Union Breakthrough

The Confederates left this swampy, wooded area unprotected during the Battle of Fredericksburg.

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Around 1:00pm on December 13, 1862, Union General George Gordon Meade's 4,500-man division crossed an open field under intense artillery fire. Meade aimed for a swampy tract of woods that Confederate General A.P. Hill left undefended, thinking it was impassible. When Meade's troops broke through the Confederate line they surprised unprepared South Carolinians. Soon the Confederates rallied, and without reinforcements nearby, Meade's men could not hold their position against Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson's 38,000-man corps.

This incident was just one of a series of tangled communications that left both flanks of the Army of the Potomac disadvantaged.

On this side of the battlefield, US General William B. Franklin was in command of roughly 60,000 soldiers. His target was the high ground around Prospect Hill held by "Stonewall" Jackson's Confederate corps. On the morning of December 13, Franklin received orders to "send out at once a division at least to pass below Smithfield, to seize, if possible, the height near Captain Hamilton’s, on this side of the Massaponax, taking care to keep it well supported and its line of retreat open." Franklin sent out one division and kept his line of retreat supported; by his thinking he followed his orders exactly as Burnside gave them.

Did "a division at least" imply that Franklin should have been more prepared to send in additional troops? Was "if possible" the right way to describe taking the critical high ground? After the battle, Burnside's orders to Franklin, and Franklin's interpretation of Burnside's orders, became the subject of unceasing debate by Congressional committee and the American public, and has remained a subject of interest for generations of historians and Civil War enthusiasts.