Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/384

352 ever since, as no occasion had arisen meanwhile to call for their use elsewhere. They were supposed by Generals Burnside and Halleck to be at Washington, and, of course, the longer time required for their transportation from the other point was not at first taken into account. An order to send them forward was, for some never-explained reason, six days in reaching its destination. When they reached Washington, they were ordered to be hauled overland to the Rappahannock. This was a grave error of judgment, as it took several days to secure the necessary teams, and the roads were found to be so bad that the pontoon wagons could not progress more than five miles a day. The attempt had finally to be abandoned altogether and the water route taken. A whole fortnight was thus lost in getting the bridge material to the front. It was this delay that prevented the earlier occupation of Fredericksburg and its surroundings by our forces, and may have been the principal cause of our eventual defeat. As it was, the full means for bridging the river simultaneously at several points were not at hand until after the first week in December.

The great natural obstacle of the river made it impracticable to discover the position and strength of the enemy by regular reconnoissances. Nor did we seem to obtain much information regarding him from spies. It was chiefly through the Richmond papers, which were as indiscreet in publishing army news as their Northern contemporaries, and which reached headquarters from various directions, that we received intelligence from the other side. But even through them we had only circumstantial evidence that Lee's whole army was distributed over the opposite heights. While an air line to them from the bluffs on the left bank was not much over a mile in length, even with the strongest field-glasses little could be discovered of the rebels beyond the field-works they had immediately undertaken and steadily continued. They probably saw not much more of us than we of them.