The Battle that Was Never Fought: Weather and the Union Mud March of January 1863

Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXXI, No. 1, May 1991, pp. 31-38 THE BATTLE THAT WAS NEVER FOUGHT: WEATHER AND THE UNION MUD MARCH OF JANUARY 1863* Harold A. Winters "Military operations are drastically affected by many considerations, one of the most important of which is the geography of the region"— Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959) INTRODUCTION. At the end of 1862, the Civil War was not going well for Union armies in the east. Southern forces had, among other things, thwarted McClellan's Virginia peninsula campaign; sent the North into retreat on the same battlefield near Washington (Bull Run or Manassas) twice within 14 months; invaded Maryland, a Northern state, to fight at Sharpsburg (also known as the Battle of Antietam); and, in a mid-December engagement, thoroughly defeated General Ambrose Burnside's attacking troops at Fredericksburg. (J) After that battle, in late December 1862, General Robert E. Lee, then headquartered at Fredericksburg , ordered further improvements in defensive positions along the south bank of the Rappahannock River. Meanwhile, Union forces commanded by Burnside were in bivouac on the other side of the same river at Falmouth (Fig. 1). It was then that Burnside developed and received from his Northern superiors somewhat reluctant approval for an offensive maneuver planned for January 20, 1863. With the river protecting their left flank, Union troops would, with surprise, move several miles upstream on their side (north) ofthe river past the main Confederate force, turn left to cross the stream at two fords, turn left again, and advance on the enemy's flank. Burnside anticipated that such a maneuver would force Lee's army to conduct a major turning movement for purposes of de- * This paper is based in part on a comprehensive study of Military Geography now being developed by myself, BG Gerald E. Galloway, Jr., of the United States Military Academy, and COL William J. Reynolds (USA-Ret.); I thank both ofthese officers for insights into this topic. Mark Cowell ofthe University ofGeorgia assisted in obtaining weather data for January 1863, and Ellen White ofMichigan State University's Center for Cartographic Research and Spatial Analysis prepared the figures. Dr. Winters is Professor of Geography at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI 48824. 32Southeastern Geographer Fig. 1. Index map of area around Fredericksburg. fense, thus placing both the town of Fredericksburg and the Rappahannock River immediately to its rear. He hoped that Lee's position would prove so vulnerable that the North could finally achieve a decisive victory . THE PHYSICAL SETTING. Fredericksburg and Falmouth are river towns that lie along the boundary between the Coastal Plain to the southeast and the Piedmont to the northwest. (2) The surrounding area consists of low rolling hills dissected by southeast-flowing streams, the Rappahannock being the largest. Long-term weathering favored by the moist, temperate climate has produced a thick mantle of unconsolidated residuum that overlies bedrock at most places. Furthermore, this material is very fine textured because it consists mainly of microscopic plate-like clay-sized fragments. The soils, for the most part, are Ultisols that are reddish-yellow because of abundant iron and aluminum oxides. (3) It is commonplace for some of the uppermost and smallest particles in Ultisols to be transported 20 to 40 cm downward. This translocation results in a shallow argillic (clay- Vol. XXXI, No. 1 33 rich) horizon that, by clogging, limits penetration of water, thus favoring saturation of the upper soil during and after rainy periods. This may also result in standing water and encourage surface runoff. Unlike the wide-ranging campaigns in the west, most battles in the Civil War's eastern theater occurred within the confines of the Virginia Piedmont and adjacent Inner Coastal Plain. Furthermore, because maneuvers were most often northeast-southwest, neither the cross-cutting rivers nor the clay-rich soils could be avoided in any campaign. When the land was dry and rivers low, these two terrain factors presented no unusual or unmanageable problems. But abundant rain can quickly convert the soil to mud and flood the rivers even to the point that one or the other might become a decisive element in a military operation. JANUARY WEATHER. The early January weather of 1863 had...