onade
repelled another attempt to complete the bridge.

After a delay of several hours General Hooker, commanding the
advance, called for volunteers to cross the river in boats. Four
regiments came forward. The pontoons were manned, and though many
lives were lost during the transit, the gallant Federals pushed
quickly across; others followed, and Barksdale, who had no orders to
hold the place against superior strength, withdrew his men from the
river bank. About 4.30 P.M., three bridges being at last established,
the enemy pushed forward, and the Mississippians, retiring in good
order, evacuated Fredericksburg. A mile below, near the mouth of
Hazel Run, the Confederate outposts had been driven in, and three
more bridges had been thrown across. Thus on the night of the 11th
the Federals, who were now organised in three Grand Divisions, each
of two army corps, had established their advanced guards on the right
bank of the Rappahannock, and, under cover of the batteries on the
Stafford Heights, could rapidly and safely pass over their great host
of 120,000 men.* (* The three Grand Divisions were commanded by
Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin.)

Burnside had framed his plan of attack on the assumption that Lee's
army was dispersed along the Rappahannock. His balloon had reported
large Confederate bivouacs below Skinker's Neck, and he appears to
have believed that Lee, alarmed by his demonstrations near Port
Royal, had posted half his army in that neighbourhood. Utterly
unsuspicious that a trap had been laid for him, he had resolved to
take advantage of this apparently vicious distribution, and, crossing
rapidly at Fredericksburg, to defeat the Confederate left before the
right could lend support. Port Royal is but eighteen miles from
Fredericksburg, and in prompt action, therefore, lay his only hope of
success. Burnside, however, after the successful establishment, of
his six bridges, evinced the same want of resolution which had won
him so unenviable a reputation at Sharpsburg. The long hours of
darkness slipped peacefully away; no unusual sound broke the silence
of the night, and all was still along the Rappahannock.

Dec. 12.

It was not till the next morning, December 12, that the army began to
cross, and the movement, made difficult by a dense fog, was by no
means energetic. Four of the six army corps were transferred during
the day to the southern bank; but beyond a cavalry reconnaissance,
which was checked by Stuar