On Pelham’s retirement, Franklin, bringing several batteries forward to the Richmond road, for more than half an hour subjected the woods before him to a heavy cannonade, in which the guns on the Stafford Heights played a conspicuous part.  Hidden, however, by the thick timber, Jackson’s regiments lay secure, unharmed by the tempest that crashed above them through the leafless branches; and, reserving their fire for the hostile infantry, his guns were silent.  The general, meanwhile, according to his custom, had walked far out into the fields to reconnoitre for himself, and luck favoured the Confederacy on this day of battle.  Lieutenant Smith was his only companion, and a Federal sharpshooter, suddenly rising from some tall weeds two hundred paces distant, levelled his rifle and fired.  The bullet whistled between their heads, and Jackson, turning with a smile to his aide-de-camp, said cheerfully:  “Mr. Smith, had you not better go to the rear?  They may shoot you.”  Then, having deliberately noted the enemy’s arrangements, he returned to his station on Prospect Hill.

11.15 A.M.

It was past eleven before Meade resumed his advance.  Covered by the fire of the artillery, his first line was within eight hundred yards of Jackson’s centre, when suddenly the silent woods awoke to life.  The Confederate batteries, pushing forward from the covert, came rapidly into action, and the flash and thunder of more than fifty guns revealed to the astonished Federals the magnitude of the task they had undertaken.  From front and flank came the scathing fire; the skirmishers were quickly driven in, and on the closed ranks behind burst the full fury of the storm.  Dismayed and decimated by this fierce and unexpected onslaught, Meade’s brigades broke in disorder and fell back to the Richmond road.

For the next hour and a half an artillery duel, in which over 400 guns took part, raged over the whole field, and the Confederate batteries, their position at last revealed, engaged with spirit the more numerous and powerful ordnance of the enemy.  Then Franklin brought up three divisions to Meade’s support; and from the smouldering ruins of Fredericksburg, three miles to the northward, beyond the high trees of Hazel Run, the deep columns of Sumner’s Grand Division deployed under the fire of Longstreet’s guns.  Sumner’s attack had been for some time in progress before Franklin was in readiness to co-operate.  The battle was now fully developed, and the morning mists had been succeeded by dense clouds of smoke, shrouding bill and plain, through which the cannon flashed redly, and the defiant yells of Longstreet’s riflemen, mingled with their rattling volleys, stirred the pulses of Jackson’s veterans.  As the familiar sounds were borne to their ears, it was seen that the dark lines beyond the Richmond road were moving forward, and the turn of the Second Corps had come.

1 P.M.