yed which won the praise and the
pity of their opponents. The attack was insufficiently prepared, and
feebly supported, by the artillery. The troops were formed on a
narrow front. Marye's Hill, the strongest portion of the position,
where the Confederate infantry found shelter behind a stout stone
wall, and numerous batteries occupied the commanding ground in rear,
was selected for assault. Neither feint nor demonstration, the
ordinary expedients by which the attacker seeks to distract the
attention and confuse the efforts of the defence, was made use of;
and yet division after division, with no abatement of courage,
marched in good order over the naked plain, dashed forward with
ever-thinning ranks, and then, receding sullenly before the storm of
fire, left, within a hundred yards of the stone wall, a long line of
writhing forms to mark the limit of their advance.

3 P.M.

Two army corps had been repulsed by Longstreet with fearful slaughter
when Meade and Gibbon gave way before Jackson's counterstroke, and by
three o'clock nearly one-half of the Federal army was broken and
demoralised. The time appeared to have come for a general advance of
the Confederates. Before Fredericksburg, the wreck of Sumner's Grand
Division was still clinging to such cover as the ground afforded. On
the Richmond road, in front of Jackson, Franklin had abandoned all
idea of the offensive, and was bringing up his last reserves to
defend his line. The Confederates, on the other hand, were in the
highest spirits, and had lost but few.

General Lee's arrangements, however, had not included preparation for
a great counterstroke, and such a movement is not easily improvised.
The position had been occupied for defensive purposes alone. There
was no general reserve, no large and intact force which could have
moved to the attack immediately the opportunity offered. "No skill,"
says Longstreet, "could have marshalled our troops for offensive
operations in time to meet the emergency. My line was long and over
broken country, so much so that the troops could not be promptly
handled in offensive operations. Jackson's corps was in mass, and
could he have anticipated the result of my battle, he would have been
justified in pressing Franklin to the river when the battle of the
latter was lost. Otherwise, pursuit would have been as unwise as the
attack he had just driven off. It is well known that after driving
off attacking forces, if immediate pursuit c