walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLaws
sent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade.
"Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What's
that in English? 'Quit?'--What in hell should we quit for?"

Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "Old
Barksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLaws
says, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill.' Well, I've
got to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn't
he?--Yes,--just one more round. _Load! Kneel! Commence firing!_"

In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off in
good order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared--the Mississippi
brigade disappeared--from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28th
Massachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them all
to-morrow--Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve to
eighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he's
divided his army once too often!"

By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all night
on the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day.
The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, through
which, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In the
afternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing else
happened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting.
The Rappahannock, however, _was_ crossed, and the road to Richmond
stretched plain between the hills.

But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down the
river, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of Northern
Virginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, and
highly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town.
There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one side
of Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost at
right angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavily
timbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown up
certain breastworks.

Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. To
Anderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had his
artillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantry
in line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run,
on the wooded hills between the ra