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Posted on 06/29/2003 12:02:14 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Dec. 1862 Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan affected a smile as he read the fateful orders from Washington. Turning toward his late night visitor, McClellan spoke without revealing his bitter disappointment. "Well Burnside, I turn the command over to you." With these words, the charismatic, overcautious leader of the Union's most famous fighting force exited the military stage, yielding to a new man with a different vision of war.  President Lincoln approved Burnside's initiative but advised him to march quickly. Burnside took the President at his word and launched his army toward Fredericksburg on November 15. The bewhiskered commander (whose facial hair inspired the term "sideburns") also streamlined the army's organization by partitioning it into thirds that he styled "grand divisions." The blueclad veterans covered the miles at a brisk pace and on November 17 the lead units arrived opposite Fredericksburg on Stafford Heights. Burnside's swift March placed General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia at a perilous disadvantage. After the Maryland Campaign, Lee had boldly divided his 78,000 men, leaving Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley while sending Lt. Gen. James Longstreet to face the Federals at Culpeper. Lee had not anticipated Burnside's shift to Fredericksburg and now neither of his wings was in position to defend the old city. The Federals could not move South, however, without first crossing the Rappahannock River, the largest of several river barriers that flowed across his path to Richmond. Because the civilian bridges had been destroyed earlier in the war, Burnside directed that pontoon equipment meet him at Stafford Heights. A combination of miscommunication, inefficient army bureaucracy, and poor weather delayed the arrival of the floating bridges. When the pontoons finally appeared on November 25, so had the Army of Northern Virginia. Burnside's strategy depended upon an unopposed crossing of the Rappahannock. Consequently, his plan had failed before a gun had been fired. Nevertheless, the country demanded action. Winter weather would soon render Virginia's highways impassable and end serious campaigning until spring. The Union commander had no choice but to search for a new way to outwit Lee and satisfy the public's desire for victory. This would not be an easy task.  Longstreet's corps appeared at Fredericksburg on November 19. Lee ordered it to occupy a range of hills behind the town, reaching from the Rappahannock on its left to marshy Massaponax Creek on its right. When Jackson's men arrived more than a week later, Lee dispatched them as far as 20 miles down river from Fredericksburg. The Confederate army thus guarded a long stretch of the Rappahannock, unsure of where the Federals might attempt a crossing. Burnside harbored the same uncertainties. After agonizing deliberation, he finally decided to build bridges at three places - two opposite the city and the other one a mile downstream. The Union commander knew that Jackson's corps could not assist Longstreet in resisting a river passage near town. Thus, Burnside's superior numbers would encounter only half of Lee's legions. Once across the river, the Federals would strike Longstreet's overmatched defenders, outflank Jackson, and send the whole Confederate army reeling toward Richmond. Burnside's lieutenants, however, doubted the practicality of their chiefs plan. "There were not two opinions among the subordinate officers as to the rashness of the undertaking, "wrote one corps commander. Nevertheless, in the foggy pre-dawn hours of December 11, Union engineers crept to the riverbank and began laying their pontoons. Skilled workmen from two New York regiments completed a pair of bridges at the lower crossing and pushed the upstream spans more than halfway to the fight bank; then the sharp crack of musketry erupted from the river-front houses and yards of Fredericksburg. These shots came from a brigade of Mississippians under William Barksdale. Their job was to delay any Federal attempt to negotiate the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. Nine distinct and desperate attempts were made to complete the bridge[s] reported a Confederate officer, "but every one was attended by such heavy loss that the efforts were abandoned..." Burnside now turned to his artillery chief, Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, and ordered him to blast Fredericksburg into submission with some 150 guns trained on the city from Stafford Heights. Such a barrage would surely dislodge the Confederate infantry and permit completion of the bridges. Shortly after noon, Hunt gave the signal to commence fire. "Rapidly the huge guns vomited forth their terrible shot and shell into every corner and thoroughfare of [Fredericksburg]," remembered an eyewitness.  