Excerpt from: "James Longstreet: The Controversial Leader" by Andrew Dawes

By early December, 1862, Lee’s Army of Virginia had firmly established itself on the high ground surrounding Fredericksburg – just southeast of the town itself and in sight of the Potomac River. Acting with complete consistency of character, Longstreet ordered that trenches and fieldworks be constructed behind the city. However, the most recent Union general, Ambrose Burnside, who was perilously determined to capture Fredericksburg and thus prove himself capable of command, confidently assumed that he possessed enough sheer military might to wrest control of the heights away from Longstreet’s forces. Suddenly, at 3 a.m. on what had been a temporarily peaceful night, any false promises of silence were shattered as 150 Federal cannon simultaneously opened fire on the city’s buildings. Windows crashed. Walls were shattered. Fire spread through the streets. Before sunrise, General Longstreet rode out to inspect his troops. The blue-coated Northern army had begun crossing the Potomac and was entering the burning town. Meeting General Robert E. Lee on the way to the Confederate position, Longstreet slowed long enough to listen as Lee promptly warned him, “General, they are massing very heavily and will break your line, I am afraid.” Longstreet brusquely replied, “General, if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac on that field...and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line” (Wert 221). Never have truer words been spoken. As the Union ranks charged from the cover of Fredericksburg’s charred bones, the huge guns on Lee’s Hill spewed grim fire down the slope. Those few who reached Longstreet’s fortifications were halted by a hail of deadly musket shot. Cooly, Longstreet and Lee gazed out upon a scene of unimaginable carnage, as line after line of navy blue was crushed amid the deafening roar of artillery. Only the trickling groups of wounded, who sought shelter, were left standing; within a mere thirty minutes, over 1,000 Yankees lay dead or maimed upon the bloody slope. After General Burnside finally called an end to the slaughter of this ill-fated attack, Longstreet was able to leave Fredericksburg satisfied, because the painful wound inflicted on the Northern foe had come at the expense of relatively minor Confederate losses.