A battle lost is a battle one thinks one has lost.
—Joseph de Maistre
Who is to blame? is the universal and urgent question posed after a disastrous battle. Despite the panoramic qualities of Fredericksburg, Union soldiers still had trouble grasping the bigger picture and were as eager for news as the folks back home. Had the Banks expedition sailed? Was another Federal army approaching Richmond from the east? Had their hurriedly composed postbattle letters arrived safely? What did their families make of it all?1
Despite efforts to maintain ties between home and camp, the mental and emotional distance widened. Civilians, many soldiers believed, could never grasp the horrors of Fredericksburg or understand their courage and endurance because only men of doubtful character remained at home. A young Hoosier, among the first Federals to charge the stone wall, reckoned only “female men” were left back in Spencer, Indiana. Pride, however, could not make up for loneliness, homesickness, and—especially after Fredericks-burg—discouragement. A private in the 44th New York wrote a long poem with a recurring couplet: “Backward, roll backward, oh time in thy flight / Make me a citizen just for a night.” Tired of the food, the cold, and the bloodshed, he dreamed about the pleasures of home. The glory of soldiering had faded, and now he hoped for a medical discharge because his legs seemed shaky and he could better serve his country at home writing patriotic editorials.2
His comrades would have appreciated the sardonic tone but would have ridiculed his choice of occupation. Many Federals fully believed that spread-eagle journalism had spurred their generals into making the foolhardy assaults on the well-entrenched Confederates. Ever since the battle, the lying press had, as usual, covered up official incompetence. A worthless newspaper correspondent safely ensconced in a tree two miles from any fighting knew nothing of real war, a bitter lieutenant in French’s division remarked, but instead kept “thirsting for blood.”3
Whatever the latest editorials might proclaim, Richmond was not going to be taken any time soon. In letters written immediately after the battle, soldiers summed up the demoralizing effects. A New Jersey chaplain described the entire army as “sadly disheartened”; a Pennsylvanian from Meade’s battered division bluntly termed Fredericksburg the “worst disaster” since the beginning of the war. Others chose milder words, but their talk of “discouraged” or “discontented” regiments hardly brightened the picture.4
To the average enlisted man, explaining the defeat was simple: the Federals had attacked impregnable defenses. A Connecticut drummer writing from “Camp Trials, Tribulation, and Desolation” described Fredericksburg as a “regular Sebastopol,” not an especially apt comparison but one that resonated with anyone who had a nodding acquaintance with the Crimean War. “Not a million men could have carried the position,” one lieutenant declared with pardonable exaggeration. Many Federals had witnessed gaping holes being torn in the Union lines; to veterans it seemed like Malvern Hill reversed.5
“It was simply murder,” raged one Pennsylvanian. Everyone from the private with simple common sense, to experienced officers who had checked out the ground, all the way up to General Hooker realized the futility of the assaults—or so several soldiers thought. And that made the average fellow’s bravery all the sadder. “Our troops fought with the greatest determination and died with the utmost devotion,” Hancock informed Senator Zachariah Chandler.6
But reports appeared that not all the men had acted so nobly. “Some of the volunteers fought well, others behaved shamelessly,” one hard-bitten Regular informed his wife. Stories circulated about regiments that hesitated or broke for the rear. Such tales were standard after any battle, though in a broader sense they raised disturbing questions about the quality of Union troops. Some Federals now believed that they fought with less determination and élan than the Confederates. Half the army, according to one Pennsylvania captain, thought mostly of their bounty money, and as for the Rebels, “They do fight well and worthy of a better cause.”7 Ever since McClellan had been repulsed on the Peninsula, the psychological momentum had shifted southward.
