January 1863–Congress Looks Into Fredericksburg Amid Low Public Confidence

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

The completed pontoon bridge necessary for troop movement into Fredericksburg .
The com­plet­ed pon­toon bridge nec­es­sary for troop move­ment into Fredericksburg .

The events of late fall — ear­ly win­ter had brought the North to a low point. Although the army expe­ri­enced some suc­cess in the West, the war in the Vir­ginia the­atre had seen one North­ern deba­cle after another.

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Ohio’s Ben Wade, chair of the Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee look­ing into Fredericksburg.

The Con­gress’ Joint Com­mit­tee on the Con­duct of the War, which was estab­lished in 1861 and chaired by Ohio’s Ben Wade, was now look­ing into the loss at Fred­er­icks­burg. Over time the com­mit­tee had become iden­ti­fied with the Rad­i­cal Repub­li­cans, who were at odds with the admin­is­tra­tion over the lack of an aggres­sive war effort.

January 3, 1863 North Star, The Fredericksburg Disaster

The evi­dence in the report of the com­mit­tee for inves­ti­gat­ing the dis­as­ter of Fred­er­icks­burg fix­es def­i­nite­ly the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­se­quences of not cross­ing the Rap­pa­han­nock at once. It besides makes rev­e­la­tions that are painful and can­not fail to sink deep into the pub­lic mind.

On the 7th or 8th of Novem­ber Gen­er­al Burn­side not only received an order to take com­mand of the Army of the Potomac, but also state to the Com­man­der-in-Chief what he pro­posed to do with it; and accord­ing­ly on the morn­ing of the 9th Gen. Burn­side wrote out his plan, which was to make a rapid move­ment of the army to Fred­er­icks­burg, request­ing that the sup­plies he named should be pre­ced­ed “by a pon­toon train large enough to span the Rap­pa­han­nock twice.”

Portrait of General Joseph Hooker.
Por­trait of Gen­er­al Joseph Hooker.

Accord­ing [Gen.] Hooker’s evi­dence, “some one of the par­ty men­tioned either Gen. Hal­leck or Gen. Meigs he did not rec­ol­lect which — thought that they could have every­thing ready this side in three days. This was not a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion. They said they thought they could have pon­toons ready, the stores land­ed, and every­thing in readi­ness to advance in three days, but he (Hook­er) thought it was not with­in the range of human pos­si­bil­i­ty to do that.” All the evi­dence is to the same point that the under­stand­ing was gen­er­al and explic­it that the pon­toon train was to be in readi­ness from Washington.

Feel­ing uneasy about the pon­toons, Gen. Burn­side, on the day after his col­umn moved from War­ren­ton, the 14th, telegraphed to Gen. Wood­bury or Major Spauld­ing, which was the first they ever heard of his wish to have the pon­toon train start­ed down to Fred­er­icks­burg. The pon­toons did not reach Fred­er­icks­burg until the 22nd and 23rd of November.

The evi­dence is equal­ly decid­ed as to the opin­ions expressed by the Gen­er­als as to the con­se­quences of this delay. Gen. Burn­side dis­tinct­ly asserts that they inter­fered with his plan. Gen. Sum­mer, who was in the advance, says, “if the pon­toons had been here on my arrival, or in time for me to have crossed and occu­pied the heights in the rear of Fred­er­icks­burg before the ene­my could take them, we should have kept pur­su­ing the ene­my off from this line of rail­road, keep­ing it in our own pos­ses­sion, and if we could have not pre­ced­ed them to Rich­mond, we could have kept so close to them that they would have had no time to build for­ti­fi­ca­tions;“ and Gen. Franklin says, “if the pon­toons had arrived, the prob­a­ble result would have been that the ene­my, as much of it as Gen. Burn­side sup­posed to have been nec­es­sary would have crossed the riv­er, dri­ving away the ene­my here — per­haps 500 or a 1000 — they would have occu­pied the very heights which we have since been oblig­ed to attack and that cross­ing would have been per­ma­nent and successful.”

I would like” this Gen­er­al says, “to impress as firm­ly upon the Com­mit­tee as it is impressed on my mind, the fact that this whole dis­as­ter has result­ed from the delay in the arrival of the pon­toon bridges. Who­ev­er is respon­si­ble for that delay is respon­si­ble for all the dis­as­ters which have fol­lowed. We were rather aston­ished when we came down here to find that Gen. Sum­mer had been here for some days and had not received the pon­toon bridges. I think it is the main course of the disaster.

