oon, swept the streets with round-shot, shell,
and case-shot, firing frequently a hundred guns a minute. The quick
puffs of smoke, touched in the centre with tongues of flame, ran
incessantly along the lines of their batteries on the slopes, and,
as the smoke slowly drifted away, the bellowing roar came up in one
continuous roll. The town was soon fired, and a dense cloud of smoke
enveloped its roofs and steeples. The white church-spires still rose
serenely aloft, defying shot or shell, though a portion of one of them
was torn off. The smoke was succeeded by lurid flame, and the crimson
mass brought to mind the pictures of Moscow burning." The same writer
says: "Men, women, and children, were driven from the town, and
hundreds of ladies and children were seen wandering, homeless, and
without shelter, over the frozen highway, in thin clothing, knowing
not where to find a place of refuge."

[Illustration: FREDERICKSBURG]

General Lee watched this painful spectacle from a redoubt to the right
of the telegraph road, not far from his centre, where a shoulder
jutting out from the ridge, and now called "Lee's Hill," afforded
him a clear view of the city. The destruction of the place, and the
suffering of the inhabitants, aroused in him a deep melancholy,
mingled with exasperation, and his comment on the scene was probably
as bitter as any speech which he uttered during the whole war.
Standing, wrapped in his cape, with only a few officers near, he
looked fixedly at the flames rising from the city, and, after
remaining for a long time silent, said, in his grave, deep voice:
"These people delight to destroy the weak, and those who can make no
defence; it just suits them."

General Burnside continued the bombardment for some hours, the
Mississippians still holding the river-bank and preventing the laying
of the pontoons, which was again begun and again discontinued. At
about four in the afternoon, however, a force was sent across in
barges, and by nightfall the city was evacuated by Lee, and General
Burnside proceeded rapidly to lay his pontoon bridge, upon which his
army then began to pass over. The crossing continued throughout the
next day, not materially obstructed by the fire of Lee's artillery,
as a dense fog rendered the aim of the cannoneers unreliable. By
nightfall (of the 12th) the Federal army was over, with the exception
of General Hooker's Centre Grand Division, which was held in reserve
on the north bank. Genera