Mud March (American Civil War)
Coordinates: 38°21′35″N 77°31′09″W / 38.3596°N 77.5191°W
The Mud March was an abortive offensive in January 1863 by Union Army Major General Ambrose Burnside in the American Civil War.
Burnside had been trying to approach the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, by crossing the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, but had been soundly defeated. The so-called Mud March was his second attempt at a river crossing. The strategy was sound, but it failed because of dissension between generals, compounded by severe winter storms.
Following his defeat in the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, Burnside was desperate to restore his reputation and the morale of his Army of the Potomac. The day after Christmas, he began making preparations for a new offensive. This would involve feints at the fords upstream of Fredericksburg to distract the Confederates while he took the bulk of the Army across the Rappahannock River seven miles south of town. Finally, he planned for a cavalry operation on a grand scale, something that had never been done so far in the Eastern Theater, where Union horsemen had performed poorly and suffered repeated embarrassments at the hands of their Confederate foes. Burnside detailed 1500 troopers for this planned operation. 500 of them would create a distracting feint in the Warrenton-Culpeper direction and then withdraw back to Falmouth. Meanwhile, the main force was to cross at Kelly's Ford and swing south and west in a wide arc, all the way around and south of Richmond and ultimately arriving at Suffolk on the coast where a Union force under Brigadier General John J. Peck was based. Then transport ships would take them back to Falmouth. It was an imaginative and inspired plan, but once again doomed to failure. The cavalry set off on their journey, but almost as soon as they reached Kelly's Ford, Burnside received a telegram from President Abraham Lincoln, stating flatly "No major army movements are to be made without first informing the White House." He was left bewildered at how the President had found out, since he had told no one except a few intimates about his plans, and even most of the army's high-ranking officers didn't know about it.
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