118
SUMNER’S “RIGHT GRAND DIVISION.”
Mmi
rvik,*
Tlie portico of the Marye mansion is faintly markedamong the trees of the hill in the middle-background.The road on the right is the end of Hanover street andthe beginning of the Telegraph road, by which most ofthe attacking troops crossed the canal, or ditch, and,tiling to the left, formed line under the low bank. Inthe middle-ground, to the left of the road, is seen thesquare brick house mentioned by General Couch . Partof the troops crossed the canal by a street on the leftparallel with Hanover street, and a few waded. Mostof the dead lay a short distance beyond the brickhouse.
sent on the fourth day after the battle with a largo detailto bury the dead. In his official report ho says: “ Thosebodies nearest the enemy’s works were recognized asbelonging to Kimball’s brigade of French ’s division andto the different regiments of Hancock’s division.” Intlie two days occupied by the burial ho says ho “foundand buried 913 of our soldiers, and brought to this sideof the river the bodies of five officers, making a total of918. Nearly all the dead were stripped entirely nakedby the enemy.” A woman who lived in one of the housesnear the stone-wall has related that “ the morning afterthe battle the Held was blue; but tlie morning after theFcderals withdrew the lield was white.”— Editors.
have a little something to show for the sacrifice of the day before; that thepeople would feel we had not failed utterly. It was agreed that Fredericks-burg should he held. Then Burnside dismissed us and sent Hooker andmyself to Fredericksburg to arrange for the defense. We held a council atthe corner of Hanover street.
It was decided that Hooker’s troops should hold the town. The questionwas how many men would he leave for that purpose, opinions varying fromten to eighteen thousand. My limit was ten thousand men. General Tylerturned to me and said: “Make it higher, General.” We compromised ontwelve thousand. We remained in tlie town on the 15tli, and that eveningmy corps and the Ninth Corps recrossed tlie river. Next morning we foundthat Fredericksburg had been evacuated. When Willcox and I left, wethought, of course, it would he held. The talk was that during the nightHooker prevailed upon Burnside to evacuate the town.
Our wing of the army thought the failure of the campaign was due in partto the fact that we were put in where we ought not to have been. We wereasked to achieve an impossibility. We had something to do that was notpossible for us to do.
After the battle Burnside tried to regain the confidence of the army, andthere is no doubt that Sumner did a good deal to help him. Burnside con-ceived the plan of crossing the Rappahannock a few miles above Fredericks-burg , where the enemy were unprepared to receive us. The result was the“mud march” of January 20tli-21st. It was Burnside’s effort to redeemhimself. To start off in the mud as we did with the army in its discouraged