Fredericksburg helped engender, at least temporarily, a sense of defeatism because even the dullest soldiers realized that gallant charges had only piled up casualties. That melancholy conclusion cut deep into the marrow of courage and even the ability to carry on the usual camp routine. “Nothing gained”—the phrase cropped up often in letters home. Pointless sacrifices created the ultimate horror: carnage without meaning. All this “butchery”—another popular word—had occurred, and there seemed no end in sight.8
Years later an artilleryman remembered Fredericksburg as the Army of the Potomac’s “Golgotha,” but here the horrible “sacrifices” carried no promise of redemption. In the end the meaninglessness of the carnage struck the most mournful note. Echoing the book of Ecclesiastes, a soldier-poet asked about his dead comrades, “Was their effort vain?” The answer all too often weakened faith and spread despair. So long as memories of bloody fields haunted the soldiers’ thoughts, so did doubt and depression.9
The boys were “blue” and ready to go home, but for the time being they settled for venting their frustrations in campfire discussions. Brooding over the defeat, men bitched about anything from politics to food. Even the best soldiers, Walt Whitman commented, needed to let off steam with typically profanity-laden complaints. Bitter words about worthless sacrifices and senseless bloodshed hit home. As one sergeant bluntly summed up the situation, “The Fifth New Hampshire regiment is played out.”10
The camps around Falmouth reminded some soldiers of Valley Forge, and the combination of devastating defeat, cold weather, and physical discomfort made the comparison apt. “If any person wants to know what real hardship and misery are, let him join the Army of the Potomac,” one Zouave volunteer suggested. A man in Sturgis’s division claimed that his regiment was “not so well provided for as the hogs in Massachusetts.” If only the “On to Richmond” crowd could visit the camps of the badly depleted regiments, take their turn on picket duty, and sleep on the damp ground, they would understand why the men had lost their appetite for war.11
A New Yorker visiting friends in a neighboring camp found them “sick of solgering like my self.” Such a reaction was largely reflexive; many volunteers told anyone who would listen that they never wanted to witness such scenes of carnage again. New recruits, though, responded this way after any sizable battle. Many young men had seen enough and had no desire to repeat the experience. According to a Pennsylvania chaplain, soldiers now embraced a minimalist standard of courage: “Our battle-worn veterans go into danger when ordered, remain as a stern duty so long as directed, and leave as honor and duty allow.” Drawings of officers leading charges that appeared in the illustrated newspapers elicited derisive howls of laughter in camp. Some soldiers swore they would never enter a battle again.12 Such talk blunted anger, perhaps, and many of these men would still do their duty; but for several weeks after Fredericksburg such statements also reflected a deeper despondency about the Union cause.
For the most disheartened soldiers it seemed axiomatic that the conflict could never be ended by fighting, that battles would never save the Union.13 The Rebels could not be whipped, period. Once-enthusiastic soldiers gave up on the idea of ever conquering the southern states.14 Given these assumptions, the conclusion was obvious: the war would have to end soon. Only the prevaricating press would still claim that the Federals were itching for a fight or that any more lives should be sacrificed. The old fantasy about a peace settlement worked out by privates kept cropping up in camp discussions and letters home. Even the once odious word “compromise” crept into soldiers’ correspondence, and speculation that Congress could settle everything during the coming winter sounded attractive to war-weary volunteers.15
Capt. David Jones in Taylor’s brigade of Gibbon’s division had seen enough fighting on December 13 to understand the widespread discouragement. The army was “daily becoming more demoralized.” Some soldiers who had not been paid for a long time actually deserted, but Jones believed that problems extended far beyond the army camps. The American people had a “too impulsive shiftless temperament to endure a long war” and would give up on a “hopeless task.” He wondered if there were officers capable of commanding such large armies and feared “the Rebs are too smart for us.” Yet at the same time he clung to a vague belief that the government could do better and even suggested raising a million troops if necessary.16
Although his long, thoughtful, though disjointed letter listed many of the most common causes for post-Fredericksburg gloom, it also suggested the need to distinguish between grumbling and disaffection. Many soldiers who loudly complained about everything from poor generalship to lousy food would nevertheless stand to the colors when ordered. Dissatisfaction did not always mean demoralization. Even the despondent expressed some willingness to fight; with reinforcements they would try the Rebels again. Only a few days after the battle a hopeful Michigan captain claimed he “never felt more like fighting till the last man falls.”17
Simple patriotism remained strong, and it was bolstered by staunch loyalty to comrades. To have any meaning an abstract love for the Union had to be translated into affection for one’s family and fellow soldiers. Nothing could arouse a man’s fighting spirit quicker than someone casting aspersions on the honor and courage of his company or regiment. Pride in how they had fought, even in defeat, remained strong. Idealistic young men spoke of “duty” without hint of irony or cynicism, and even officers who considered resigning their commissions could not in good conscience desert their comrades. They still had work to do, and the admonitions of parents, friends, and Sunday school teachers summoned them to persevere. “Rely upon me when duty calls,” vowed Sgt. Walter Carter of the 22nd Massachusetts, whose canteen had been pierced by a Rebel shot during the battle. “My sense of right and love of country and its glorious cause would impel me forward to death, even if my poor nature hung back and human feelings gained control over me.” Talk of the glorious Union by men bloodied in battle was not empty rhetoric but, rather, a reason for turning a deaf ear to grumblers and malcontents.18
