Barksdale’s Brigade at Fredericksburg: On December 11, 1862, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, planned to have his engineers “throw” a number of bridges across the Rappahannock River. Three of them would then carry the army’s 40,000-man Right Grand Division directly into the town of Fredericksburg. What Burnside hadn’t counted on, however, was the presence in the river town of a very contentious brigade of Mississippians led by Brig. Gen. William Barksdale.