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His shoulders were massive and square, his chin and mouth were square, his burnsides were square cut, and he had a square head and wore a square-topped derby. He looked like the family portrait of Uncle Amos Hardscrabble. When he sat down he remained until he had said his say.
This retreating column of Franklin's met that of Hancock's, formed, and on its way to try issues with the troops behind the stone wall, Longstreet now saw what had never been considered before that Burnsides was determined to possess himself of the key to Lee's position, "Mayree's Hill," in front of which was the stone wall.
Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides and licking his lips and blinking his eyes looking for all the world like a cat at its toilet. "Oh! ah! Blacklock!" he exclaimed, with purring cordiality and I knew he had heard of the big deposit I was making. "Come into my office on your way out nothing especial only because it's always a pleasure to talk with you."
It must be said to the credit of General Burnsides, that the responsibility for this disastrous battle should not rest upon his shoulders. He felt his incapacity for handling so great a body of troops. Again and again he wrote the authorities in Washington protesting against the command being given him. "I am unable to handle so great an army." He wrote his chief, but in vain.
General Lee was not long in determining the route Burnsides had selected and hurried Jackson on, and placed him some miles to our right, near Hamilton's Crossing, on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad.
And, for that matter, the small affairs of that worthy couple have little or no bearing upon the chief issue involved in this tale. Nobody cares a rap whether Saunders, middle-aged and unheroic bachelor, with his precise little "burnsides," won the heart of the pert Miss Pelham, precise in character if not always so in type.
Lee skillfully withdrew his army across the Potomac. Safe in Virginia he rallied his shattered forces while he sent Stuart once more in a daring ride around McClellan's army. Again McClellan fell before the genius of Lee. Burnsides was put in his place. They met at Fredericksburg.
His father would not utterly refuse his consent, though he might urge long delays. And, in any case, Edinburgh was but two days' journey from the Dullarg; two days on the road by the burnsides and over the heather hills was nothing to him. But, for all that, the aching would not be stilled. Hearts are strange, illogical things; they will not be argued with.
His country and posterity would charge him with all the responsibility of defeat, and he felt that his brief command of the once grand and mighty Army of the Potomac was now at an end. Sore and bitter recollections! Burnsides had on the field one hundred and thirty-two thousand and seventeen men; of these one hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and eighty-three were in line of battle.
General Grant returned and spent part of the night with me, at Graysville. We talked over matters generally, and he explained that he had ordered General Gordon Granger, with the Fourth Corps, to move forward rapidly to Burnsides help, and that he must return to Chattanooga to push him.
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