Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
length became apparent to the Confederates that the enemy, though well
prepared to resist attack, was determined not to fight outside his
breastworks. Burnside, indeed, giving way to the remonstrances of his
subordinates, had abandoned all idea of further aggressive action, and
unless Lee should move forward, had determined to recross the Potomac.
Dec. 15 The next morning saw the armies in the same positions, and the
Federal wounded, many of whom had been struck down nearly forty-eight
hours before, still lying untended between the hostile lines. It was
not till now that Burnside admitted his defeat by sending a flag of
truce with a request that he might be allowed to bury his dead.[15]
The same night a fierce storm swept the valley of the Rappahannock, and
the Army of the Potomac repassed the bridges, evading, under cover of
the elements, the observation of the Confederate patrols.
The retreat was effected with a skill which did much credit to the
Federal staff. Within fourteen hours 100,000 troops, with the whole of
their guns, ambulances, and ammunition waggons, were conveyed across
the Rappahannock;
but there remained on the south bank sufficient evidence to show that
the Army of the Potomac had not escaped unscathed. When the morning
broke the dead lay thick upon the field; arms and accoutrements, the
_débris_ of defeat, were strewed in profusion on every hand, and the
ruined houses of Fredericksburg were filled with wounded. Burnside lost
in the battle 12,647 men.
LEFT ATTACK—FRANKLIN
First Corps Meade’s Division
Gibbon’s Division
Doubleday’s Division 1,853
1,267
214 Third Corps Birney’s Division
Sickles’ Division 950
100 Sixth Corps Newton’s Division 63 Total ———
4,447
CENTRE
Brook’s Division
Howe’s Division 197
186 Total ———
383
RIGHT ATTACK—SUMNER AND HOOKER
Second Corps Hancock’s Division
Howard’s Division
French’s Division 2,032
914
1,160 Ninth Corps Burns’ Division
Sturgis’ Division
Getty’s Division 27
1,007
296 Third Corps Whipple’s Division 129 Fifth Corps Griffin’
Division
Sykes’ Division
Humphrey’s Division 926
228
1,019 Engineers and Reserve Artillery, etc. 79 Total ———
7,817
Grand Total (including 877 officers) 12,647
(589 prisoners)
The Confederates showed 5,309 casualties out of less than 30,000
actually engaged.
LEFT WING—LONGSTREET
First Corps Ransom’s Division
McLaws’ Division
Anderson’s Division 535
858
159 Artillery 37 Total ———
1,589
(1,224 on December 12.)
CENTRE
First Corps Pickett’s Division
Hood’s Division 54
251 Total ———
305
RIGHT WING—JACKSON
Light Division
Early’s Division
D. H. Hill’s Division
Taliaferro’s Division 2,120
932
173
190 Total (including 500 captured) ———
3,415
No attempt was made by the Confederates to follow the enemy across the
Rappahannock. The upper fords were open; but the river was rising fast,
and the Army of the Potomac, closely concentrated and within a few
miles of Aquia Creek, was too large to be attacked, and too close to
its base to permit effective manœuvres, which might induce it to
divide, against its line of communications. The exultation of the
Southern soldiers in their easy victory was dashed by disappointment.
Burnside’s escape had demonstrated the fallacy of one of the so-called
rules of war. The great river which lay behind him during the battle of
Fredericksburg had proved his salvation instead of—as it theoretically
should—his ruin. Over the six bridges his troops had more lines of
retreat than is usually the case when roads only are available; and
these lines of retreat were secure, protected from the Confederate
cavalry by the river, and from the infantry and artillery by the
batteries on the Stafford Heights. Had the battle been fought on the
North Anna, thirty-six miles from Fredericksburg, the result might have
been very different. A direct counterstroke would possibly have been no
more practicable
than on the Rappahannock, for the superior numbers of the enemy, and
his powerful artillery, could not have been disregarded. Nor would a
direct pursuit have been a certain means of making success decisive;
the rear of a retreating army, as the Confederates had found to their
cost at Malvern Hill, is usually its strongest part. But a pursuit
directed against the flanks, striking the line of retreat, cutting off
the supply and ammunition trains, and blocking the roads, a pursuit
such as Jackson had organised when he drove Banks from the Valley, if
conducted with vigour, seldom fails in its effect. And who would have
conducted such an operation with greater skill and energy than Stuart,
at the head of his 9,000 horsemen? Who would have supported Stuart more
expeditiously than the “foot-cavalry” of the Second Army Corps?
Lee’s position at Fredericksburg, strong as it might appear, was
exceedingly disadvantageous. A position which an army occupies with a
view to decisive battle should fulfil four requirements:—
1. It should not be too strong, or the enemy will not attack it.
2. It should give cover to the troops both from view and fire from
artillery, and have a good field of fire.
