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.
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