Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[342] up along the heights in the rear of Fredericksburg, which, retiring II: a semi-circle from the river, embrace within their arms a plain six miles in length, and from two to three in depth. It seemed as if nature had prepared here an arena for one of the grandest conflicts of arms that had yet been witnessed in the war. The landscape, stretching from the hills to the river, was like an amphitheatre; the intrenched Confederates holding an upper tier of seats, and the stage being the valley in which were placed the red-brick buildings of Fredericksburg. Outside of the town a few houses were scattered here and there over the scene, and the leafless woods added to the bleak aspect of the country. Small detachments of the Confederate forces were quartered in the deserted houses, from which rose few and feeble clouds of smoke; while on the banks of the river the active picket walked his post through piercing winds and sleet and rain.

Before dawn, on the 11th December, our signal guns announced that the enemy was in motion. About two A. M., he commenced preparations to throw bridges over the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and one about a mile and a quarter below, near the mouth of Deep Run. Two regiments of Barksdale's brigade, McLaws' division, the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Mississippi, guarded these points, the former, assisted by the Eighth Florida, of Anderson's division, being at the upper. The rest of the brigade, with the Third Georgia regiment, also of Anderson's division, was held in reserve in the city. From daybreak until four P. M., the troops, sheltered behind the houses on the river bank, repelled the repeated efforts of the enemy to lay his bridges opposite the town, driving back his working parties, and their supports, with great slaughter.

At the lower point of the river near Deep Run there was no such protection. Here the enemy made a prodigious effort to lay his pontoons, and swarms of men could be seen moving to and fro with beams and boats. Our sharpshooters maintained an annoying fire, and for a moment the enemy retired. Then commenced a terrible cannonade, as more than a hundred guns were pointed at the city. Houses fell, timbers crashed, dust rose, flames ascended, while there poured out from the city a stream of unlucky citizens who had remained too long, or had screened themselves in hope of the enemy's speedy arrival. Unable to withstand the fire of the batteries and a superiour force of the enemy's infantry on the river banks, our troops were withdrawn; and soon loud cheers from the Federals announced that the bridge was completed. Burnside's advance into Fredericksburg was bravely resisted until dark. But Gen. Lee had accomplished the most important condition for a successful battle; he had gained the necessary time for the concentration of his forces.

It had been Burnside's hope, by rapidly crossing the river to take Lee at a serious disadvantage. He had discovered that a large portion of the Confederate force had been thrown down the river, and it was his design