3. It should afford facilities for counterstroke.
4. It should afford facilities for pursuit.
Of these Lee’s battle-field fulfilled but the first and second. It
would have been an admirable selection if the sole object of the
Confederates had been to gain time, or to prevent the enemy
establishing himself south of the Rappahannock; but to encompass the
destruction of the enemy’s whole army it was as ill adapted as
Wellington’s position at Torres Vedras, at Busaco, or at Fuentes
d’Onor. But while Wellington in taking up these positions had no
further end in view than holding the French in check, the situation of
the Confederacy was such that a decisive victory was eminently
desirable. Nothing was to be gained by gaining time. The South could
furnish Lee with no further reinforcements. Every able-bodied man was
in the service of his country; and it was perfectly certain that the
Western
armies, although they had been generally successful during the past
year, would never be permitted by Mr. Davis to leave the valley of the
Mississippi.
The Army of Northern Virginia was not likely to be stronger or more
efficient. Equipped with the spoils of many victories, it was more on a
level with the enemy than had hitherto been the case. The ranks were
full. The men were inured to hardships and swift marches; their health
was proof against inclement weather, and they knew their work on the
field of battle. The artillery had recently been reorganised. During
the Peninsular campaign the batteries had been attached to the infantry
brigades, and the indifferent service they had often rendered had been
attributed to the difficulty of collecting the scattered units, and in
handling them in combination. Formed into battalions of four or six
batteries a large number of guns was now attached to each of the
divisions, and each army corps had a strong reserve; so that the
concentration of a heavy force of artillery on any part of a position
became a feasible operation. The cavalry, so admirably commanded by
Stuart, Hampton, and the younger Lees, was not less hardy or efficient
than the infantry, and the _moral_ of the soldiers of every arm,
founded on confidence in themselves not less than on confidence in
their leaders, was never higher.
“After the truce had been agreed upon,” says Captain Smith,
“litter-bearers to bring away the dead and wounded were selected from
the command of General Bodes. When they had fallen in, General Bodes
said to them: ‘Now, boys, those Yankees are going to ask you questions,
and you must not tell them anything. Be very careful about this.’ At
this juncture one of the men spoke up, and said, ‘General, can’t we
tell them that we whipped them yesterday?’ Bodes replied, laughing:
‘Yes, yes! you can tell them that.’ Immediately another man spoke up:
‘General, can’t we tell them that we can whip them tomorrow and the day
after?’ Bodes again laughed, and sent those incorrigible jokers off
with: ‘Yes, yes! go on, go on! Tell them what you please.’”
The Army of the Potomac, on the other hand, was not
likely to become weaker or less formidable if time were allowed it to
recuperate. It had behind it enormous reserves. 60,000 men had been
killed, wounded, or captured since the battle of Kernstown, and yet the
ranks were as full as when McClellan first marched on Richmond. Many
generals had disappeared; but those who remained were learning their
trade; and the soldiers, although more familiar with defeat than
victory, showed little diminution of martial ardour. Nor had the strain
of the war sapped the resources of the North. Her trade, instead of
dwindling, had actually increased; and the gaps made in the population
by the Confederate bullets were more than made good by a constant
influx of immigrants from Europe.
It was not by partial triumphs, not by the slaughter of a few brigades,
by defence without counterstroke, by victories without pursuit, that a
Power of such strength and vitality could be compelled to confess her
impotence. Whether some overwhelming disaster, a Jena or a Waterloo,
followed by instant invasion, would have subdued her stubborn spirit is
problematical. Rome survived Cannæ, Scotland Flodden, and France Sedan.
But in some such crowning mercy lay the only hope of the Confederacy,
and had the Army of the Potomac, ill-commanded as it was, been drawn
forward to the North Anna, it might have been utterly destroyed.
Half-hearted strategy, which aims only at repulsing the enemy’s attack,
is not the path to king-making victory; it is not by such feeble means
that States secure or protect their independence. To occupy a position
where Stuart’s cavalry was powerless, where the qualities which made
Lee’s infantry so formidable—the impetuosity of their attack, the
swiftness of their marches—had no field for display, and where the
enemy had free scope for the employment of his artillery, his strongest
arm, was but to postpone the evil day. It had been well for the
Confederacy if Stonewall Jackson, whose resolute strategy had but one
aim, and that aim the annihilation of the enemy, had been the supreme
director of her councils. To paraphrase Mahan: “The strategic mistake
(in occupying a position for which pursuit was impracticable)
neutralised the tactical advantage
gained, thus confirming the military maxim that a strategic mistake is
more serious and far-reaching in its effects than an error in tactics.”
Lee, however, was fettered by the orders of the Cabinet; and Mr. Davis
and his advisers, more concerned with the importance of retaining an
area of country which still furnished supplies than of annihilating the
Army of the Potomac, and relying on European intervention rather than
on the valour of the Southern soldier, were responsible for the
occupation of the Fredericksburg position. In extenuation of their
mistake it may, however, be admitted that the advantages of
concentration on the North Anna were not such as would impress
themselves on the civilian mind, while the surrender of territory would
undoubtedly have embarrassed both the Government and the supply
department. Moreover, at the end of November, it might have been urged
that if Burnside were permitted to possess himself of Fredericksburg,
it was by no means certain that he would advance on Richmond;
establishing himself in winter quarters, he might wait until the
weather improved, controlling, in the meantime, the resources and
population of that portion of Virginia which lay within his reach.
Nevertheless, as events went far to prove, Mr. Davis would have done
wisely had he accepted the advice of the soldiers on the spot. His