BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.--General dissatisfaction being expressed at the slowness with which McClellan pursued the retreating army, General Burnside was appointed his successor. Crossing the Rappahannock on pontoon bridges at Fredericksburg, he attempted (December 13) to storm the works in the rear of the town. The Confederates, intrenched behind a long stone wall, and on heights crowned with artillery, easily repulsed the repeated assaults of the Union troops. Night mercifully put an end to the fruitless massacre. The Federal loss was over twelve thousand, nearly half of whom fell before the fatal stone wall. [Footnote: This solid stone wall, four feet high, completely sheltered the troops, while they poured a murderous fire upon the attacking party. In the assault, Meagher's Irish troops especially distinguished themselves, leaving two-thirds of their number on the field of their heroic action. The London Times's correspondent, who watched the battle from the heights, speaking of their desperate valor, says: "Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo, was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of their foe. That any mortal man could have carried the position, defended as it was, it seems idle for a moment to believe. But the bodies which lie in dense masses within forty-eight yards of the muzzles of Colonel Walton's guns are the best evidence what manner of men they were who pressed on to death with the dauntlessness of a race which has gained glory on a thousand battle-fields, and never more richly deserved it than at the foot of Marye's Heights, on the 18th day of December, 1862."] The survivors drew back into the city, and the next night passed quietly across the bridges to their old camping-ground. GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.--The Confederates had gained the victories of Jackson in the Shenandoah; of Lee in the Peninsular campaign and those against Pope; Bragg's great raid in Kentucky; and the battles of Cedar Mountain, Chickasaw Bluff, and Fredericksburg. The Federals had taken Forts Henry, Donelson, Pulaski, Macon, Jackson, St. Philip, and Island No. 10; had opened the Mississippi to Vicksburg, occupied New Orleans, Roanoke Island, Newberne, Yorktown, Norfolk, and Memphis; had gained the battles of Pea Ridge, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, South Mountain, Antietam, Iuka, Corinth, and Murfreesboro, and had checked the career of the Merrimac. The marked successes were mainly at the West and along the coast; while in Virginia, as yet, defeats had followed victories so soon as to hide their memory. THE SIOUX WAR.