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The Vallandigham case became the sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance. The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No. 38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so.
At first the Confederates gained the advantage; but a portion of Burnside's corps was brought up and restored the battle, while on the left flank of the Federals Hancock had attacked with such vigor that the Confederates opposed to him were driven back.
Sending a telegraphic message to General Meigs, Quartermaster-General at Washington, to the effect that the mules furnished to Burnside's army were of such bad quality that he was embarrassed in taking the waggons he had captured into the Confederate lines, and requesting that a better class of animal might be supplied in future, he returned by long marches through Warrenton to Culpeper Court House, escaping pursuit, and bringing with him a large amount of plunder and many prisoners.
Burnside's disastrous "Mud March" through the January sloughs of Virginia, made in the vain hope of outflanking Lee, had lowered the morale of the army almost as much as Fredericksburg itself had lowered the morale of the people.
On the 22d or 23d I received dispatches from Washington saying that Sherman had taken Kingston, crossed the Etowah River and was advancing into Georgia. I was seated at the time on the porch of a fine plantation house waiting for Burnside's corps to pass. Meade and his staff, besides my own staff, were with me. The lady of the house, a Mrs. Tyler, and an elderly lady, were present.
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 Burnside's crossing. November 8.
Burnside's well-conducted retreat, on the other hand, had lured Longstreet forward, and the patient endurance of a siege had kept the enemy in front of Knoxville, and even led to the further depletion of Bragg by the detachment of Buckner, giving to Grant the very opportunity he desired. The good fortune of the National commander culminated at Missionary Ridge.
Moreover, the battle of Fredericksburg had taught both armies that the elaborate constructions of the engineer are not the only or the most useful resources of fortification. Hooker had ordered his position to be intrenched in the hope that Lee and Jackson, following Burnside's example, would dash their divisions into fragments against them and thus become an easy prey.
He forgot that when he stopped Burnside's movement on 3d June to send the Ninth Corps to Grant, it was with the distinct understanding that it prevented its resumption till the corps should return. Not hearing of its being on the way, on the 18th he asked Halleck if orders for its return had been given. To this dispatch no answer was given, and it was probably pigeonholed and forgotten.
Burnside's view of the matter was that the front attack at the bridge was so difficult that the passage by the ford below must be an important factor in the task; for if Rodman's division should succeed in getting across there, at the bend of the Antietam, he would come up in rear of Toombs, and either the whole of D. R. Jones's division would have to advance to meet Rodman, or Toombs must abandon the bridge.
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