On the morning of December 11th, before dawn, the dull boom of Lee’s signal-guns indicated that the enemy were moving, and the Southern troops formed line of battle to meet the coming attack.  General Burnside had made arrangements to cross the river on pontoon bridges, one opposite the city, and another a mile or two lower down the stream.  General Franklin, commanding the two corps of the left Grand Division, succeeded, without trouble, in laying the lower bridge, as the ground did not permit Lee to offer material obstruction; and this large portion of the army was now ready to cross.  The passage of the stream at Fredericksburg was more difficult.  Although determined not to make a serious effort to prevent the enemy from crossing, General Lee had placed two regiments of Barksdale’s Mississippians along the bank of the river, in the city, to act as sharp-shooters, and impede the construction of the pontoon bridges, with the view, doubtless, of thus giving time to marshal his troops.  The success of this device was considerable.  The workmen, busily engaged in laying the Federal pontoons, were so much interrupted by the fire of the Confederate marksmen—­who directed their aim through the heavy fog by the noise made in putting together the boats—­that, after losing a number of men, the Federal commander discontinued his attempt.  It was renewed again and again, without success, as before, when, provoked apparently by the presence of this hornet’s nest, which reversed all his plans, General Burnside, about ten o’clock, opened a furious fire of artillery upon the city.  The extent of this bombardment will be understood from the statement that one hundred and forty-seven pieces of artillery were employed, which fired seven thousand three hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, in one instance piercing a single small house with fifty round-shot.  An eye-witness of this scene says:  “The enemy had planted more than a hundred pieces of artillery on the hills to the northern and eastern sides of the town, and, from an early hour in the forenoon, swept the streets with round-shot, shell, and case-shot, firing frequently a hundred guns a minute.  The quick puffs of smoke, touched in the centre with tongues of flame, ran incessantly along the lines of their batteries on the slopes, and, as the smoke slowly drifted away, the bellowing roar came up in one continuous roll.  The town was soon fired, and a dense cloud of smoke enveloped its roofs and steeples.  The white church-spires still rose serenely aloft, defying shot or shell, though a portion of one of them was torn off.  The smoke was succeeded by lurid flame, and the crimson mass brought to mind the pictures of Moscow burning.”  The same writer says:  “Men, women, and children, were driven from the town, and hundreds of ladies and children were seen wandering, homeless, and without shelter, over the frozen highway, in thin clothing, knowing not where to find a place of refuge.”

[Illustration:  FREDERICKSBURG]