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It is just past dawn on December 11, 1862.

Along the chilly banks of the Rappahannock River, across from Fredericksburg, Virginia,

Union engineers move quietly through the dim light of a breaking day.

This past week, the long-awaited pontoons required to cross the river have finally arrived.

Now, if bridges can be assembled today, this morning, the Army of the Potomac gathered nearby

some 120,000 troops, tens of thousands of horses and mules, 300 artillery pieces, all under

the command of General Ambrose Burnside, can begin to

surge into empty Fredericksburg and then push southward to Richmond, the Confederate Capitol.

But in these quiet hours on the river, as engineers struggle with numbing fingers to secure

pontoons and planking, the men freeze. What is that? The engineers duck for

cover, scattering along the unfinished bridge. That town over there isn't abandoned. Rebel riflemen,

turns out Mississippian snipers hidden in houses along the riverfront have all been watching from windows and cellars.

And now every union man out here is squarely in their sights.

Suddenly, that straightforward crossing General Burnside had planned seems nearly impossible.

The Hi, all, it's me. It's Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit,

transporting us today to the chilly weeks of November and December 1862 in the lands south of

Washington, D.C. and north of Richmond,

Virginia, as we tell the astonishing story of the Battle of Fredericksburg. And we'll do this

under the tutelage of Chris McCowski, Professor of Journalism at St. Bonaventure University in

...