For, at daylight on Sunday, Early had received word from Barksdale, whose lines at Fredericksburg were nearly two miles in length, that the Union forces had thrown a bridge across the river opposite the Lacy house; and immediately despatched his most available brigade to sustain him.

Early’s line, however, was thin.  Our own was quite two and a half miles in length, with some twenty-two thousand men; and Early’s eighty-five hundred overlapped both our flanks.  But his position sufficiently counterbalanced this inequality.  Moreover his artillery was well protected, while the Union batteries were quite without cover, and in Gibbon’s attempted advance, his guns suffered considerable damage.

Brooks’s division was still on the left of the Federal line, near the bridge-heads.  Howe occupied the centre, opposite the forces on the heights, to our left of Hazel Run.  Newton held the right as far as the Telegraph road in Fredericksburg.

Gibbon’s division had been ordered by Butterfield to cross to Fredericksburg, and second Sedgwick’s movement on the right.  Gibbon states that he was delayed by the opposition of the enemy to his laying the bridge opposite the Lacy house, but this was not considerable.  He appears to have used reasonable diligence, though he did not get his bridge thrown until daylight.  Then he may have been somewhat tardy in getting his twenty-five hundred men across.  And, by the time he got his bridge thrown, Sedgwick had possession of the town.

It was seven A.M. when Gibbon had crossed the river with his division, and filed into position on Sedgwick’s right.  Gibbon had meanwhile reported in person to Sedgwick, who ordered him to attempt to turn the enemy’s left at Marye’s, while Howe should open a similar movement on his right at Hazel Run.  Gens.  Warren and Gibbon at once rode forward to make a reconnoissance, but could discover no particular force of the enemy in our front.  Just here are two canals skirting the slope of the hill, and parallel to the river, which supply power to the factories in the town.  The generals passed the first canal, and found the bridge across it intact.  The planks of the second canal-bridge had been removed, but the structure itself was still sound.

Gibbon at once ordered these planks to be replaced from the nearest houses.  But, before this order could be carried out, Warren states that he saw the enemy marching his infantry into the breastworks on the hill, followed by a battery.  This was Hays, coming to Barksdale’s relief.  But the breastworks contained a fair complement before.

Gibbon’s attempt was rendered nugatory by the bridge over the second canal being commanded from the heights, the guns on which opened upon our columns with shrapnel, while the gunners were completely protected by their epaulements.  And a further attempt by Gibbon to cross the canal by the bridge near Falmouth, was anticipated by the enemy extending his line to our right.