ners were captured, also two pieces of artillery, fourteen stand of colors and over three thousand small arms. As Rosecrans, after the battle, rode along the line, he was greeted with thundering cheers. He began to be looked upon as invincible. Victory hovered over his banners wherever he went, and he was affectionately nick-named "Old Rosy."

The fields around Corinth were frightful with the débris of battle, and for weeks the place could be scented miles away.

On the morning after the battle, McPherson, having arrived at Corinth with a fresh brigade, went in pursuit of the retreating foe; but though narrowly escaping destruction in the forks of the Hatchie, they succeeded at last in eluding the vigilance of our troops and getting away. The battle of Corinth placed West Tennessee securely in the hands of the Federal Government, and won for General Rosecrans fresh and undying laurels.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FREDERICKSBURG.

Burnside in Command of the Army of the Potomac.-The Advance to Fredericksburg.-Surrender of the City Refused.-Confederate and Union Cavalry Raids.-Capture of Rebel Picket-Posts.-Ex. odus of Citizens from Fredericksburg.-Delay In Laying Pontoons. -The Seventh Michigan Crossing the River under a Murderous Fire.-Death of a Massachusetts Chaplain.-General Gibbon Opens the Battle.-Desperate Fighting.-Terrific Charge of Meade's Division.-The Hillside Strewn with the Dead.-Death of Bayard.— Night after the Battle.-Heart-rending Scenes.-Termination of the Campaign of 1862.

G

YENERAL MCCLELLAN'S failure to grasp the fruits of victory after the battle of Antietam, led to his removal and the appointment of General Am brose E. Burnside to the command of the Army of the Potomac.

General Burnside accepted his new position with great reluctance and unfeigned self-distrust, and only as a matter of obedience to orders. This change of the commanding officer, deleterious and dangerous as it might be upon the morale of the army, was nevertheless considered necessary and expedient.

Having secured by strategy the principal gaps of Blue Ridge, which had been occupied by the enemy since their advance into the Valley, General Burnside began to make preparations to move his army to Fredericksburg, that point being in the direct line

from Washington to Richmond. To mask, as long as possible, his real design, he threatened an attack upon Gordonsville, but General Lee, by the aid of his emissaries and raiders, soon ascertained his plans, and moving his army across the Blue Ridge, through the western passes, he took his position on the south bank of the Rappahannock, to prevent our crossing.

General Burnside halted at Warrenton, a beautiful village of Fauquier county, and here a few days were consumed in effecting the changes incident upon the advent of a new commander, and on the fourteenth, the Army of the Potomac was constituted into three grand divisions, to be commanded respectively by Generals Sumner, Franklin, and Hooker. The following day Warrenton was abandoned and the army swept on towards the Rappahannock.

Two days' march brought our advance to Falmouth, and on the twenty-first, General Patrick, our ProvostMarshal-General, was directed to repair to Fredericksburg under a flag of truce, and request the surrender of the city. The authorities replied that while its buildings and streets would no longer be used by Rebel sharp-shooters to annoy our forces across the river, its occupation by Yankee troops would be resisted to the last. Had the means of crossing the river been at hand, General Burnside would have made hostile demonstrations at once; but through some misunderstanding between himself and General Halleck, at Washington, the pontoons were not in readiness.

On the twenty-eighth of November a strong force of Rebel cavalry under General Wade Hampton,

da hed across the river at some of the upper fords, raided up around Dumfries and the Occoquan, captured several prisoners and wagons and returned to their side of the river without loss. As a sort of offset to this, on the twenty-ninth General Julius Stahl, who commanded a brigade of cavalry at Fairfax Court House, commenced an expedition of great daring and success, to the Shenandoah Valley. Having advanced to Snicker's Gap, in the Blue Ridge, a strong Rebel picket-post was captured by our vanguard. Pressing forward on the main thoroughfare, they soon reached the Shenandoah river, and were not a little annoyed by Rebel carbineers, hidden behind old buildings across the stream. Captain Abram H. Krom, commanding a detachment of the Fifth New York Cavalry, and leading the advance, dashed across the river, though deep and the current swift, closely followed by his men. On reaching the opposite bank a charge was ordered, and executed in so gallant a manner that several Rebels were made prisoners, and the remainder of the squad was driven away at a break-neck speed. Our men pursued them in a scrambling race for nearly three miles, when they came upon a rebel camp, which was attacked in a furious manner. Our boys made music enough for a brigade, though only a squadron was at hand.

The enemy attempted a defence but utterly failed. Re-inforcements coming to our aid, the Rebels were thoroughly beaten and driven away, leaving in our hands one captain, two lieutenants, thirty-two privates, one stand of colors, and several wagons and ambulances. Most of these were laden with booty taken

by White's guerrillas, in a recent raid into Poolesville, Maryland. Sixty horses and fifty heads of cattle were also captured in this gallant charge.

With all their spoils the expedition returned, via Leesburg, arriving at their camps in safety. But all eyes were turned expectantly towards Fredericksburg, with its two vast armies preparing for a grand en

counter.

Nearly all the citizens of the city had left their homes and fled southward.

While General Burnside waited for his pontoons, General Lee was fortifying the Heights in rear of the city, and concentrating his forces for the anticipated onset. This state of things was greatly regretted. The laying of pontoons was commenced on the night of the eleventh of December, but the work progressed so slowly that the task was not half completed when daylight made the sappers and miners a fair mark for the sharpshooters, who were hidden among the buildings which lined the opposite shore, and whose numbers had largely increased within a few days. Battery after battery was opened on Falmouth Heights, until not less than one hundred and fifty guns at good range, were belching fire and destruction upon the nearly tenantless city, and still the sharpshooters prevented the completion of the pontoons, and disputed our crossing. At this critical moment the Seventh Michigan regiment of infantry, immortalized its name. Failing, after some entreaty, to secure the assistance of the engineer corps to row them across, they undertook the perilous labor themselves, and amid the rattling of bul-, lets, and the cheers and shouts of our own men, they