- View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

The battle that saved the South--for a time, at least--in 1862 Confederates IN THE ATTIC On Dec. 13, 1862, the Battle of Fredericksburg began. What it meant then, and now, cannot be forgotten.

The impact of the Battle of Fredericksburg was enormous, for both sides.

Date published: 12/11/2005

BLACKSBURG--"Fierce battle & glorious victory at Freder- icksburg on Saturday last," wrote a Confederate officer stuck in the backwater of southwest Virginia in the winter of 1862.

Like so many throughout the Confederacy who were not serving in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, this man could only experience "glorious victory" vicariously, by readings and rumors filtering back from the front of the only Confederate army that consistently brought good news to the South.

While the Battle of Fredericksburg certainly holds intrinsic interest on its own, its symbolic impact was arguably far more important. It was the first battle fought by Lee since his repulse in the Maryland Campaign three months before. He had spent a full day there repelling assaults by a substantially larger Union army in the Battle of Antietam, making it arguably a tactical success for the Confederates--but only because Lee had gotten himself into such a perilous trap that any outcome short of annihilation constituted victory.

Still, the invincible Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion of the North had been almost a complete failure. Lee needed a victory in his next fight to renew his confidence, and that of his army, and his people.

Moreover, since the next fight at Fredericksburg was on home soil, Southern victory was even more imperative--for everywhere else on the Confederacy the news was unrelentingly gloomy. The year 1862 saw the Confederates losing their toehold in Kentucky, most of central and west Tennessee, New Orleans, Memphis, and most of the Mississippi.

Lee had ejected two Union invasions that spring and summer, but the Yankees still held an irritating base at Fort Monroe, and had established bases on the coasts of the Carolinas. A major campaign to retake Kentucky failed embarrassingly just three weeks after the defeat at Antietam.

Fredericksburg, in short, was the only solid good news of the season.

Yet if Fredericksburg was more than just another victory for the South, it was also more than just another defeat for the North.

It was the first outing for a new general leading the Army of the Potomac.

Follow us on

Date published: 12/11/2005