One lieutenant admitted that some of the men might have been “cursing the stars and stripes” right after the battle, but “these same soldiers will fight like bull dogs when it comes to scratch.” Indeed the grumbling veterans could be “relied upon more.” The quickest way to end the war was to give the Rebs a good whipping and silence the “croakers” at home. If nothing else, the men had to prove that all the suffering had not been in vain. Fighting for those who had fallen involved not just a momentary passion for vengeance but a steady resolve that even incompetent leadership could not destroy.19
Such dedication often had deep religious roots. Although badly shaken, faith in divine protection for the individual persisted because men firmly believed not only in God’s sovereignty but also in the inscrutability of his purposes. Despite the decline of Calvinism, many Christians still affirmed the Lord’s mysterious and awesome control of human history. A soldier in Hancock’s division who had lost many friends in the fight—“to all human appearances their lives are thrown away”—still believed that “God is wiser than we are and overrules all to accomplish ends for our good.” Christians had to trust without always understanding because the Lord reigned over all, even in defeat.20
Students of the Old Testament could readily explain the entire conflict as punishment for sin, a scourge to abase the proud and reaffirm God’s power. If only sinners humbled themselves, victory would follow. That the Almighty would yet come to the aid of free institutions, would yet vindicate the cause of liberty and progress, became the credo of this American civil religion. Loyalty to government meant loyalty to God even though human weakness spawned public dissension and divine displeasure. The defeat at Fredericksburg, one New York soldier affirmed, “had a purpose in thus humiliating our nation.”21
The tangled relationship between individual iniquity, national sin, and divine purpose raised hard questions. That devout soldiers realized they might soon be killed, hoped for a heavenly reunion of loved ones, but still worried about their fate fit into the Lord’s plan. Alarmed by reports of revival meetings in Lee’s army, a Maine chaplain decided that perhaps God intended to humble the northern people through the bloody Fredericksburg debacle. Yet commonplace pieties seemed almost obscene. Alfred Castleman, a surgeon in the 5th Wisconsin, scorned the “pleasure [taken by]... our men of God, when, at their nightly prayers they in the same breath thank . . . God for the murders we have been permitted to perpetrate—the misery to inflict—and ask for peace on earth, and good will to man.”22 But then Castleman had struggled to repair the damage inflicted by bloodthirsty Christians on both sides.
Although affirmations of faith did not immediately dispel despair, they revealed new sources of strength. Memories of the recent slaughter certainly slaked a man’s thirst for combat, but the army would survive. Despite loud complaints about all manner of things and the hardships of a winter encampment, patriotism, loyalty to comrades, and sheer determination were not quite “played out.”
* * *
Victorious armies face different problems. The year 1862, which had brought a string of military disasters in the West and a serious threat to Richmond, was ending on a most positive note for Lee’s bloodied but confident men. Their commander had fought a masterful defensive battle at Fredericksburg, yet the victory had not been decisive. The Yankees had “suffered heavily... but it did not go far enough to satisfy me,” Lee admitted to his wife, Mary, a bit testily.
The Federals could still cross the Rappahannock at will, as Lee well knew, and Burnside would be reinforced. With the strategic situation largely unchanged, Lee remained poised to withdraw his forces to the North Anna River line. He had expected the Federals to renew the contest; Burnside, however, had refused to oblige. Despite a deep “disappointment,” Lee tried to be philosophical: “We might have gained more but we would have lost more, & perhaps our relative condition would not have been improved.” To daughter Mildred he quipped, “I am however happy in the knowledge that Genl Burnside & his army will not eat that promised Xmas dinner in Richmond to day.” Months later Lee claimed that he had been “much depressed” by the outcome of Fredericksburg. “We had not gained a foot of ground and I knew the enemy could easily replace the men he had lost.”23
Perhaps Fredericksburg had been a barren triumph, but jubilation generally overcame doubts. With the war entering its second winter, Burnside’s defeat raised southern spirits at the end of a year of hard fighting.24 Not only had the Confederates won a glorious victory, but some soldiers considered it “decisive.” A member of the Richmond Howitzers speculated that Fredericksburg might be the last battle of the war; abandoning its usual skepticism, the Richmond Daily Examiner interpreted Burnside’s retreat as a “confession of absolute defeat.” The heavy casualties inflicted on the Federals—some Confederates believed that Burnside’s army had been virtually destroyed—seemed suitable retribution for the wasting of the town. “Many of the vandal horde,” a North Carolina infantryman exulted, “now lie on or beneath the soil that a few days ago they thought to desecrate.”25 The contrast between the sacred (soil) and the profane (enemy) limned common Confederate assumptions about the nature of the contest and about the vast gulf between the character and fighting ability of the two sides.
