession of the Mississippi River and to open it to navigation, in order to appease the clamours of the West, and to utilize the capture of New Orleans, which had thus far rendered the Federals no service; the other to seize the capital of the Confederacy, and to hold it, if only as a proof that the Confederacy had no existence. We have recently (said the President) defeated them at Fredericksburg, and I believe that, under God and by the