These state­ments speak for them­selves and hard­ly need com­ment. If they do not fix the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the ter­ri­ble dis­as­ter at Fred­er­icks­burg, on the Gov­ern­ment at Wash­ing­ton, then there is no mean­ing in language.

[Bos. Post]

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Lin­coln had recent­ly sacked the Army of Potomac’s pop­u­lar Gen­er­al McClel­lan whose default strat­e­gy seemed to be “hur­ry up and wait” putting Gen­er­al Burn­side in his place only to fire him after the deba­cle at Fred­er­icks­burg. The North was sullen and frustrated.

January 31, 1863 North Star,The Army — The Situation

The progress of the war for the last twelve months, has been any­thing but encour­ag­ing to the Fed­er­al cause. Our read­ers are acquaint­ed with its his­to­ry. It has been con­duct­ed with­out that grand suc­cess which was antic­i­pat­ed. Our suc­cess has not been at all com­men­su­rate with the vast num­ber of men enlist­ed, or the immense pecu­niary expense involved. There have evi­dent­ly been mis­takes and blun­ders some­where; and the worst fea­ture of the whole is that an attempt is made to shift and shirk the respon­si­bil­i­ty, and throw it off one upon another.

Anoth­er dis­cour­ag­ing fea­ture, is the want of all-pow­er­ful, con­cen­trat­ed action, at one point — in Vir­ginia for instance — for the opin­ion of many, our forces have been wide­ly scat­tered over too extend­ed a field of oper­a­tions where­as, the rebel­lion nev­er can receive a stun­ning blow until the rebel army in the “Old Domin­ion” is entire­ly rout­ed. It is not the mere tak­ing of Rich­mond that is want­ed — it is the break­ing up and destroy­ing the rebel forces on the Rap­pa­han­nock and the Potomac that is required. Why not then con­cen­trate all our force in that quar­ter — and let there be the great and deci­sive battleground.

Rel­a­tive to the army of the Potomac, there has been a great deal of vac­il­lat­ing man­age­ment. We have always feared that the army and its offi­cers were too near the polit­i­cal atmos­phere of Wash­ing­ton, to escape the jeal­ousies and rival­ries, and dic­ta­tion of ambi­tious men. We have ever believed, also, that Gen. McClel­lan was sac­ri­ficed to this spir­it of rival­ry, and shall so believe, until ful­ly assured to the contrary.

Anoth­er deplorable phase of the war, is its mer­ce­nary char­ac­ter, among many engaged in it. There is a want of that high toned unselfish patri­o­tism, cal­cu­lat­ed to unite and com­bine the army into a body of men acti­vat­ed by an earnest desire to pro­mote, and deter­mined to secure the suc­cess of the cause; and there is now added to this fea­ture, that very nat­ur­al and unpleas­ant reflec­tion among the troops that they are fight­ing for the negro, with no prospect, or at least, with no cer­tain­ty of con­quer­ing the rebel­lion at last.

Mil­i­tary suc­cess is what is most want­ed, and at this junc­ture — in fact, it is what has been want­i­ng for the last twelve months — and mil­i­tary suc­cess­es must take place, if we would secure the cor­dial and unit­ed co-oper­a­tion of our peo­ple in the fur­ther pros­e­cu­tion of the war. And our vast army and navy already in the field must be the means for secur­ing these vic­to­ries. If we fail with the great force now mar­shaled on the Fed­er­al side, where and when shall we again see anoth­er such array of mil­i­tary strength!

The work before the army, very recent­ly under Burn­side, but now under Hook­er is immense. May we not con­fi­dent­ly hope and expect that his mil­i­tary genius and the stern val­or of his troops will prove ade­quate to the task. Cer­tain­ly it would seem as if he must suc­ceed, unless his men are too much dispir­it­ed by pri­or revers­es and the present con­duct of the war, to give them courage and strength.

Who­ev­er,” says a con­tem­po­rary jour­nal, “has talked with clear-head­ed mil­i­tary men, will find expressed the idea that the first great mil­i­tary suc­cess ought to be to scat­ter the rebel host at Fred­er­icks­burg — or rather demor­al­ize and break it up. This host makes the cen­tre of the rebel­lion — its life and strength. When this is done — work will be done. So long as this is left undone, com­par­a­tive­ly lit­tle progress is made. May the grand Army of the Potomac be well han­dled, and this work will be done.”

 

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