Despite admiration for all those charges toward the stone wall, many Confederates still contrasted brave southerners with cowardly northerners—a vital element of national identity for the fledgling southern republic. The craven foes had even stooped to manufacturing bullets specially designed to burst and infect wounds, the Richmond Daily Enquirer reported. Newspapers and some soldiers claimed that the Federals, driven by fixed bayonets and whiskey, had fought poorly and wavered against firm resistance. Their officers had failed to rally the faltering ranks, and only guards at the pontoon bridges had prevented the bluecoats from skedaddling back across the Rappahannock.26
“No one but an ass would have attempted to do what he [Burnside] did,” one of Pickett’s men snorted. Indeed, a Richmond editor described Burnside’s order to renew the attacks on December 14 as an act of “incomparable stupidity.” But like many Federals, some Confederates did not know whether to treat Burnside with contempt or pity. Like McDowell and McClellan, Burnside had failed miserably, but southern newspapers also reported that he had been under intense political pressure to attack Lee’s army. Now he would be sacrificed, editors predicted, and be sent off to some backwater, a scapegoat for the failures of Lincoln and the cabinet.27
A Federal picket had reportedly shouted across the river asking if the Rebels had some “sorry corporal” to trade for Burnside—proof enough that the Army of the Potomac was “completely demoralized,” a common phrase in Rebel letters and newspapers. According to a Charleston Mercury correspondent, 10,000 of Burnside’s men were now refusing to fight. Confederates especially welcomed reports of partisan backbiting in Washington. Rumors circulated of Frémont replacing Burnside or of McClellan returning to command.28
Confederates who followed what one cavalryman called the “commotion... in Yankeedom” concluded that the Union war effort had been fatally damaged. Whatever the explanation, the long-awaited day of reckoning for the Yankees had arrived. “A proud and haughty people are humbled” as “reckless politicians” headed toward “speedy ruin,” a Georgia volunteer rejoiced. The only thing northern speculators, those “traders in blood,” cared about was making money from their nation’s suffering, so another defeat would simply help fill their coffers. A Richmond editor venomously charged the Yankees (“the vilest of the human race”) with enlisting the “low, brutal, obscene thieving wretches, gathered from the four quarters of the globe,” to fight their battles. Refugees from “every prison house, penitentiary, and penal colony in the world” embodied the “immorality and ruffianism” so highly prized in the northern states. A Virginian in D. H. Hill’s Division claimed that many of the Federal dead at Fredericksburg had been “tall and slender men” clearly of foreign extraction and that soon Confederates would be fighting the “real genuine blue bellied Yankees.” Even William W. Holden’s North Carolina Standard, a bastion of latent Unionism and a consistent critic of the Davis administration, thought Confederate prospects never seemed brighter.29
Weighing difficulties and discussing strategy had given way to crude bragging. The Confederates would capture Washington, and the Yankees would only visit Richmond as prisoners of war. Editorials, speeches, civilians’ comments, and soldiers’ letters brimmed with confidence. If the Federals cared to test Lee’s army again, an eager young South Carolinian in Pickett’s Division blustered, “let them come.”30
Assertions of cultural superiority multiplied. The southern people, the Richmond Daily Enquirer trumpeted, displayed a superior “character, tone, and Christianity.” Having defeated the mighty Federal host, barefoot men required no further proof of their virtue and invincibility. An unwavering faith in Lee negated sheer numbers as soldiers bragged that the Army of Northern Virginia had never been whipped. “No matter how large a force the nigger government may send against us,” a Louisiana artilleryman avowed, Richmond would be safe. “The star of the rising empire of the South brightly ascends the horizon,” a Georgia editor said, “and will soon culminate in un-clouded majesty and splendor.”31
The more sober-minded southerners disavowed this kind of bombast. Despite the general rejoicing over the easy victory, some editors warned against overconfidence. The Yankees would undoubtedly try a different route to Richmond, much fighting remained, and people would have to endure some reverses before southern independence was won. A leading Presbyterian minister privately remarked, “We have not yet seen the worst of this war.” Lee agreed and warned Secretary of War James A. Seddon that he must have more men. But Marse Robert had more faith than ever in his army and remained convinced that the “Almighty hand” would continue to bless southern arms.32
Christian convictions could foster emotions ranging from simple appreciation to dangerous hubris. Lee and Jackson, not to mention countless soldiers and civilians, expressed a humble thankfulness for the defeat of Burnside’s army. Even in an official report, D. H. Hill acknowledged the “signal interposition of God in our favor . . . at Fredericksburg.” That Lee’s ragged, outnumbered army had triumphed only proved that the Lord protected the weak from the strong. Such convictions failed to immunize Confederates from spiritual arrogance. Assertions that the Almighty favored the Rebels confused the Lord’s purposes with human endeavors. “God is on our side,” declared a Richmond editor at the end of the year as he rejoiced over the Yankees’ discomfiture. Though Pickett’s Division quartermaster worried about the bitterness against the Federals in his own heart, he nevertheless called upon the Lord to “blot them out of existence.”33 To excoriate a godless foe while ignoring one’s own transgressions had a long history, and many Confederates fell prey to sinful boastfulness.
