Confederates Launch a Night Attack at Fredricksburg

The Confederates begin their advance. The advance in the north begins well, but things soon begin to break down. The yelling and jostling at the canals holds the attack up and leads to troops getting mixed up. Several Battalions march straight into the canal, with dozens killed from drowning. The Union sentries hear the commotion and send out troops to investigate, soon discovering the night attack. The Union camp hurriedly begins to arm up, while Union skirmishers fire into the troops crossing the canal, inflicting disproportionate casualties. A Confederate Captain seizes the initiative and manages to lead a mob of soldiers to charge the skirmishers, only to slam into another confederate unit, inflicting heavy casualties in a fierce melee with his own side. More Union skirmishers pour in, while messengers get the artillery on the heights to open up on the canal, first with carcass, then with shrapnel.

In the chaos, the Confederate troops inflict more casualties on each other than they do the enemy. Finally, the attackers begin to fall back. Those on the other side of the canal quickly withdraw, but the troops who have already crossed it have to swim or wade through, or struggle across the packed bridges. Many attempt to surrender, or are blown apart by the shrapnel and rifle fire-the Union army is focusing everything they have on the bridges.

To the south, the Confederate army advances to attack the rest of the Union force, but units charge in the wrong direction, get into firefights with their own men, or are pinned down by Union rifle fire when they get into range. Those few units that get into hand-to-hand give a good account of themselves, but are soon overwhelmed by raw numbers. The attack withdraws in shambles, and the next morning, Lee withdraws with his army in shambles before the Union forces can push their advantage.

The Union army ends up taking 1,200 prisoners and inflicting about 3,000 casualties, while losing only a few hundred men. The battle of Fredericksburg goes down in history as one of Lee's worst mistake, and as a costly Union victory.
 
Last edited:

Anaxagoras

Banned
Lee would never have considered it, for the simple reason that if the attack had run into trouble (which it would have, almost certainly) there would have been no way to issue a recall order. It was difficult enough to control a battle during the day. At night, it was impossible.

Lee had already won a great victory. No need to roll the dice on this one.
 
So some of this might have been said before, but I'm coming at this as someone who knows less about the Civil War but a lot about nighttime in the nineteenth-century, so maybe some of these points might help:

  • Fredericksburg would be very dark - I can't find much about the history of the town easily accessible online but google books tells me that ground was broken on the gas lighting facility in 1905 (which is very late indeed). So the light from the houses would have been minimal.
  • The Union army camp would, I assume, have been awash with little fires for camping and cooking, as well as braziers. This has a dual-edge: the Confederates will be able to see, roughly, where they are heading towards and the Union guards will, to some extent, be a little light-blinded. But also there will be little surprise when the Confederates breach the lit perimeter. If they haven't been detected already.
  • Organizing the attack will be difficult - many pocket watches were unreliable to some extent in this period and assigning a particular time would be complex.
  • The terror of the attack would add impetus to the initial assault - the pre-modern night was very, very, dark and the panic and confusion for the Union men would be terrible indeed. I think @Balaur whilst technically right, probably paints a much too rosy picture of how quickly a bruised and exhausted Union army would be roused from sleep by sentries.
  • ...that said night maneuvers were not common in this period so both sides would struggle (as people have suggested).
  • Expect the town of Fredericksburg to catch fire. Light would have been, at best, candles and braziers that are bound to be knocked over in the panicked scuffle. What impact this has on the bridges and boats used to transport the Union troops, I don't know (as I say I'm not a civil war buff so don't know if they are wooden or stone). Potentially Union soldiers are trapped by the inferno on the wrong side of the river?
Just a few thoughts that I hope help. I wonder, OP, would it not be better for the Confederates to launch a dawn attack? This seems to me to be both more in keeping with tactics at the time but also erase the problems of the night time whilst keeping that surprise shock.
 

ben0628

Banned
So some of this might have been said before, but I'm coming at this as someone who knows less about the Civil War but a lot about nighttime in the nineteenth-century, so maybe some of these points might help:

  • Fredericksburg would be very dark - I can't find much about the history of the town easily accessible online but google books tells me that ground was broken on the gas lighting facility in 1905 (which is very late indeed). So the light from the houses would have been minimal.
  • The Union army camp would, I assume, have been awash with little fires for camping and cooking, as well as braziers. This has a dual-edge: the Confederates will be able to see, roughly, where they are heading towards and the Union guards will, to some extent, be a little light-blinded. But also there will be little surprise when the Confederates breach the lit perimeter. If they haven't been detected already.
  • Organizing the attack will be difficult - many pocket watches were unreliable to some extent in this period and assigning a particular time would be complex.
  • The terror of the attack would add impetus to the initial assault - the pre-modern night was very, very, dark and the panic and confusion for the Union men would be terrible indeed. I think @Balaur whilst technically right, probably paints a much too rosy picture of how quickly a bruised and exhausted Union army would be roused from sleep by sentries.
  • ...that said night maneuvers were not common in this period so both sides would struggle (as people have suggested).
  • Expect the town of Fredericksburg to catch fire. Light would have been, at best, candles and braziers that are bound to be knocked over in the panicked scuffle. What impact this has on the bridges and boats used to transport the Union troops, I don't know (as I say I'm not a civil war buff so don't know if they are wooden or stone). Potentially Union soldiers are trapped by the inferno on the wrong side of the river?
Just a few thoughts that I hope help. I wonder, OP, would it not be better for the Confederates to launch a dawn attack? This seems to me to be both more in keeping with tactics at the time but also erase the problems of the night time whilst keeping that surprise shock.

Although a dawn attack would be better organized, Union artillery could react better and more quickly. If the Confederates could reach the Union line, would the North continue to fire their artillery and risk hitting their own men?
 
Although a dawn attack would be better organized, Union artillery could react better and more quickly. If the Confederates could reach the Union line, would the North continue to fire their artillery and risk hitting their own men?

As I said, I'm afraid I'm not a civil war buff so don't know the answer to that. Worth remembering, though, that "dawn" actually includes quite a range of time and light....
 
Top