We are staying 3 nights at Fredericksburg VA, to have rest from driving, to have a good look at the four major battles nearby & because it has pubs with good grub & beer.
At Fredericksburg in Dec 1862 Burnside provided a textbook lesson on how not to force a river crossing. First you turn up at the proposed crossing point without your bridging train. Then you wait 10 days while it comes up & the enemy concentrates his forces & digs entrenchments around your proposed bridgehead. Then you launch repeated assaults against the strongest part of the enemy line despite not one attack getting anywhere near the enemy trench line. And where your diversionary attacks actually do find a weak point in the enemy line, you don't reinforce the break-though & allow the enemy to reserves to re-take it. And do it in mid winter.
The Rappahannock is a major obstacle.
As at Manassas, there were ready made defenses for the CSA - this time a sunken road with stone walls & a nice rise the artillery to deploy behind it safely firing overhead.
There were a lot less trees on the field in 1862. If the locals hadn't already cut them down, the sappers did to clear fields of fire. Repeated assaults failed to to get within 50m of this line.
On the right of the CSA line there was no sunken road, but their entrenchments were so good that 156 years later they are still plain to see.
2 comments:
While at Fredericksburg, head to 'Big Hunting Creek' (Camp David). There is a bench where Roosevelt and Churchill sat to discuss the war).
During the 6 years that Historicon was held in Fredericksburg, we stayed one exit North of the convention center. I always enjoyed the view of Rappahonnock Falls crossing the I-95 bridge.
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