In an evangelical culture, some Christians of course recognized the dangers of spiritual pride. Too many people indulged in self-righteous posturing and failed to realize that human weakness had brought on the war in the first place and that only sincere repentance could stay God’s wrath. It was obvious that the southern states would still have to pass through severe trials before winning final victory. Stonewall Jackson understood how prophets such as Jeremiah had often called on the children of Israel to abandon their stiff-necked ways and believed that peace would only come when the people had turned away from wickedness. But the signs were hardly favorable. Soldiers still drank and swore, speculators pursued the almighty dollar, and citizens murmured against their leaders. Even the opening of a new theater in Richmond elicited a stern warning by a Baptist minister against indulging in vulgar amusements while the country remained in mortal danger.34
Cautionary voices, however, were drowned out by Confederates exulting over the victory. In Richmond and throughout the South, in official circles, around campfires, inside modest homes, and on street corners, confidence in the cause swelled. Problems that had seemed insurmountable a few months earlier appeared less formidable, and wild enthusiasm overwhelmed sober judgment.
* * *
For the Federals, anger spilled out in great torrents. In affixing responsibility for the Fredericksburg disaster, they lashed out at some favorite targets, venting their frustrations on bungling commanders, interfering politicians, partisan demagogues, and cheating contractors. If the troops had fought well, as most believed, then why had the Army of the Potomac suffered such a horrendous defeat? Given the incompetence of generals and the War Department, a frustrated New Yorker in Sickles’s division frothed, the Federals might as well “let the south go to hell and disband the armies before it [the war] costs any more lives.” A Hoosier in the Iron Brigade dismissed the Army of the Potomac as the “grandest humbug that has been imposed upon the public since the palmiest days of that prince of humbugs Barnum.” Soldiers variously derided the “knaves” or “fools” or “ignoramuses” or “asses” managing the war.35
If only “the people in the North will rise up in their might & hurl the rotten politicians in Washington to Hades, and give us a Gen. to lead us or call us home before we die of exposure and or are killed in useless battles,” a sergeant in Sykes’s division ranted. Like many civilians, angry soldiers could not grasp how war on such an unprecedented scale had stretched conventional ideas about organization and strategy to their breaking point. Frontal assaults against a well-prepared enemy merited sharp rebukes, and with unusual perception the Boston Daily Advertiser observed that the “improvements in modern artillery and musketry make it practically impossible to carry entrenchments by assault in column.” One point seemed obvious: the strategy of the entire campaign had been disastrous, and whether one blamed generals or politicians, there would be hell to pay. “We take that whipping like a parcel of schoolboys would taking a whipping,” a Massachusetts volunteer informed his home folks. “One boy blames the other for getting them all whipped.”36
The two favorite whipping boys were Halleck and Stanton. Soldiers and editors accused the general in chief of attempting to direct the campaign from his office.37 Old Brains came under fire for two reasons. First, leading Democrats blamed him for the pontoon fiasco, and even Republican editors hesitated to defend him on that score.38 Second, the general in chief’s harshest critics charged him with ordering Burnside to cross the Rappahannock and launch the suicidal assaults. According to one camp tale, Halleck had sworn that the Army of the Potomac “must go to Richmond if every man had to go on crutches.”39 Some political insiders and a few soldiers blamed Stanton, who had won few friends in Washington, for issuing the fatal orders. Amidst rumored cabinet changes, the irascible secretary of war became a tempting political target.40
Other voices clamored for McClellan’s return. Perhaps now people could appreciate Little Mac’s caution compared with what a Maine chaplain termed Burnside’s “rashness and dash.”41 McClellan never would have led his beloved boys into such a “slaughter house,” many veterans declared.42 As early as December 15 the cry “McClellan is the man” echoed in the camps near Falmouth, and calls for his reinstatement sparked heated discussion. “We must have McClellan back with unlimited and unfettered powers,” Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren believed. “His name is a tower of strength to every one here.”43 Only McClellan could save the army. Soldiers fondly and inaccurately recalled the halcyon days with their old commander, who some believed had never been defeated, but then McClellan supporters had always been quick to defend a strategic retreat. Even a skeptical volunteer admitted that “McClellan stock is rising.”44
