Fredericksburg’s Aftermath: Lincoln trims Burnside’s powers
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As thousands of Union soldiers lay wounded, freezing or dead on Marye’s Heights, General Ambrose Burnside made his first wise decision of the battle. On Dec. 14, 1862, one day after the slaughter on the hill, Burnside sent word to Confederate General Robert E. Lee asking for a truce to remove his trapped men, Lee agreed.
After gathering his fallen men, Burnside limped back across the Rappahannock River that he fought so hard to navigate three days earlier.
Lincoln was beside himself. Hunkered down at the War Department telegraph office close to the Capital, engrossed in every word from the battle … thinking now what?
Again looking for momentum after the release of the Emancipation Proclamation, that impetus was now lost, he turned to politically dealing with the largest defeat suffered by the North in the war.
Democrats were bolstered, wanting a negotiated settlement with the Confederates now.
“Let them go!”
Lincoln held on, but the newspapers were relentless. I have read most of the microfiche papers printed during the war of the Unionist St. Joseph Morning Herald. In 1863, weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, the enormity of the defeat leaked out. They had to run two additional factual accounts of the disaster correcting the War Department’s original spin.
Burnside was desperate to save his reputation and conceived a plan to recross the Rappahannock in a different place and advance on Richmond, the original goal.
His generals almost to a man loathed him. He had committed their troops in a day-long meat grinder, not changing tactics like any sensible leader would have done.
The day after New Years 1863, Generals John Newman and John Cochrane, on leave, betrayed Burnside by traveling to Washington DC, unloading the truth, as they saw it, of what happened at Fredericksburg.
First speaking to Secretary of State William H. Seward, then Lincoln himself, the President was skeptical, thinking these subordinates wanted to bring down their superior, he’d heard too many self righteous stories before.
Lincoln did send a telegram to Burnside that read “cease any and all campaigning until further notice.”
Burnside himself went to the White House a week later, learned of the nameless back-stabbers and offered to resign, but Lincoln needed all the fighting men, especially any generals he could muster.
On Jan. 20, 1863, the Army of the Potomac, under a revised Burnside plan, headed back to the Rappahannock bridging the River West of Fredericksburg with a faint crossing at the city.
Unseasonably warm weather favored the maneuver at first, then here came the rain. Torrential rains fell the night of the 20th, creating a quagmire. Some troops were over the river but wherever they were, everyone was stuck in the mud. As Burnside moved his 110,000 man army and brought up dozens of artillery pieces, more slosh was created, they were stuck up to their axles.
The Confederates again had time to redeploy and confront the muddy attack, but they didn’t have to, even mocking the Union movements with “Richmond this way,” signs, wanting the enemy troops to continue exhausting themselves.
Men, animals, wagons and caissons were submerged in gook. Mother Nature defeated the Union army this time in what history would come to call the “Mud March” catastrophe.
Burnside was a broken man, replaced by equally egotistical General Joe Hooker … the General who campaigned with a traveling brothel, “Hookers!”
Fighting Joe Hooker had his own problems, relieved of his command five months later, three days before Gettysburg, but that’s another story.
Ambrose Burnside led a “facts are stranger than fiction,” kind of life, full of disasters and achievements. As a young lieutenant before the war he was engaged to a fair lady from Virginia, Lottie Moon.
Lottie’s famous quote came at the altar standing next to her betrothed, when asked if she would take the hand of Ambrose in marriage she hesitated, then answered, “No siree, Bob!” Running out of the church stunning all in attendance.
Lottie wasn’t done. Years later she and her sister were arrested as Confederate spies, caught carrying messages and medicine to the rebels, hiding desperately needed quinine, opium and morphine in petticoats and quilts. The sisters had beguiled their way several times down the Ohio River. Arrested, they now were referred to the Union General Commanding the Department of the Ohio, none other than the jilted man himself Ambrose Burnside.
The general put the sisters under house arrest, where the ladies charmed their way into favor of other Union officers. Ultimately they were released.
Burnside was a reluctant commander, historians lament much of his criticism and failures came from giving his officers too much discretion on the battlefield. He commanded Armies and Corps at major battles for better or worse: Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the doomed Battle of the Creator.
Earlier in his life Burnside was an inventor, holding patents on his advanced rifle, the Burnside Carbine, only to have his manufacturing plant burn to the ground causing him to proclaim bankruptcy.
After the Civil War he turned to politics, becoming governor of Rhode Island in 1866 then Senator until his death in 1881.
In 1871 he was a founding member and the first President of the NRA.
In 1876 he was the lead New England delegate for the centennial celebration in Washington DC.
Burnside died of a heart attack at the young age of 57 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Thousands came to mourn the loss of a man who lived a life that in many ways was thrust upon him.
Funny, a man of his many entanglements and achievements is now remembered for his looks, flipping his last name and giving the world “sideburns!”
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