lost in three or four hours.

The heaviest casualties in the three days' battle of Mexico in
regiments were in the Palmetto Regiment and the Kentucky Rifles,
where the former lost two officers killed and nine wounded, fourteen
privates killed and seventy-five wounded; the latter lost six officers
wounded and none killed, nine privates killed and sixty-four wounded.
When it is remembered that the Third Regiment in the battle with
about three hundred and fifty and four hundred men in line lost six
regimental commanders killed and wounded, not less than three times
that number of other officers killed and wounded, and more than one
hundred and fifty men killed and wounded, some idea can be had of its
bloody crisis and deadly struggle, in which our troops were engaged,
in comparison to the patriots in Mexico.

But considering the close proximity of the troops engaged at
Fredericksburg, the narrow compass in which they were massed, the
number of elevated positions suitable for artillery on either
side, and the number of troops on the field, the wonder is why
the casualties were not even greater than the reports make them.
Burnsides, from the nature of the ground, could not handle more than
half his army, as by official returns not more than fifty thousand
were in line of battle and in actual combat. There were only two
points at which he could extend his line, and if at one he found a
"Scylla," he was equally sure to find a "Charybdis" at the other.
On his left flank Jackson's whole corps was massed, at Hamilton's
Crossing; at his right was the stone wall and Mayree's Hill. To meet
Hood and Pickett he would have had to advance between a quarter and
half mile through a plain, where his army could be enfiladed by the
guns of Longstreet and Jackson, and in front by the batteries of
Hood and Pickett. It seems from reports since come to light that
the authorities at Washington apprehended more danger in Burnsides
crossing the river than in the battle that was to follow. Lincoln in
giving him orders as to his movements instructed his Secretary of War,
Stanton, to write Burnsides to be very careful in the crossing, to
guard his flanks well, and not allow Lee to fall upon one part that
had crossed and crush it before the other part could come to the
rescue; nor allow that wing of the army yet remaining on the Northern
side to be attacked and destroyed while the other had crossed to the
Southern side. It is said Stanton wrote the