A Confederate newspaper gleefully reported that a single word from McClellan would incite the Army of the Potomac to overthrow the Lincoln administration—a wild suggestion that did not appear entirely fanciful in Washington. Congressman James A. Garfield feared a “very insidious and determined scheme on the part of the Democracy . . . to make a kind of French coup d’etat in favor of McClellan.” Talk of “military dictatorship” was needlessly alarmist, but an editorial drumfire recommending the general’s restoration to command was real enough. The powerful Blairs and other conservative Republicans considered bringing back McClellan solely to boost morale in the army and the country at large. Shaken Republicans worried that the Army of the Potomac teemed with intrigue instigated by Little Mac’s treasonous allies.45
Whatever people believed about Halleck, Stanton, or McClellan, the perpetrator of “Burnside’s slaughter” had become the storm center of debate both inside and outside the army. One furious New Yorker suggested that “they aughto to Hang someone for this either Burnside or Halock.”46 Before Fredericksburg, soldiers had willingly given Burnside the benefit of the doubt, in part because his genial disposition offered a welcome change from that of the sometimes aloof McClellan. “Just the fellow for fine reviews in time of peace,” an orderly in Hancock’s division thought. But many men, especially those in the regiments that had been mauled, no longer believed that Burnside could command an army. Talk of the general being “played out” or of his “stock” having a “downward tendency” summed up camp sentiments.47
Burnside’s appearance no longer elicited huzzahs or even polite recognition from the troops; despite prodding by officers, a few halfhearted shouts and an embarrassed silence became the most common reaction. A little more than a week after the withdrawal, the devastated Irish Brigade pointedly refused to cheer for him. Indeed, barely more than stony silence could be expected from men who considered their commander the “butcher of the Army of the Potomac.”48
But as with reports of demoralization, hostility to Burnside can be easily misinterpreted or exaggerated. Outrage among defeated soldiers is understandable, yet even the most angry often expressed some sympathy for their commander. A New Hampshire corporal who had been in the thick of the fight with Sturgis’s division claimed that Burnside still had the soldiers’ “whole confidence.” One badly wounded fellow lying in a Washington hospital refused to hear any disparaging talk about his commander. The troops respected Burnside’s nobility and generosity; rumors that he had been ordered to make the attacks turned him into a tragic figure in some quarters. Caught between Lincoln, Halleck, Stanton, and McClellan, Burnside naturally won sympathy from soldiers fed up with backbiting generals and meddling politicians.49
Burnside himself sadly took the criticism to heart. One commonly circulated tale described him riding through camp looking “pale as death,” visibly shuddering when soldiers hurrahed for McClellan. A staff officer noted how Burnside had grown “careworn and miserable”—rather like Lincoln during this difficult period. The general spent more time alone brooding on the defeat, the unreliability of many officers, and Halleck’s failure with the pontoons. “Jealousies and political intrigue are greater enemies than an open foe,” the faithful Larned concluded.50
On December 18 Burnside met with members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in Falmouth. The committee’s animus against conservative generals was well known, but the magnitude of the Fredericksburg losses had a sobering effect even on the most partisan members. With the cabinet crisis unfolding in Washington, Republicans hoped to limit the political damage of yet another defeat. Just before he left the capital, Zach Chandler confided to his wife, “The country is done unless something is done at once.” Lamenting the “folly, folly, folly” and a president “too weak for the occasion,” he railed against “these fools or traitor generals” who wasted “precious blood in indecisive battles.”51
The committee members allowed Burnside to describe his plans and perspective on the battle at length, a process guaranteed to reinforce prevailing impressions of the general’s straightforward honesty and political harmlessness. Burnside naturally dwelled on the pontoon question and hurried through the battle itself, but only one committee member bothered to ask questions. The general conceded the strength of the Confederate positions and that he might have chosen a better point of attack. Under interrogation he denied that Lincoln, Halleck, or Stanton had directed the army’s movements and refused to blame anyone else for his shortcomings.52
