No other incident of moment occurred until we reached the vicinity of Warrenton, Va. There the morale of the army received a shock from which it required months for recovery. It was the unexpected relieving of Gen. George B. McClellan from command, and the assignment of Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside to that high position. That General McClellan was the idol of the Army of the Potomac cannot be gainsaid. In him the mass of the troops had unbounded confidence. He had organized, equipped and drilled them. On his shoulders that did not rest the blame of their discomfiture on the Peninsula. Instead they praised him for his masterly "change of base" from the swamps of the Chickahominy to the James. He had from the jaws of defeat at Bull Run wrested victory from their elated and confident enemy at South Mountain and Antietam, and now, when on the forward movement again, hopeful of final victory, he was unceremoniously discharged, and one substituted of whom they knew little, and who with protestations of unfitness accepted the command! At Warrenton the army encountered the first snowfall of the winter, the morning reveille waking the sleeping host covered with an extra blanket of purest whiteness. Our march to the Rappahannock was without further incident of note. On November 25th we arrived upon the heights overlooking the ancient city of Fredericksburg sleeping in the river valley, beyond which rose Marye's heights and the range of wooded hills, on whose slopes was marshaled our old foe, interrupting our further advance upon the Confederate capital. Here the army pitched its winter camp. Many of the quarters were built quite substantial and comfortable. The messes of five and six, cut and split the soft pine indigenous to that region, constructing therewith log cabins roofed with their shelter tents. Many of these cabins were fitted up quite tastefully, having open fire places and bunks erected against the walls which were supplied with pillows and mattresses of the resinous pine needles covered with army blankets, making very comfortable beds, at least quite luxurious to men who had enjoyed nothing better than the ground, or the soft side of a plank, for a year past. But from this dream of peace and comfort we were soon to be rudely wakened. In the early twilight of the morning of December 11th, the guards that paced their lonely beats about the silent camps were startled by the sudden boom of a signal gun, its deep reverberations up and down the river valley giving warning to friend and foe that a strife for the possession of yonder steeps was soon to begin. For a moment silence followed this signal and then from the hundred brazen throats of the batteries that lined the crest of the hills on the north side flashed sheets of flame amid deafening roar and scream of shot and shell, that brought every sleeper to his feet. The deep notes of the heavier ordnance, mingled with the rifle crack of the lighter