After crossing the bridge, the 2nd Division turned left and marched about three-quarters of a mile down along the river through open country cut by ditches. The division hatted near Mansfield (also known as Bernard House), where Franklin made his headquarters, and then moved to the right toward the Old Richmond Road. As the division moved forward, the 13th Massachusetts deployed as skirmishers and slowly advanced. Confederate skirmishers quietly melted back without firing a shot to the cornfield beyond the road and did not contest the regiment’s advance.

The division halted about 200 yards from the road, and the brigades of the 2nd Division formed an oblique line of battle, with the left thrown forward and the right resting on VI Corps’ left flank. Major General George Gordon Meade’s division of Pennsylvania Reserves formed on Gibbon’s left, and Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday’s division rested on Meade’s left and curved toward the Rappahannock, facing south. In this position Gibbon’s men spent the night.

The 12th Massachusetts bivouacked along the Old Richmond Road as the picket guard for the 2nd Division. The pickets of both armies were so close that conversations were easily carried on between them. One trusting Confederate picket even accepted an invitation to join the Massachusetts men for coffee and hardtack.

It was a bitterly cold night; a strong wind was sweeping the plain and chilling the men to the bone. No fires were allowed, and the men shivered and suffered in the dark as they tried to sleep on the frozen ground. Throughout the night they could hear the rumble of artillery moving and the felling of trees as the Rebels strengthened their positions.

While the men hunkered down for a long, miserable night, Maj. Gens. Franklin, John Reynolds and William Smith devised a strategy for the following day. They agreed that the ridge must be assaulted and taken with the 40,000 men of the Left Grand Division and General Robert E. Lee’s right flank turned at any cost. Early that evening, Franklin presented the plan to commanding General Burnside, who galloped off promising Franklin that he would have his orders by midnight.

The orders did not arrive until 7 the next morning. Instead of the planned assault by 40,000 men, the stunned generals learned that they were to seize the heights with only one division. In obedience to the unfathomable orders, Reynolds moved to attack with Meade’s Pennsylvania Reserves, supported by Gibbon’s 2nd Division.

Major General A.P. Hill’s ‘Light Division’ of Stonewall Jackson’s 11 Corps held the long ridge faced by the soldiers in the Left Grand Division. Hill formed a battle line 1 1/2 miles long, with his left a short distance from Deep Run and his right anchored on the road leading from Hamilton’s Crossing to the Old Richmond Road. The dense cover of trees on the ridge hid Hill’s battle-tested Virginia and North Carolina troops from view, while the movements of the Union troops were clearly visible on the plain below.

Brigadier General James Lane’s Confederate brigade was posted along the railroad tracks. An undefended gap of 600 boggy, wood-filled yards extended beyond the railroad tracks separating Lane from Brig. Gen. James Archer’s brigade. Brigadier General Maxcy Gregg’s South Carolina brigade waited behind the gap.

The positions held by the Confederates were not strongly fortified. Frozen ground and the lack of time and digging tools had prevented the Southern soldiers from entrenching and building substantial field fortifications. Instead, priority had been placed on building the military road that ran along the ridge into Fredericksburg. Twelve artillery pieces under the command of Captain J.B. Brockenbrough were posted on a ridge 40 yards beyond the railroad in front of Lane’s left flank. The 7th North Carolina was ordered forward to protect the artillery. Two hundred yards to the rear, Captain Greenlee Davidson commanded nine guns placed near some slave cabins. The batteries were ordered to hold their fire until the Union infantry advanced to close range.

Dense fog still enveloped the Rappahannock plain as Franklin’s forces moved out. Bugle calls, shouted orders and the braying of mules cut through the fog as the regiments prepared for battle. Swinging their arms and stamping their feet to keep warm, soldiers clustered around small morning fires to prepare coffee and smoke their pipes as they waited for the word to attack. At 9 a.m. the fog began to lift and the 13th Massachusetts moved forward as skirmishers. The soldiers slowly advanced from the Old Richmond Road onto the wet clay soil of a ploughed cornfield. As the regiment approached the wooded ridge, the men were ordered to lie down and support Captain James Hall’s 2nd Maine Battery, which had taken position on a slight elevation to the regiment’s rear. Rolling onto their backs to load their rifles, the men were quickly covered with sticky mud that stuck to their clothing like glue.

