On the left, meanwhile, where the battle still raged, the Confederates were equally successful.  Against an impregnable position 40,000 Northerners were madly hurled by the general of Mr. Lincoln’s choice.  By those hapless and stout-hearted soldiers, sacrificed to incompetency, a heroism was displayed which won the praise and the pity of their opponents.  The attack was insufficiently prepared, and feebly supported, by the artillery.  The troops were formed on a narrow front.  Marye’s Hill, the strongest portion of the position, where the Confederate infantry found shelter behind a stout stone wall, and numerous batteries occupied the commanding ground in rear, was selected for assault.  Neither feint nor demonstration, the ordinary expedients by which the attacker seeks to distract the attention and confuse the efforts of the defence, was made use of; and yet division after division, with no abatement of courage, marched in good order over the naked plain, dashed forward with ever-thinning ranks, and then, receding sullenly before the storm of fire, left, within a hundred yards of the stone wall, a long line of writhing forms to mark the limit of their advance.

3 P.M.

Two army corps had been repulsed by Longstreet with fearful slaughter when Meade and Gibbon gave way before Jackson’s counterstroke, and by three o’clock nearly one-half of the Federal army was broken and demoralised.  The time appeared to have come for a general advance of the Confederates.  Before Fredericksburg, the wreck of Sumner’s Grand Division was still clinging to such cover as the ground afforded.  On the Richmond road, in front of Jackson, Franklin had abandoned all idea of the offensive, and was bringing up his last reserves to defend his line.  The Confederates, on the other hand, were in the highest spirits, and had lost but few.

General Lee’s arrangements, however, had not included preparation for a great counterstroke, and such a movement is not easily improvised.  The position had been occupied for defensive purposes alone.  There was no general reserve, no large and intact force which could have moved to the attack immediately the opportunity offered.  “No skill,” says Longstreet, “could have marshalled our troops for offensive operations in time to meet the emergency.  My line was long and over broken country, so much so that the troops could not be promptly handled in offensive operations.  Jackson’s corps was in mass, and could he have anticipated the result of my battle, he would have been justified in pressing Franklin to the river when the battle of the latter was lost.  Otherwise, pursuit would have been as unwise as the attack he had just driven off.  It is well known that after driving off attacking forces, if immediate pursuit can be made, so that the victors can go along with the retreating forces pell-mell, it is well enough to do so; but the attack should be immediate.  To follow a success by counter-attack against the enemy in position is problematical."* (* Battles and Leaders volume 3 pages 82-3.)