FRANKLIN'S "LEFT GRAND DIVISION."
BY WILLIAM FARRAR SMITH, BREVET MAJOR- GENERAL, U. S. A.

FRANKLIN'S MEN CHARGING ACROSS THE RAILROAD.

WHEN General Burnside assumed the command of the Army of the Potomac on the 9th of November, 1862, he gave up the immense strategic advantage which McClellan had gained, and led the army to Falmouth on the Rappahannock River, opposite the city of Fredericksburg. A few days after his arrival on the Rappahannock he called a council of war. It was a conference rather than a council, for he stated that he called the generals together to make known something of his plans, and not no put any question before them for decision. The grand division commanders, Sumner, Franklin, and Hooker, were present, and also, I think, the corps commanders. I was present as commander of the Sixth Army Corps. The entire army was massed within a few miles of Falmouth, and the first object was to cross the river in our front, and gain a fair field for a battle. From the same ground Hooker afterward marched north-west, and by a series of fine movements placed himself in a position to offer battle at Chancellorsville on at least equal terms. The outcome of Hooker's campaign belied its beginning, but it led to the battle of Gettysburg, which more than compensated in results for the previous failure.*

General Burnside opened the conference by stating that within a few days he proposed to cross the river to offer battle to General Lee, and that after a close study of the reports of his engineers he had chosen Skinker's Neck as

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*When General Burnside determined to occupy Fredericksburg it was not held by a large force of the enemy. A body of cavalry, sent from Warrenton, could have seized the place without serious opposition, and could have held it until the advance of the infantry came up. In the preliminary discussion of the move from Warrenton to Fredericksburg, the notion that a serious battle was necessary to enable the army to get into Fredericksburg was not entertained by any one.j Summer, who had the advance, reported that when he arrived at Falmouth he could even then have occupied Fredericksburg without opposition, had his orders justified him in crossing the river.-W. B. Franklin.
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