A. J. Bennett, private , First Massachusetts Light Battery, The story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery , attached to the Sixth Army Corps : glance at events in the armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah, from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1864.

[89] our general's design to throw his army between these widely detached portions of the Confederate army, moving obliquely from Warrenton. But last night he was ordered to turn over his command to Gen. Burnside. Burnside reluctantly assumed command in obedience to the mandate of the war department. He halted here on the plains around Warrenton, reorganizing the army upon a novel plan. The six army corps were consolidated into three grand divisions, the right, centre, and left, respectively commanded by Generals Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin. The Sixth Corps now formed a part of the left grand division, and was commanded by ‘Baldy’ Smith, the First Corps by Gen. John F. Reynolds.

The right grand division arrived at Falmouth November 17. It is said that at this time, Fredericksburg was occupied by but one regiment of cavalry, four companies of infantry, and a light battery, and that the river before the town was fordable. Burnside, however, it is alleged, declined to give orders to the right grand division to cross and take possession of the heights behind the town, ‘until his communications should be established.’ Burnside's intentions were now clearly manifest to the enemy; Aquia Creek his base of supplies, Fredericksburg his first objective point, and ultimately a forward movement along the ‘air-line road’ to Richmond. The delays of the next twenty-three days gave the enemy ample time to disturb these plans of the Federal commander. The Sixth Corps moved obliquely to the southeast from the vicinity of New Baltimore; the First Division, to which our company had always been attached, was now commanded by Gen. Brooks, a stern disciplinarian and able soldier, Gen. Slocum having succeeded to the command of the Twelfth Corps. The division artillery organization remained substantially the same; but Company D, Second U. S., the one regular army battery of the four attached to this division, was in charge of Lieut. Williston. Our battery commander had not yet received his captain's commission, though a vacancy existed by the resignation of Capt. Porter. Lieut. Federhen was our junior first, and Lieutenants Sawin and Greene (the latter raised from the ranks by the commission of the governor of his state) were respectively our senior and junior second. Sergt. French, previously of the first detachment, had been made orderly sergeant,