yond the river, through the long night, Burnside, wild with anguish,
had paced the floor of his tent. Again and again he threw his arms in a
gesture of despair toward the freezing blood-stained field:

"Oh, those men--those men over there! I'm thinking of them all the
time----"

As the rear guard turned from the field at sunrise, John Vaughan looked
back across the valley of Death and saw the ragged brown and grey
figures shivering in the cold, as they swarmed down from the hills and
began to shake the frost from the new, warm clothes they were stripping
from the dead.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE REST HOUR

For two terrible days and nights Betty Winter saw the endless line of
ambulances creep from the field of Fredericksburg. Some of these men lay
on the frozen ground for forty-eight hours before relief came. Many of
the wounded might have lived but for the frightful exposure to cold
which followed the battle. They died in hundreds.

Thousands were placed on the train for Washington and so great was the
pitiful suffering among them Betty left with the first load. There would
be more work in the hospitals there than in Burnside's camp. It would be
many a day before his shattered army could be ready again to give
battle.

The worst trouble with it was not the bleeding gap torn through its
ranks by Lee's shot and shell. Not only was its body wounded, its soul
was crushed. Its commanding generals were divided into warring factions,
the rank and file of its stern fighting men discouraged.

Again an epidemic of desertions broke out and ten thousand men were lost
in a single month.

Burnside assumed the full responsibility for the disaster and asked to
be relieved of his command. The third Union General had gone down before
Lee--McClellan, Pope and Burnside.

The President, heartsick but undismayed, called to the head of the army
the most promising general in sight, Joseph Hooker, popularly known as
"Fighting Joe Hooker." There was inspiration to the thoughtless in the
name, yet the Chief had misgivings.

On sending him the appointment he wrote his new general a remarkable
letter:

"GENERAL:

"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of
course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient
reasons; and yet I think it best for you to know that there are
some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.

"I believe you to be a brave and