November 22, 1862

November 22, 1862:  Stonewall Jackson’s corps begins its move rapidly eastward toward Fredericksburg. 

---Pres. Lincoln gives direct orders to Gen. Nathaniel Banks to quit delaying and to embark with his troops to steam to New Orleans.

---Lieutenant Cushing of the U.S. Navy steamed up the New River in North Carolina with the Ellis, as far as Jacksonville, where he attacks and captures two Rebel schooners.

 

---William Thompson Lusk, an officer in the Army of the Potomac, writes home to his mother about his misgivings for the upcoming battle at Fredericksburg: 

I must say the attack on Fredericksburg is a thing I greatly dread. The field of battle with all its horrors is redeemed somewhat by the thought that the dead on both sides have fallen in a cause sacred in their own eyes at least, and this redeems them, but wanton destruction of property and all the probable results of a successful siege develop only the most devilish propensities of humanity. To see women and children, old men, the weak and the feeble insulted and injured, makes one hate war and distrust one’s cause, and yet with the lax discipline maintained in our armies, we have too frequent examples of such outrage, the efforts of officers to check them being completely neutralized by the accursed conduct of the Press with its clamor for a vigorous prosecution of the war. . . . I do not despair, but hope — and while I live, will never despair — but my hopes will rise when a sincere effort shall be made to check the license and marauding propensities of our troops, when thieves and robbers shall receive speedy and terrible justice, when, in a word, we shall deserve to conquer. A righteous indignation toward the authors of the rebellion may be a good thing, but it is very likely to be confounded with a desire to pamper one’s belly at the expense of the helpless.

 

---Near Winchester, Virginia, troopers from the 1^st New York Cavalry skirmish with Rebels.