! 34

FRANKLIN’S “LEFT GRAND DIVISION.”

RUINS OF “MANSFIELD,” ALSO KNOWN AS THE “ BERNARD HOUSE.” FROM A WAR-TIME 1‘IIOTOGRAI'll.

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wanted.” General Franklin then sent an aide to headquarters, who returnedwith the answer that the orders would “come presently.”

The order came, I think, at 7:45 a. m. : “ Keep your whole command inposition for a rapid movement down the old Richmond road.” Two-tliirds ofthe command (the Sixth Corps) was so placed that it could not move, withoutdanger of losing the bridges, until relieved by other troops or until Lee’s rightwing should be in full retreat. “ And you will send out at once a division, atleast, to pass below Smitlifield,”—a hamlet occupied by Reynolds on theprevious evening,—“ to seize if possible the heights near Captain Hamilton’s,on this side of the Massaponax, taking care to keep it well supported and itsline of retrea t open.”

The peculiar wording of the order is positive evidence that when it waspenned Burnside’s mind was still tilled with the fallacy of effecting a surprise.The order recites that the division to be sent out by Franklin — and alsoone to be pushed forward by Sumner on the right — was to seize, or attemptto seize, certain heights. The military man is habituated to use the word seizewhen an unguarded position is to be occupied, or a point in the lines of theenemy left weak through ignorance or neglect is to be taken by a sudden rush.Both of these operations are in the nature of a military surprise. When anadvantage is to be gained by hard fighting or the weigl.it of a mass of troops,the word earn/ is instinctively used. In corroboration of this proposition, Iwill state that in the third interview I had with Burnside, after the battle, hesaid, “I should have ordered Franklin to carry the heights at Captain Hamil-ton’s at all hazards.” \

\ Just as General Burnside was leaving, shortly suredme I would have tho orders before midnight,after nightfall, I asked to be permitted to order Had the permission been granted, the First andGeneral Stoneman’s corps (the Third) to cross at Sixth Corps would have boon in position for the at-once. He declined to give the permission, but as- tack by daylight, the Third Corps takingtho place of