The bombardment continued for nearly two hours, during which 8,000 projectiles rained destruction on Fredericksburg. Then the grand cannonade ceased and the engineers ventured warily to the ends of their unfinished bridges. Suddenly -impossibly - muzzles flashed again from the cobble-strewn streets and more pontoniers tumbled into the cold waters of the Rappahannock. Burnside now authorized volunteers to ferry themselves across the river in the clumsy pontoon boats. Men from Michigan, Massachusetts, and New York scrambled aboard the scows, frantically pulling at oar's to navigate the hazardous 400 feet to the Confederates' side. Once on shore, the Federals charged Barksdale's marksmen who, despite orders to fall back, fiercely contested each block in a rare example of during the Civil War. After dusk the brave Mississippians finally withdrew to their main line, the bridge builders completed their work, and the Army of the Potomac entered Fredericksburg. December 12 dawned cold and foggy. Burnside began pouring reinforcements into the city but made no effort to organize an attack. Instead, the Northerners squandered the day looting and vandalizing homes and shops. A Connecticut chaplain left a graphic account of some of this shameful behavior: I saw men break down the doors to rooms of fine houses, enter, shatter the looking glasses with the blow of the ax, [and] knock the vases and lamps off the mantelpiece with a careless swing ... A cavalry man sat down at a fine rosewood Piano ... drove his saber through the polished keys, then knocked off the top [and] tore out the strings ...  The Battle of Fredericksburg would unfold in a natural amphitheater bounded on the east by the Rappahannock River and on the west by the line of hills fortified by Lee. When Jackson's men arrived from downstream, Longstreet sidled his corps to the north, defending roughly five miles of Lee's front. He mounted guns at Strong points such as Taylor's Hill, Marye's Heights, Howison Hill, and Telegraph (later Lee's) Hill, the Confederate command post. "Old Pete's" five divisions of infantry supported his artillery at the base of the slopes. Below Marye's Heights a Georgia brigade under Brig. Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb poised along a 600-yard portion of the Telegraph Road, the main thoroughfare to Richmond. Years of wagon traffic had worn down the surface of the roadway lending it a sunken appearance. Stone retaining walks paralleling the shoulders transformed this peaceful stretch of country highway into a ready-made trench. Jackson's end of the line possessed less inherent strength. His command post at Prospect Hill rose only 65 feet above the surrounding plain. Jackson compensated for the weak terrain by stacking his four divisions one behind the other to a depth of nearly a mile. Any Union offensive against Lee's seven-mile line would, by necessity, traverse a virtually naked expanse in the teeth of a deadly artillery crossfire before reaching the Confederate infantry. Burnside issued his attack orders early on the morning of December 13. They called for an assault against Jackson's corps by Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin's Left Grand Division to be followed by an advance against Marye's Heights by Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's Right Grand Division. Burnside used tentative, ambiguous language in his directives, reflecting either a lack of confidence in his plan or a misunderstanding of his opponent's posture -- perhaps both. Burnside had reinforced Franklin's sector on the morning of battle to a strenght of some 60,000 men. Franklin, a brilliant engineer but cautious combatant, placed the most literal and conservative interpretation on Burnside's ill-phrased instructions. He designated Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's division -- just 4,500 troops -- to spearhead his attack.  Meade's men, Pennsylvanians all, moved out in the misty half-light about 8:30 a.m. and headed straight for Jackson's line, not quite one mile distant. Suddenly, artillery fire exploded to the left and rear of Meade's lines. Maj. John Pelham had valiantly moved two small guns into position along the Richmond Stage Road perpendicular to Meade's axis of march. The 24 year-old Alabamian ignored orders from Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart to disengage and continued to disrupt the Federal formations for almost an hour. General Lee, watching the action from Prospect Hill, remarked, "it is glorious to see such courage in one so young." When Pelham exhausted his ammunition and retired, Meade resumed his approach, Jackson patiently allowed the Federals to close to within 500 yards of the wooded elevation where a 14-gun battalion lay hidden in the trees. As the Pennsylvanians drew near to the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad north of Hamilton's Crossing, "Stonewall" unleashed his masked artillery. Confederate shells ripped gaping holes in Meade's ranks and the beleaguered Unionists sought protection behind wrinkles of ground in the open fields. Union guns responded to Jackson's cannoneers. A full throated artillery duel raged for an