Battle of Fredericksburg

Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 11-15, 1862: Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac launched futile frontal assaults against Gen. Robert E. Lee's entrenched Confederates, notably at the sunken wall. One of the war's most one-sided battles, with Union casualties more than twice the Confederates'; a visitor described the scene to President Lincoln as butchery.