Gibbon’s 3rd Brigade, under the command of Brig. Gen. Nelson Taylor, advanced through the field behind the 13th Massachusetts. The ankle-deep mud impeded the men’s progress as Confederate artillery fire swept the slowly advancing line. A shell tore through two men and knocked down the color guard of the 83rd New York. About 300 yards from the railroad track, Taylor ordered his soldiers to lie down for protection behind a slight rise. The 2nd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Peter Lyle, followed Taylor’s brigade into the field. About 100 yards behind the 3rd Brigade, Lyle ordered his men to tie down as welt. Then the lst Brigade, commanded by Colonel Adrian Root, took up positions to the right and rear of Hall’s battery, on the left of the other two brigades. Like the others, Root’s men lay down to find what cover they could in the open field.

The soldiers of the 2nd Division endured constant and severe fire from the enemy batteries. The ground had frozen solid that morning but was now covered with several inches of mud and water. Shell and shot whizzed and plunged among the Federal soldiers as they squirmed deeper into the mud and tried ineffectually to hide behind their knapsacks. The continuous cannon and rifle fire, the screaming of wounded horses, shouted orders, the blare of bugles and the cries of wounded men created an unholy roar on the battlefield. Dark clouds of smoke from the guns rolled over the soldiers. A piece of shell tore open the knapsack of one Maine soldier and lifted a pack of cards high into the air. They fell to the ground, said an observer, ‘like a shower of autumn leaves.’

The 88th Pennsylvania, on the right of the line, was ordered to advance and fire a volley into Brockenbrough’s battery. A blast of Confederate canister panicked the regiment, which turned, almost to a man, and ran for the rear. Taylor and the regiment’s officers were finally able to stop the flight and return the 88th to the field. Later in the morning, Union sharpshooters managed to work their way into positions to the right of the Confederate battery, and the 7th North Carolina was unable to dislodge the marksmen. Brockenbrough was wounded, and the battery and its support regiment withdrew.

At 1 p.m. Meade’s division moved forward, and Taylor was ordered to advance his brigade toward the section of the ridge held by Lane’s brigade. The Federal regiments advanced through the skirmish line of the 13th Massachusetts, which headed for the rear to get more ammunition. The rest of the regiment, including the supposedly doomed color-bearer Austin Stearns, returned to the Bernard House, where the men remained for the rest of the battle. Fistfights almost broke out in the rear when the mud-covered skirmishers were asked why they had not stood up and fought like men instead of lying down like dogs.

About 150 yards from the railroad, the 83rd New York and the 11th Pennsylvania came under rifle and artillery fire. The 11th’s colonel and five of its officers were shot down as the regiment quickly lost 85 of its 180 men. A shell took off the head of one man and passed through the body of another. Within half an hour, both regiments melted away to the river, leaving the 97th New York and 88th Pennsylvania to hold the line. The 83rd New York had suffered 130 casualties out of its original 292 men.

As Taylor’s brigade exchanged fire with the North Carolina troops, two brigades of Meade’s reserves reached the boggy wood in the large gap between Archer’s and Lane’s positions. Finding the woods undefended, the Pennsylvanians rushed into the gap. Three companies from the 37th North Carolina wheeled across the railroad tracks and poured a galling fire into the Federals’ right flank.

At 1:30 p.m. the 2nd Brigade moved forward under Col onel Lyle. As the brigade advanced, the 12th Massachusetts became separated and advanced independently. The remaining regiments moved to the left of the 97th New York and the 88th Pennsylvania.

The 2nd Brigade’s attack quickly stalled. Fifteen minutes later, Gibbon ordered the lst Brigade to take the Confederate position at bayonet point. The orders came forward: ‘Unsling knapsacks and fix bayonets.’ A soldier in the 16th Maine had his knapsack removed in a most unusual manner: a piece of shell struck his blanket, which was strapped to the top of his pack, and the momentum caused man and knapsack to revolve around each other before parting company.

At the command ‘Forward,’ the lst Brigade moved at doublequick across the muddy field toward the broken lines of the other two brigades. By this time, only the 88th Pennsylvania, the 97th New York, the 12th Massachusetts and the 136th Pennsylvania remained on the field ahead of them. The 90th Pennsylvania and the 26th New York had left the field, claiming to be out of ammunition.

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