Dec. 12, 1862. |
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| Scene in Fredericksburg on the morning of the 12th. |
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if the movement succeeded, “to spring upon the enemy in their retreat.”
The entire day
was consumed in the crossing, and in reconnoitering the position of the Confederates, and that night the National troops lay on their arms, ready for the expected battle in the morning.
The Confederates, with three hundred cannon well posted on the heights, were also ready for action; for Jackson's force, whose extreme right had been posted eighteen miles down the river, had been called in, and the whole of Lee's army, eighty thousand strong, was ready to oppose the Nationals.1 Its left was composed of Longstreet's corps, with Anderson's division resting upon the river, and those of McLaws, Pickett, and Hood, extending to the right in the order named.
Ransom's division supported
the batteries on Marye's and Wills's Hills, at the foot of which Cobb's brigade and the Twenty-fourth North Carolina were stationed, protected by a stone wall.2 The immediate care of this important point was intrusted to General Ransom.
The Washington (New Orleans) Artillery, under Colonel Walton, occupied the redoubts on the crest of Marye's Hill, and those on the heights to the right and left were held by part of the Reserve artillery, Colonel E. P. Alexander's battalion, and the division batteries of Anderson, Ransom, and McLaws.
A. P. Hill, of Jackson's corps, was post ed be tween Hood's right a nd Hamilton's crossing on the railway, his front line under Pen der, Lane, and Archer occupying the edge of a wood.
Lieutenant Walker, with fourteen pieces of artillery, was posted near the right, supported by two Virginia regiments, under Colonel
1 When Lee was satisfied that Burnside was moving on Fredericksburg, he ordered Jackson to cross the Blue Ridge and place himself in position to co-operate with Longstreet. A little later both he and Longstreet were ordered to Fredericksburg, when the division of D. The. Hill was sent to Port Royal to oppose the passage of gun-boats, which had appeared there. The rest of Jackson's division was disposed so as to support Hill. The cavalry brigade of General W. H. F. Lee was stationed near Port Royal, and the fords of the Rappahannock above Fredericksburg were closely watched. On the 28th of November, Wade Hampton crossed and made a reconnaissance as far as Dumfries and Occoquan, and captured two hundred Nationals and some wagons; and at about the same time a part of Beales's regiment of Lee's brigade dashed across the Rappahannock in boats, below Port Royal, and captured some prisoners. Hill and some of Stuart's horse-artillery had a skirmish with the gun-boats at Port Royal on the 5th of December, and compelled them to retire.--Lee's Report, volume I. of the Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia, pages 88 and 89.
2 The little picture on page 491 shows the appearance at this point on a road at the foot of Marye's Hill, and just below his mansion, when the writer sketched it in June, 1866. The stone wall is on the City side of the road on which the Confederates were posted. The tents of a burial-party, encamped nearer the Rappahannock at the time, are seen in the distance.
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