Burnside's Mud March

  General Ambrose Burnside still in command of the Union Army of the Potomac Announced, "The auspicious moment seems to have arrived to strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion, and to gain that decisive victory which is due to the country." So on the morning of January 20, 1863, Burnside set out on another great drive to beat General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and capture the Rebel capital of Richmond,Va. Only five weeks had 

passed since the costly and disastrous Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but Washington demanded action. The Union and Confederate armies still faced each other across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, and Burnside's plan was to quickly cross the river above Lee's left and assail that flank of the Confederate position.

   The Union Army with its wagon trains of pontoon boats, artillery, and supplies made a good start up the river. It wasn't long before the sky began to cloud and by mid-afternoon a slow cold drizzle had begun. By that nightfall a soaking, steady, relentless rain was falling, the rain would continue for days. The next morning the mule-drawn wagons carrying the pontoons churned the road into a quagmire. The wagons sank to their hubs. The artillery sank until only the muzzles were out of the mud. The exhausted teams floundered, as did the men, as each slippery step through the ooze sucked at their shoes and weighed them down. "The whole country was a river of mud," wrote one soldier. "The roads were rivers of deep mire, and the heavy rain had made the ground a vast mortar bed." Whole regiments and triple teams of mules hitched to the wagons and guns failed to move them. Still the rain came down in torrents. By noon the next day, Burnside's plans to maneuver past Lee's Rebel army were hopelessly stalled, and his own army was exhausted, wet, and cold. Burnside had no choice but to abandon the movement and order his soldiers back to their camps across from Fredericksburg.

   The Union Army with its wagon trains

  Battery B began the move like so many others, its equipments and teams in good condition the men however, were not at all in good spirits. Having not been paid, had no money to buy necessities and the roads continued to worsen throughout the day. At nightfall the men bivouacked on the soggy ground, in a soaking rain, which continued thru that night. The next day the teams where again hitched, remaining in harness all day the Battery never moved. Ordered back into camp the battery avoided tromping in the mud like so many other units of the 2^nd Corps had done. On the morning of the 24^th other units began returning in disorderly condition, wet, fatigued, and muddy from their fruitless unprofitably “Mud March”.

 To add insult to injury, the Confederate pickets across the river watched the struggling Union army with amusement. A few of the pickets put up a large sign on the riverbank. One such sign that said "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud" and another that said "This way to Richmond."