Fredericksburg

[bankerpapaw]

How would the battle of Fredericksburg turned out had the pontoon boats arrived when they were supposed to?

 

[Pat Answer]

Is there a battle at Fredericksburg if Burnside gets the bulk of the AotP across while Jackson is still coming up from the Valley?

 

[Tigerdovefan34]

It's doubtful there would've been a battle of Fredericksburg anyway. If anything, we could see an earlier Overland Campaign or Burnside could take Richmond before Lee could rescue it, which would almost certainly either kick Virginia out of the war or seriously hamper its usefulness to the Confederacy. In that case, the new capital becomes Montgomery again and the target for Grant shifts from Vicksburg to there while Burnside will likely be ordered into either East Tennessee or North Carolina. Either way, Virginia is knocked out early and Burnside's reputation is a bit saved, but the longer the war goes on, something is bound to happen.

At least, this is just my two sense.

 

[jackt62]

The concept of crossing the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg was to execute a classic flanking maneuver around Lee's ANV; this of course, depended on getting across the river before the ANV could concentrate at that point. I believe there were several opportunities for the AotP to cross the river before the entirety of Longstreet and Jackson's Corps were on scene. Sumner had recommended that the AotP ford the river sometime in late November; Burnside rejected this advice. Alternatively, a partial bridgehead across the river might have been attempted after some of the pontoon trains had arrived, but again Burnside elected to wait until the arrival of all his equipment, by which time both segments of Lee's army had taken positions west and south of the city.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Burnside comes to grief at the Battle of North Anna instead of the Battle of Fredericksburg, but the AOTP ends the year with a strong foothold across the Potomac. Burnside still asks to be relieved due to political intrigues against him and is still probably replaced by Hooker. However, the AOTP May 1863 offensive has a completely different set of challenges to face and doesn't resemble Chancellorsville.

 

[Jamieva]

The battle gets fought at the north Anna instead. Burnside moves slowly after he crosses and Longstreet and Stuart fight delaying actions for Jackson to join them.

 

[Saphroneth]

If the pontoons had arrived as early as they could conceivably have done (15 November) then this would have been on a date when Jackson's command had not yet even started moving (historically they started on the 21st and the head of column reached Massaponax Church on the 1st). Lee was not yet at Fredericksburg, and was planning on pulling back to the North Anna (a recce launched on the 18th eventually changed his plans but it looks like Lee did not leave Culpeper until the 18th).

I suspect that Burnside would not beat Longstreet's divisions to the North Anna, given the need to funnel all those troops over the bridges, but it is entirely plausible to me that Burnside would beat Jackson to the North Anna. This is then Burnside with about twice the historical Fredericksburg odds in a position which is good for defence but not great, so effectively if Burnside can launch any kind of even moderately capable attack then Lee is in huge trouble. Heck, a single Grand Division commander ordered to attack might be almost as much as Lee's army can cope with.

 

[Saphroneth]

So Lee had been asking Jackson to start moving for weeks on end, with requests on the 14th, 18th (warning that Burnside was making for Fredericksburg), 21st and 23rd; Lee did not know Jackson had started moving on the 21st until after he sent that (23rd) request. This means that at latest the message which set Jackson moving was the one on the 18th, which is when Lee himself starts moving, so the timeline of the components of Lee's army moving (especially Jackson) is pretty much set.

The route that Jackson's force took historically was about 135 miles long and took 11 days. To reach the North Anna (specifically Doswell VA) is 148 miles and would thus take 12 days; Jackson would consequently begin to arrive around the 2nd of December.


From Fredericksburg itself to the same point is about 36 miles. If we assume that unopposed pontoon bridge construction takes one day (starting on the 17th when the head of the Union force arrives) and that the army as a whole will take another two days to cross, and that Burnside does not begin to move until the day after that, then the timeline is thus:

17th: head of Union column arrives, pontoon bridges built
18th: Lee begins moving from Culpeper towards the North Anna, orders recce to Fredericksburg
18th and 19th: Union army crosses Rappahannock
20th: Burnside starts moving south, he has 36 miles to move
21st: Jackson starts moving

If Burnside can manage to move at an average of four miles per day, he will still reach the North Anna area on the end of the 28th. He will then have three to four days before Jackson arrives.

I think there is no reasonable circumstances under which Lee can hold the line of the North Anna. It's in fact quite plausible that Burnside moving at a more realistic speed could use one Grand Division to cut Lee off from Jackson's arrival, use a second to hold Lee in play, and send the third around and cross downriver (in the way Grant did in 1864).