--in the
inclement month of January; but, as he might have anticipated, the
condition of the roads was such that it was impossible to advance. His
artillery, with the horses dragging the pieces, sank into the almost
bottomless mud, where they stuck fast--even the foot-soldiers found it
difficult to march through the quagmire--and the whole movement was
speedily abandoned.

When General Burnside issued the order for this injudicious advance,
two of his general officers met, and one asked:

"What do you think of it?"

"It don't seem to have the _ring_" was the reply.

"No--the bell is broken," the other added.

This incident, which is given on the authority of a Northern writer,
probably conveys a correct idea of the feeling of both the
officers and men of General Burnside's army. The disastrous day of
Fredericksburg had seriously injured the troops.

"The Army of the Potomac," the writer adds, "was sadly fractured, and
its tones had no longer the clear, inspiring ring of victory."

XII.

THE YEAR OF BATTLES.

The stormy year 1862 had terminated, thus, in a great Confederate
success. In its arduous campaigns, following each other in rapid
succession, General Lee had directed the movements of the main great
army, and the result of the year's fighting was to gain him that high
military reputation which his subsequent movements only consolidated
and increased.

A rapid glance at the events of the year in their general outlines
will indicate the merit due the Southern commander. The Federal plan
of invasion in the spring had been extremely formidable. Virginia was
to be pierced by no less than four armies--from the northwest, the
Shenandoah Valley, the Potomac, and the Peninsula--the whole force to
converge upon Richmond, the "heart of the rebellion." Of these, the
army of General McClellan was the largest and most threatening. It
advanced, with little opposition, until it reached the Chickahominy,
crossed, and lay in sight of Richmond. The great force of one hundred
and fifty thousand men was about to make the decisive assault, when
Lee attacked it, and the battle which ensued drove the Federal army
to a point thirty miles from the city, with such loss as to render
hopeless any further attempt to assail the capital.

Such was the first act of the drama; the rest speedily followed. A new
army was raised promptly by the Federal authorities, and a formidable
advance was made against Richmond again, this t