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Updated: May 8, 2025
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.
Burnside's and Wright's corps were on the Chickahominy, and crossed during the night, Warren's corps and the cavalry still covering the army. The material for a pontoon bridge was already at hand and the work of laying it was commenced immediately, under the superintendence of Brigadier-General Benham, commanding the engineer brigade.
The authorities at Washington were now more than ever anxious for the safety of Burnside's army, and plied me with dispatches faster than ever, urging that something should be done for his relief. On the 7th, before Longstreet could possibly have reached Knoxville, I ordered Thomas peremptorily to attack the enemy's right, so as to force the return of the troops that had gone up the valley.
The official reports to the Adjutant-General's office in Washington show that on the 20th of April the Army of the Potomac numbered 81,864 men present and fit for duty. Burnside's corps, which joined in the Wilderness, added to this force 19,250 men, making a total of 101,114 men. After the Wilderness, a division numbering 7000 or 8000 men under General Tyler joined it.
General Burnside's march was one of the most difficult ever made in war, and tasked the powers of his men to the utmost; but all difficulties were surmounted, and the loyal people of the country which he entered and regained were gladdened by seeing the national flag flying once more over their heads.
Burnside's action in suppressing disloyal newspapers was not peculiar to himself. General Wright, his predecessor, had done the same, and other military commandants, both before and after and in other parts of the country, had felt obliged to take the same course.
Burnside had run his course, and "Fighting 'Joe' Hooker" was in command. There was little about Washington in 1862 to indicate that a great war was raging. The reference in the previous chapter to the "thunder of Burnside's guns" was figurative only. No guns were heard. It was Sunday morning.
Burnside's old corps, the Ninth, was taken from the Army of the Potomac and sent to Kentucky, and a new corps, to be called the Twenty-third, was soon authorized, to contain the Tennessee regiments which had been in General Morgan's command, and two divisions made up of new regiments organized in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois under the last call for volunteers.
We have seen that the divisions of the Ninth Corps were conducted by staff officers of Burnside's staff to positions that had been indicated by McClellan and marked by members of his staff. The morning of Wednesday the 17th broke fresh and fair. The men were astir at dawn, getting breakfast and preparing for a day of battle.
A number of officers belonging to Burnside's command were waiting an opportunity to rejoin the army, and I arranged a rendezvous for these at Lexington, Ky., where I would join them. A small troop of cavalry was detailed to act as our escort, and the quartermaster's department promised wagons for our baggage and supplies.
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