hour, killing so many draft animals that the Southerners called their position "Dead Horse Hill." When one Union shot spectacularly exploded a Confederate ammunition wagon, the crouching Federal infantry let loose a spontaneous Yankee cheer. Meade, seizing the moment, ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge. Meade's soldiers focused on a triangular point of woods that jutted toward them across the railroad as the point of reference for their assault. When they reached these trees they learned, to their delight, that no Southerners defended them. In fact, Jackson had allowed a 600-yard gap to exist along his front and Meade's troops accidentally discovered it. The Unionists pushed through the boggy forest and hit a brigade of South Carolinians, who at first mistook the attackers for retreating Confederates. Their commander, Brig. Gen. Maxcy Gregg, paid for this error with a fatal bullet through his spine. Meade's men rolled forward and gained the crest of the heights deep within Jackson's defenses.  Jackson, who had learned of the crisis in his front from an officer in Gregg's brigade, calmly directed his vast reserves to move forward and restore the line. The Southerners raised the "Rebel Yell" and slammed into the exhausted and outnumbered Pennsylvanians. "The action was close-handed and men fell like leaves in autumn," remembered one Federal. "It seems miraculous that any of us escaped at all." Jackson's counterattack drove Meade out of the forest, across the railroad, and through the fields to the Richmond Stage Road. Union artillery eventually arrested the Confederate momentum. Except for a minor probe by a New Jersey brigade along the Lansdowne Road in the late afternoon and an aborted Confederate offensive at dusk, the fighting on the south end of the field was over. Burnside waited anxiously at his headquarters on Stafford Heights for news of Franklin's offensive. According to the Union plan, the advance through Fredericksburg toward Marye's Heights would not commence until the Left Grand Division began rolling up Jackson's corps. By late morning, however, the despairing Federal commander discarded his already-suspect strategy and ordered Sumner's grand division to move to the attack.
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Be good.
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82nd Airborne
 A U.S. soldier talks with Iraqi man outside Baghdad's largest holy mosque on Friday, June 13, 2003. In Baghdad, soldiers from the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 82nd Airborne Division said they had been invited to 'clean up' the area outside a mosque housing the tomb of Imam Mousa Kazim, a revered Shiite saint. Soon after their arrival in mid-June, the bustling commercial area became the most intensive theater of spontaneous interaction between U.S. troops and ordinary Iraqis in Baghdad. (AP Photo/ Mikhail Metzel)  Two Iraqi women pass along an U.S. M-1 Abram tank after the prayers at the Baghdad's largest holy mosque on Friday, June 13, 2003.  U.S. PFC Ian Mason, Michigan, talks with Iraqi people after the prayer outside Baghdad's largest mosque on Friday, June 13, 2003  US forces from the 82nd Airborne, raiding a Baghdad neighborhood, admire a nickel-plated AK-47 which was found inside a closet of an Iraqi resident on Wednesday, June 18, 2003, the 4th day of 'Operation Desert Scorpion' aimed at searching for weapons and rooting out insurgents in Baghdad, Iraq. The operation so far has netted about 400 Iraqis and confiscated scores of weapons. (AP Photo/Ali Haider)  An Iraqi resident scratches his head as Specialist Kevin Miller from Clearwater, MN and with the 82nd Airborne seizes an AK-47 found inside a cabinet during a raid dubbed 'Operation Desert Scorpion' Wednesday June 18, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Ali Haider)  An Iraqi resident questions the seizing of his assault rifle by Specialist Kevin Miller from Clearwater, MN and with the 82nd Airborne during a raid dubbed 'Operation Desert Scorpion' Wednesday, June 18, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq  US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne joke with Iraqi children as they guard a neighborhood in Baghdad while their colleagues are conducting a raid, Wednesday, June 18, 2003 in Iraq  Specialist Kevin Miller from Clearwater, MN and with the 82nd Airborne is ushered into a room as a child sleeps during a raid conducted by his unit at a Baghdad neighborhood in Iraq Wednesday June 18, 2003.  Specialist Kevin Miller from Clearwater, MN and with the 82nd Airborne enters a room to search for weapons during a raid conducted by his unit at a Baghdad neighborhood Wednesday June 18, 2003 in Iraq
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hmmm. I should try to find that on cd. ;)
A new bridge over the Tigris River sits nearly complete. Several Marine, Navy and Army units participated in building the 762-foot-long bridge, which opened June 28, 2003 in Zubaydiyah, Iraq. Photo by: Army Staff Sgt. David Bennett
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