Burnside now grew frantic, and ordered Hooker to attack. That officer moved out with three divisions, made a reconnoissance, and went back to tell Burnside it was useless and persuade him to give up the attempt. But the commander insisted, and so Hooker's four thousand rushed forward with fixed bayonets, and presently came back like the rest, leaving seventeen hundred dead or wounded on the field. The entire National loss in this battle was twelve thousand six hundred and fifty-three in killed, wounded, or missing, though some of the missing afterward rejoined their commands. Hancock's division lost one hundred and fifty-six officers, and one of his regiments lost two-thirds of its men. The Confederate loss was five thousand three hundred and seventy-seven. Four brigadier-generals were killed in this battle; on the National side, Generals George D. Bayard and Conrad F. Jackson; on the Confederate, Generals Thomas R. R. Cobb and Maxcy Gregg. In the night the Union troops brought in their wounded and buried some of their dead. Severe as his losses had been, Burnside planned to make a fresh attempt the next day, with the Ninth Corps (his old command), which he proposed to lead in person; but General Sumner dissuaded him, though with difficulty. In the night of the 15th, in the midst of a storm, the army was withdrawn to the north bank of the Rappahannock, and the sorry campaign was ended. If it had been at all necessary to prove the courage and discipline of the National troops, Fredericksburg proved it abundantly. There were few among them that December morning who did not look upon it as hopeless to assault those fortified slopes; yet they obeyed their orders, and moved out to the work as if they expected victory, suffering such frightful losses as bodies of troops are seldom called upon to endure, and retiring with little disorder and no panic. The English correspondent of the London _Times_, writing from Lee's headquarters, exultingly predicted the speedy decline and fall of the American Republic. If he had been shrewd enough to see what was indicated, rather than what he hoped for, he would have written that with such courage and discipline as the Army of the Potomac had displayed, and superior resources, the final victory was certain to be theirs, however they might first suffer from incompetent commanders; that the Republic that had set such an army in the field, and had the material for several more, was likely to contain somewhere a general worthy to lead it, and was not likely to be overthrown by any insurrection of a minority of its people. [Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL T. F. MEAGHER.] [Illustration: COLONEL ROBERT NUGENT. (Afterward Brevet Brigadier-General.)] [Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL G. A. DE RUSSEY.]