Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies: Union and Confederate Generals' Accounts of the Battle of Fredericksburg (Illustrated)

The Army of the Potomac had pushed Robert E. Lee’s army out of Maryland in September 1862 after the Battle of Antietam, but President Lincoln and his War Department wanted the army to continue going after the Army of Northern Virginia after it retreated back into Virginia. When George B. McClellan refused to do it, Lincoln fired him and installed Ambrose E. Burnside as the new commander. Burnside, who didn’t believe himself capable of commanding the Army of the Potomac, only took the job be...