Okla-homey
1/20/2007, 09:10 AM
Jan 20, 1863: The Mud March begins
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/10721/2003165565684294376_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003165565684294376)
144 years ago today, US Major General Ambrose Burnside's "Army of the Potomac" began an offensive campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogged down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
http://aycu24.webshots.com/image/9703/2001775021775382920_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001775021775382920)
MG Ambrose Burnside. Miltary genius he wasn't, but he could sure grow sideburns!
The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside's force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee's troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Federals that winter.
http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/8812/2003182528055425124_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003182528055425124)
Burnside chillin' in camp during happier days. He's the bewhiskered d00d reading the paper.
Now, Burnside sought to raise morale, restore his reputation, and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee's left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Simultaneously, his cavalry was intended to sweep quickly across the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, 20 miles north, and strike south into Lee's rear, destroying his supply lines.
Speed, shock and surpise were essential to the operation.
January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that lasted for four days. Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army's progress.
For the clouds gathered all day thicker and darker, and night ushered in a storm of wind and pouring rain, harder for that moving army to encounter than a hundred thousand enemies; a driving rain that drenched and chilled the poor shelter less men and horses, and that poached the ground into mud deeper than the New England mind can conceive of, and stickier than – well, I am at a loss for a similitude. Pitch, for cohesion attraction, is but as sand compared with it. -- A marcher's account
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/8841/2003169137815404517_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003169137815404517)
The wagons sank to their hubs. The artillery sank until only the muzzles were out of the mud. The exhausted horses floundered, as did the men, as each slippery step through the ooze sucked at their shoes and weighed them down. "The whole country was a river of mud," wrote one soldier. "The roads were rivers of deep mire, and the heavy rain had made the ground a vast mortar bed." Whole regiments and triple teams of mules hitched to the wagons and guns failed to move them. Still the rain came down in torrents.
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/10893/2003123346654739141_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003123346654739141)
The rain lasted thirty hours without cessation. To understand the effect, one must have lived in Virginia through a winter. The roads are nothing but dirt roads. The mud is not simply on the surface, but penetrates the ground to a great depth. It appears as though the water, after passing through a first bed of clay, soaked into some kind of earth without any consistency. As soon as the hardened crust on the surface is softened, everything is buried in a sticky paste mixed with liquid mud, in which, with my own eyes, I have seen teams of mules buried. -- Account by another "Mud Marcher"
In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The unpaved roads were completely unnavigable, and making matters worse, conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others' paths. To put it mildly, the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees from across the river Burnside could not crosss with shouts and homemade billboards they erected that read "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud!"
"Continued cold and rainy--mud growing deep, deep, deeper--have had enough of winter campaigning. My diarrhea is growing worse. . . . This storm and exposure will kill thousands of our brave boys." -- diarist James Coburn, of the 141st Pennsylvania.
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another.
The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside resigned as commander of the army on January 25.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/7780/2003109480589039693_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003109480589039693)
Post-war image of Burnside
Burnside stayed on the national scene after the war. He was Governor of Rhode Island from 1866-1868. Later, during a visit to Europe in 1870, he acted as mediator between the French and the Germans then at war. Burnside was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1874; reelected in 1880 and served from March 4, 1875, until his death in Bristol, R.I., September 13, 1881. He's buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, R.I.
The January 1863 storm that stopped the Union army in its tracks was a strong, winter coastal storm. The storm generated heavy rain along the coast and piedmont while heavy snow fell far inland. The total rainfall in Washington was 3.20 inches and the lowest barometric pressure was 29.75 inches. Gale-force winds from the northeast accompanied the storm on January 22 and 23.
Light rain and fog continued for three days following the storm. The rain turned to wet snow on January 28 and continued through January 29. The total snowfall accumulation was insignificant, but the liquid total for the two days was an additional 0.88 inches, concluding a very soggy period in American military history.
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/10721/2003165565684294376_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003165565684294376)
144 years ago today, US Major General Ambrose Burnside's "Army of the Potomac" began an offensive campaign against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogged down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
http://aycu24.webshots.com/image/9703/2001775021775382920_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001775021775382920)
MG Ambrose Burnside. Miltary genius he wasn't, but he could sure grow sideburns!
The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside's force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee's troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Federals that winter.
http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/8812/2003182528055425124_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003182528055425124)
Burnside chillin' in camp during happier days. He's the bewhiskered d00d reading the paper.
Now, Burnside sought to raise morale, restore his reputation, and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee's left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Simultaneously, his cavalry was intended to sweep quickly across the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, 20 miles north, and strike south into Lee's rear, destroying his supply lines.
Speed, shock and surpise were essential to the operation.
January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that lasted for four days. Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army's progress.
For the clouds gathered all day thicker and darker, and night ushered in a storm of wind and pouring rain, harder for that moving army to encounter than a hundred thousand enemies; a driving rain that drenched and chilled the poor shelter less men and horses, and that poached the ground into mud deeper than the New England mind can conceive of, and stickier than – well, I am at a loss for a similitude. Pitch, for cohesion attraction, is but as sand compared with it. -- A marcher's account
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/8841/2003169137815404517_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003169137815404517)
The wagons sank to their hubs. The artillery sank until only the muzzles were out of the mud. The exhausted horses floundered, as did the men, as each slippery step through the ooze sucked at their shoes and weighed them down. "The whole country was a river of mud," wrote one soldier. "The roads were rivers of deep mire, and the heavy rain had made the ground a vast mortar bed." Whole regiments and triple teams of mules hitched to the wagons and guns failed to move them. Still the rain came down in torrents.
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/10893/2003123346654739141_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003123346654739141)
The rain lasted thirty hours without cessation. To understand the effect, one must have lived in Virginia through a winter. The roads are nothing but dirt roads. The mud is not simply on the surface, but penetrates the ground to a great depth. It appears as though the water, after passing through a first bed of clay, soaked into some kind of earth without any consistency. As soon as the hardened crust on the surface is softened, everything is buried in a sticky paste mixed with liquid mud, in which, with my own eyes, I have seen teams of mules buried. -- Account by another "Mud Marcher"
In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The unpaved roads were completely unnavigable, and making matters worse, conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others' paths. To put it mildly, the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees from across the river Burnside could not crosss with shouts and homemade billboards they erected that read "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud!"
"Continued cold and rainy--mud growing deep, deep, deeper--have had enough of winter campaigning. My diarrhea is growing worse. . . . This storm and exposure will kill thousands of our brave boys." -- diarist James Coburn, of the 141st Pennsylvania.
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another.
The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside resigned as commander of the army on January 25.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/7780/2003109480589039693_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003109480589039693)
Post-war image of Burnside
Burnside stayed on the national scene after the war. He was Governor of Rhode Island from 1866-1868. Later, during a visit to Europe in 1870, he acted as mediator between the French and the Germans then at war. Burnside was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1874; reelected in 1880 and served from March 4, 1875, until his death in Bristol, R.I., September 13, 1881. He's buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, R.I.
The January 1863 storm that stopped the Union army in its tracks was a strong, winter coastal storm. The storm generated heavy rain along the coast and piedmont while heavy snow fell far inland. The total rainfall in Washington was 3.20 inches and the lowest barometric pressure was 29.75 inches. Gale-force winds from the northeast accompanied the storm on January 22 and 23.
Light rain and fog continued for three days following the storm. The rain turned to wet snow on January 28 and continued through January 29. The total snowfall accumulation was insignificant, but the liquid total for the two days was an additional 0.88 inches, concluding a very soggy period in American military history.