Battle Of Fredericksburg Essay

He was assigned to take command of the Department of Ohio on March 1863. He had cause many problems when he arrested Clement Vallandigham who was a senator. Burnside had been in the Knoxville mission in 1863. He had managed to out maneuver James Longstreet, a Confederate General, and took control of the city of Knoxville. He held the city until his reinforcements came, which was led by William T.

During September 9th of 1862 Confederate forces led by Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson commanded three divisions with the goal of seizing Harpers Ferry. At the time Harpers Ferry was a Union occupied town bordering Maryland and Virginia. For the Union front this was a main arsenal holding area that provided support to other forces. For the Confederates, they saw it as a major supply line allowing logistics to travel down south or north through the use of rail road systems. COL Dixon Miles, the Union commander at Harpers Ferry, received intelligence about the movement of enemy forces towards his location.

bloody and costly years for both sides we come to the date of July 1,

The Civil war cut our nation in two, Americans fighting Americans, brother against brother. A key battle fought westward was the turning point in the war: the Battle of Vicksburg.

The importance of this raid lay in the fact that they captured much-needed cannons and gunpowder.

The battle took place in the tangled woods of what is now Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Park about 10 miles west of Fredericksburg, Virginia along Orange Plank Road and Orange Turnpike. The Federals held the land to the east and the confederates to the west. The land was nearly impassable, proving a nightmare for both moving men and logistics. The importance of the location, however, was significant. Railways and roads led to Washington and were logistically important. For two years, fighting for the land surrounding the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers led to stalemate. Twice previously, Lee had been able to withstand attack from the Federals; attacks led by Joseph Hooker and George Meade. Lee’s plan was, likely, to take Washington, which he believed would decidedly win

     The Battle of Gettysburg was the most decisive battle for the North, and it lasted for a total of three days. It began on July 1 and ended on July 3, 1863. The Confederacy was going on the offensive and was beginning to venture into Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington D.C. They encountered Union troops as they advanced towards Harrisburg where they planned to cut off Union supply lines and to steal provisions that they needed. The Battle of Gettysburg became the bloodiest multi-day battle ever fought in United States history. At the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Union claimed victory, and they would use this psychological advantage throughout the rest of the Civil War.

One of the boldest actions of Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown Stuart under the leadership of Robert E. Lee was his effort to make "a complete circuit around the Union Army, heading to the north end of the lower peninsula (near the York River) and returning to Richmond along the James." . Allowing Stuart to make this move was one of the first decisions of Robert E. Lee, who had just replaced the more cautious Gen. Joseph E. Johnston as the leader of the Confederates. "In the aftermath of the inconclusive battle," led by Johnson "Lee suspected that the right flank of McClellan's army was 'in the air' not anchored to any natural formation, and thus vulnerable to attack. To be certain, he decided to send Stuart to reconnoiter."

The Battle of Fredericksburg is remembered as the Confederate Army’s most one-sided victory in its campaign against the Union Forces of the North. It was also the first battle to occur shortly after President Abraham Lincoln had delivered his “Emancipation Proclamation” and the President was hard pressed for a victory to use to bolster public support for it. General George McClellan fresh of his victory against of General Robert E. Lee’s forces at Antietam was being pressured by the President to

Civil War historians view the Battle of Chancellorsville as General Robert E. Lee’s “greatest and most remarkable” victory (Sears 1). Lee, facing an army twice his size, defies all military doctrine and divides his army multiple times in order to out-maneuver and surprise the Union forces. The daring maneuver succeeds and ultimately forces the Union’s Army of the Potomac to retreat. The victory was another major blow to Union troops, but it came at a huge cost to the Confederacy: the loss of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. By evaluating the battle through the lens of the mission command activities, one can see how Lee’s daring maneuver was actually very calculated and his only option for victory. Throughout the rest of this paper, I will describe the timeline of the battle and how General Lee used the mission command activities of understand, visualize, assess, and lead to ultimately achieve victory at Chancellorsville.

"American Revolution : The Battle of Yorktown." American Revolution : The Battle of Yorktown. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. <http://www.britishbattles.com/battle-yorktown.htm>.

Confederates win the battle at Fredericksburg against the Union. The battle was December 13th , 1862. The generals were General Robert E. Lee, Ambrose Burnside, William B. Franklin, Stonewall Jackson, and General Longstreet. After the battle of Antietam, Abraham replaces General Mcclellan with General Ambrose Burnside. General Burnside’s men could not cross the Rappahannock without pontoons. This gave confederates enough time to regroup and prepare a counterattack. The confederates had time to get set up to fire upon the Union as they crossed.Longstreet’s artillery keep the Union at bay. The Union had 13,000 casualties. The confederates only had 5,000 casualties. After the battle the Union was pushed back to where it was. You could truly say

Lincoln felt that the destruction of Lee’s army should be the primary goal, not the capture of a Southern city, however, he approved Burnside’s plan. This was mainly due to the fact that Burnside was actually moving the army in pursuit of Lee. Burnside’s first act as commander was to divide his army into three grand divisions, the right commanded by Major General Sumner, the center commanded by Major General Hooker, and the left commanded by Major General Franklin. Once this was completed he set forth for Virginia with a compliment of 100,000 men.

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought towards the beginning of the American Civil War that spanned over the course of four years, April 1861- April 1865 and consisted of 50 major battles and thousands of minor battles. The Battle of Fredericksburg lasted exactly five days, December 11-15, 1862. Its location was centered on Fredericksburg, VA and surrounding areas along the Rappahannock River including Falmouth, Marye’s Heights, Stafford Heights, Prospect Hill, and Hamilton’s Crossing (Yandoh, 2001). The Federal Union and Confederates had the same goal. To preserve their way of life, but that’s where the similarities stopped. Both sides wanted a different way of life preserved. The Confederates goal was to gain independence from the politically oppressive North and to establish an independent nation that allowed slavery (Olson-Raymer, 2014). The Federal Union’s initial goal was to restore the Union. But, its goal changed when it became obvious they would lose the war. The Union decided to reunite states under a banner in which slavery was no longer acceptable or tolerated. “The war from beginning to end would be a noble crusade for democracy for all people, not just in America, but throughout the world” (Olson-Raymer, 2014).

The Seven Days Campaign of 1862 was a sequence of battles that took place along the Virginia Peninsula east of Richmond, between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Virginia Army from 26 June through 2 July. The campaign consisted of the following six battles: Mechanicsville, Gaines ' Mill, and Savage Station, engagement at Oak Swamp Bridge, and battles of Frazier 's Farm and Malvern Hill over a seven-day period. Major General George B. McClellan led the Union Army of nearly 104,000 soldiers, while the newly appointed commander, General Robert Edward Lee led the Confederate Army of nearly 92,000 soldiers during this campaign. General Lee’s major objective was to protect and defend the City of Richmond against the Union Army. General Lee’s usage of the mission command principles and battlefield management during the Seven Days Campaign secured a quick and significant victory for the Army of Northern Virginia, and drove the Major General McClellan Union troops to retreat down the Virginia Peninsula. His ability to build a cohesive team through mutual trust, provide a clear commander’s intent, create shared understanding, and accept prudent risk led to the successful defense of Richmond. General Lee’s triumph in those seven days remains among the most important battles in the Army of Northern Virginia’s history as it served as a turning point in the Civil War.