As the testimony unfolded, the committee grew increasingly sympathetic to the beleaguered Burnside. Congressman George W. Julian of Indiana admired the general’s humble honesty, willingness to take responsibility, and obvious lack of ambition for higher command. During his appearance General Sumner not only backed up Burnside but also maintained that within a few days “the army will be in excellent order again.” Even Franklin refuted reports of widespread demoralization.53
Franklin later bragged to McClellan about “ventilat[ing] my opinions” before the committee “in a way that astounded them.” He remained ignorant of how his feeble performance at Fredericksburg had disappointed Burnside and how ready McClellan’s old enemies were to blame the disaster on his excessive caution. Ignoring the chain of command, Franklin, joined by Baldy Smith, even sent a letter to Lincoln proposing that 250,000 troops advance along the James River toward Richmond. The president must have smelled more than a whiff of McClellan’s influence but wearily replied that this proposal left hanging the old question of how Washington would be properly defended.54
Hooker as usual played his own game. Appearing before the committee on December 20, he agreed that Halleck had promised that the pontoons would be ready in time but implied that Burnside should have expected delays. Hooker had favored crossing the army upstream from Fredericksburg, and he repeatedly pointed out how both his strategic and his tactical advice had been ignored. If he were to be credited, the only person with the intelligence, prescience, and will to command the Army of the Potomac was Joseph Hooker. He deplored the persistent influence of McClellan toadies such as Franklin and Smith, never hesitated to fault his superiors, and encouraged speculation that he might soon displace Burnside.55
The generals would in the end protect themselves, but in the meantime the country would have to decide how to weigh the defeat at Fredericksburg and whom to blame. Perhaps the northern people themselves had expected too much from the army, though criticizing impatient newspaper editors could not conceal the failure by thousands of men and millions of dollars to crush the rebellion.56
The political tremors continued. “The republican party is forever played out now the last Battle was its death knell,” a disgusted New Yorker wrote to a brother serving in French’s division. Editorials ridiculing Lincoln and lampooning official incompetence reflected growing confidence among administration opponents.57 Democrats warned that the American people would not be patient forever. “The war is a failure!” one leading conservative newspaper shouted, and the country could no longer abide the administration’s disastrous course. Even the temperate Harper’s Weekly believed “matters are rapidly ripening for a military dictatorship.”58
Orders from Washington had produced the Fredericksburg debacle, critics declared. The War Department had allegedly forced a reluctant Burnside to attack the Rebels’ impregnable positions. Such stinging accusations again threw the administration onto the defensive. Even a few Republicans acknowledged that Lincoln and Stanton had faltered, but Democrats insisted that direct orders from Halleck and the president had sent hundreds of poor soldiers to their deaths.59
Acerbic editorials blasting Lincoln, Halleck, and Stanton angered Burnside. “I’ll put a stop to that,” he abruptly announced on December 19. Despite protests from several staff officers, he refused to dodge responsibility, drafted a public letter, and quickly arranged to meet with Lincoln. When he reached Washington about 10:00 P.M. the next evening, the president had already gone to bed but had not been able to sleep because of dyspepsia, and he hurriedly pulled on his trousers for a late night meeting. Lincoln expressed relief over the general’s willingness to admit mistakes and thanked him warmly for being the first person ever to lift any responsibility from his shoulders. Back at Willard’s Hotel some time after midnight, Burnside put the finishing touches on his letter. The next day he again conferred with Lincoln as well as with Halleck and Stanton. Lincoln reassured the nervous general in chief that Burnside was his “real friend,” but the impatient secretary of war sharply rebuked the general for not having his letter ready for publication. Even the affable Burnside bristled at this remark, and Lincoln cajoled Stanton into making an apology.60
Burnside addressed his letter to Halleck and backdated it to December 17 to avoid the appearance that someone in the administration had forced him to write it. After describing the army’s movements, the battle, and the reasons for withdrawing, Burnside explained how he had chosen the Fredericksburg route against the advice of Lincoln, Halleck, and Stanton. He took complete responsibility for the defeat: the administration “left the whole management in my hands, without giving me orders.”61
