ce and affection of his troops. But deplorable as was the
weakness which sanctioned his removal on the eve of a decisive
manoeuvre, the blunder which put Burnside in his place was even more
so. The latter appears to have been the protege of a small political
faction. He had many good qualities. He was a firm friend, modest,
generous, and energetic. But he was so far from being distinguished
for military ability that in the Army of the Potomac it was very
strongly questioned whether he was fit to command an army corps. His
conduct at Sharpsburg, where he had been entrusted with the attack on
the Confederate right, had been the subject of the severest
criticism, and by not a few of his colleagues he was considered
directly responsible for the want of combination which had marred
McClellan's plan of attack. More than once Mr. Lincoln infringed his
own famous aphorism, "Never swap horses when crossing a stream," but
when he transferred the destinies of the Army of the Potomac from
McClellan to Burnside he did more--he selected the weakest of his
team of generals to bear the burden.

At the same time that McClellan was superseded, General FitzJohn
Porter, the gallant soldier of Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill,
probably the best officer in the Army of the Potomac, was ordered to
resign command of the Fifth Army Corps, and to appear before a
court-martial on charges of incompetency and neglect of duty at the
Second Manassas. The fact that those charges were preferred by Pope,
and that Porter had been allowed to retain his command through the
campaign in Maryland, were hardly calculated to inspire the army with
confidence in either the wisdom or the justice of its rulers; and it
was the general opinion that his intimate friendship with McClellan
had more to say to his trial than his alleged incompetency.

Burnside commenced his career by renouncing the enterprise which
McClellan had contemplated. Longstreet was left unmolested at
Culpeper; and, in order to free the communications from Jackson, the
Federal army was marched eastward along the Rappahannock to Falmouth,
a new line of supply being established between that village and Aquia
Creek, the port on the Potomac, six hours' sail from Washington.

Lee had already foreseen that Jackson's presence in the Valley might
induce the Federals to change their line of operations.
Fredericksburg, on the south side of the Rappahannock, and the
terminus of the Richmond and Potomac Railro