In four dreadful hours in the murk of a December day in 1862, substantial portions of a magnificent Union Army were shattered in fruitless charges against a stone wall on the outskirts of Fredericksburg, Virginia. From above and behind that wall, continous sheets of musketry fire and devastating artillery bursts crashed into wave upon wave of incomparably brave Yankee troops marching to their death. Whatever credit may be gleaned from the wreckage of Northern hopes on the Rappahannock that winter belongs to the well-disciplined fighting men of the Army of the Potomac who were needlessly slaughtered as a result of inept leadership at teh higher command levels. This book covers the period from October 1862 through January 1863, during which the Army of the Potomac under Ambrose Burnside crossed swords with the apparently invincible Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee and once again went down to a crushing and bloodly defeat. Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, A. P. Hill, Jubal Early, and others played important parts for the South, and Meade, Reynolds, Hooker, Hancock, Couch, and others did so for the North.