The soldiers credited Burnside for admitting his mistakes, a rare enough quality among general officers. Some men believed the letter helped restore confidence in their commander, though a colonel in Doubleday’s division more perceptively noted that his comrades now thought of Burnside as a “high-toned, honorable man, but less of a general.” And in fact Burnside’s virtual confession of incompetence was hardly inspiring. He appeared weak, “an awful greenhorn,” to an ardent McClellan supporter who deemed the letter the work of a “high-minded donkey.” Hooting at the document’s supposedly “manly statements,” a lieutenant in Griffin’s division considered Burn-side’s explanations “bosh, all bosh.”62
Republican editors seemed to take the letter at face value and felt that Burnside’s remarkable candor and plain honesty should restore public confidence. Yet the general had no real political allies. Unlike McClellan or even Frémont, no partisan faction felt any great loyalty toward him. Republicans praised his letter because it deflected criticism from the Lincoln administration. Presidential secretary John Hay published an anonymous editorial in a leading Missouri newspaper using Burnside’s letter to counter complaints about the government. Hay, whether speaking for Lincoln or not, clearly acted in the administration’s interest to contain political damage from the Fredericksburg disaster. Mistakes had been made, Republicans admitted, but they refused to allocate blame. At least Burnside’s frankness and sincerity offered a welcome change from the usual evasions.63
Leading Democrats scoffed. The political chicanery was blatant in a document so helpful to an administration desperate to defend itself. “Very Remarkable, Very Curious, Very Generous and Very Naïve Letter from General Burnside,” ran the headline in the New York Herald. Burnside, a Pennsylvania editor complained, “has stepped forward to shield the blundering Halleck, the ambitious Secretary of War, and the imbecile President.” For many Democrats the disastrous decision to remove McClellan explained all that followed.64
Yet if Lincoln merited criticism for his course since Antietam, it was more for indecisiveness rather than interference. Although depressed and baffled, he had hardly lost his political touch, but now he seemed less surefooted. Take, for example, his bizarre letter of congratulations to Burnside’s battered army. The obvious magnitude of the defeat notwithstanding, Lincoln claimed that “the attempt was not an error, nor the failure other than an accident.” After commending the troops for their skill and bravery, he congratulated them because the number of casualties had been “comparatively so small.” This time Lincoln’s odd sense of fatalism was combined with an incredible misunderstanding of the battle’s human costs.65
The president’s letter boosted neither military nor public confidence. “Compared to what?” the First Corps artillery chief exploded after reading the comment on the casualties.66 Lincoln’s peculiar statements offered more political ammunition to administration opponents who already had more than enough. “As well attempt to hide the reeking graves of the soldiers under a coat of whitewash as varnish over the errors of the Generals and the blunders of the Cabinet,” an Albany editor wrote. The Boston Post was even more pointed: “The bones may bleach, the wives and mothers weep, the soldiers murmur, the officers remonstrate, in vain; there is nobody to blame; a bloody sacrifice was not an error, but an accident.”67
Public anger would not be so easily assuaged without someone to blame. After hearing from several more witnesses in Washington, two days before Christmas the joint committee released the testimony without comment to Congress. It soon appeared in newspapers. On learning of the committee’s action, Lincoln himself snapped, “Why will people be such damned fools?” Although relieved not to be the scapegoat, Burnside reportedly “cringed” while reading some of the testimony. Republicans hoped to stanch the torrent of abuse against the government, but a “report” affixing no responsibility would hardly do that. “All of the officers clear themselves,” a Wisconsin sergeant groused.68
Official Washington had run out of excuses. The big pile of rationalizations had done nothing but diminish the reputations of Burnside, Franklin, Halleck, Stanton, and Lincoln without moving the Army of the Potomac any closer to defeating Lee. Two days after the battle the New York Tribune had predicted that Burnside would soon force the enemy into the “decisive struggle of the war.” Reinforcements would allow him to strike the Rebels again. Several days later the paper was claiming that Burnside had “outgeneraled” Lee in withdrawing his army from Fredericksburg; in fact, the Army of the Potomac would have easily won any battle fought on equal ground. An editorial on Christmas Day declared that aside from the casualties little had been lost at Fredericksburg. It remained for the Tribune’s bitter rival, the New York Herald, to state the obvious, although not without some relish: “At this Christmas time, when good fairies fill the air, we can hardly wonder at the sudden miracle which has shown us the Fredericksburg affair in its true light, and given us occasion for national joy instead of national sorrow.”69