Burnside has
retreated across the Rappahannock. The Rebels can now set off the battle of
Fredericksburg against the battle of Antietam. They retreated back across the
Potomac. But I suspect they have a great advantage in having suffered much less
than we have. They fought behind entrenchments. When will our generals learn
not to attack an equal adversary in fortified positions? Burnside will now
perhaps have to yield to McClellan. It looks as if in the East neither army was
strong enough to make a successful invasion of [the territory of] the other. If
so conquest of [the] Rebellion is not to be. We have now the Emancipation
Proclamation to go upon. Will not this stiffen the President's backbone so as
to drive it through? Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.
SOURCE: Charles
Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard
Hayes, Volume 2, p. 376-7
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