nts could not be carried except at great cost."
(Sedgwick.)

The officer by whom the order to Sedgwick had been sent, Capt.
Raderitzchin, had not been regularly appointed in orders, but was merely
a volunteer aide-de-camp on Gen. Hooker's staff.

Shortly after he had been despatched, Gen. Warren requested leave
himself to carry a duplicate of the order to Sedgwick, (Capt.
Raderitzchin being "a rather inexperienced, headlong young man,") for
Warren feared the "bad effect such an impossible order would have on
Gen. Sedgwick and his commanders, when delivered by him." And, knowing
Warren to be more familiar with the country than any other available
officer, Hooker detached him on this duty, with instructions again to
impress upon Sedgwick the urgent nature of the orders. Warren, with
an aide, left headquarters about midnight, and reached Sedgwick before
dawn.

As daylight approached, Warren thought he could see that only two
field-pieces were on Marye's heights, and that no infantry was holding
the rifle-pits to our right of it. But the stone-wall breastworks were
held in sufficient force, as was demonstrated by the repulse of the
early assault of Shaler and Wheaton.

And Warren was somewhat in error. Barksdale, who occupied
Fredericksburg, had been closely scanning these movements of Sedgwick's.
He had some fourteen hundred men under his command. Six field-pieces
were placed near the Marye house. Several full batteries were on Lee's
hill, and near Howison's. And, so soon as Fredericksburg was occupied by
our forces, Early sent Hays to re-enforce Barksdale; one regiment of his
brigade remaining on Barksdale's right, and the balance proceeding to
Stansbury's.

For, at daylight on Sunday, Early had received word from Barksdale,
whose lines at Fredericksburg were nearly two miles in length, that
the Union forces had thrown a bridge across the river opposite the Lacy
house; and immediately despatched his most available brigade to sustain
him.

Early's line, however, was thin. Our own was quite two and a half miles
in length, with some twenty-two thousand men; and Early's eighty-five
hundred overlapped both our flanks. But his position sufficiently
counterbalanced this inequality. Moreover his artillery was well
protected, while the Union batteries were quite without cover, and in
Gibbon's attempted advance, his guns suffered considerable damage.

Brooks's division was still on the left of the Federal line, near the
b