. Field, fort and fleet; being a series of brilliant and authentic sketches of the most notable battles of the late civil war . lleck. Hallcck knew Bnrnsides plans, and heknew that the river would stop him. He promised that pontoonsshould be at Falmouth Heights with the advance of the army, butit was three weeks before a single section was on the ground. Callit what yon will, but that delay soaked the streets and lanes ofFredericksburg with Federal blood. Lee swung into position,intrenched, and was ready for battle fifteen days before it came. December had come, the country was impatient, and
. Field, fort and fleet; being a series of brilliant and authentic sketches of the most notable battles of the late civil war . lleck. Hallcck knew Bnrnsides plans, and heknew that the river would stop him. He promised that pontoonsshould be at Falmouth Heights with the advance of the army, butit was three weeks before a single section was on the ground. Callit what yon will, but that delay soaked the streets and lanes ofFredericksburg with Federal blood. Lee swung into position,intrenched, and was ready for battle fifteen days before it came. December had come, the country was impatient, and Burnsidehad scarcely fired a gun since succeeding McClellan. He felt thathe must strike a blow before going into winter quarters, and theonly chance was to strike it here. And yet what a chance! Overbeyond the town Lees army was hidden behind breastworks andstone walls and ridges, and to reach it the river must be crossed,the town carried, and the battle lines must reform under a fire ofgrape and canister, and advance across open fields and up highwaysunder such a fire as was met only at Malvern Hill and Gettysburg. 1318]. R. E. LEE buensides crossing at feedeeicksbukg. 319 A man who never heard a musket fired or saw a soldier in uniformwould stand on that biidge and say that five hundred thousand mencould not carry Lees position. Hooker flanked it above, and thedeath of Stonewall Jackson saved his army from capture. Frank-lins corps tried it below, and found itself cooped up in the woodsand held there by two or three brigades. Burnside droye straightat and through the town, and he left nine thousand dead andwounded in the streets and on the fields. General Burnside musthave realized the desperate chances as he looked across from theHeights, but he was forced to take them. The country demanded abattle, and the authorities at Washington would have decapitatedhim had he asserted what everybody has since willingly admitted. Walk up and down the streets these long years after, and
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