On taking possession of Fredericksburg the Federal soldiers abandoned themselves to pillage and destruction. They entered the stores and dwellings, forcing their way where force was necessary, rifling them of all that they wanted of their contents and destroying those things that they could not remove. China and glassware were broken up and scattered promiscuously; silverware was carried away, books and family pictures were mutilated and destroyed; furniture was cut up or broken up and converted into fire-wood, beds, bedclothing and wearing apparel were destroyed or carried off, and the residences were left despoiled of their contents. In the three days they occupied the town they made the destruction complete. But it is a gratification, even to those who suffered by this occupation, to know that the commanders were not to blame for the sacking of the town. It was the work, so it is asserted, of stragglers and camp followers--the most detestable and destructive scabs of an army. On Friday, the 12th of December, the Union army was drawn up in line of battle, prepared to advance. Not less than sixty thousand men were on the south bank of the river, with more than a hundred pieces of artillery. Near the mouth of Deep Run there were probably as many more ready for the final charge. The Confederate army was confronting them in a line extending from Fall Hill to Hamilton's Crossing, between six and seven miles in length. At one o'clock the heavy batteries on each side opened, and for an hour kept up a brilliant duel of shell and round shot. On the morning of Saturday, the 13th of December, a dense fog hung over the river and the adjoining fields. Under its cover the Federal army advanced. By eight o'clock it was in position and the dreadful conflict began. Line after line of battle advanced on the Confederate position, at the stone wall at the foot of Marye's Heights, to be repulsed with great slaughter. This was kept up without cessation, charge after charge, as rapidly as they could reform the men, from eight o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, when one desperate charge, with troops _en masse_, was made all along the line in front of the stone wall, accompanied by the most terrific fire of artillery. In this last and grandest effort, the men, marching to death and destruction through an open field, got within twenty-five yards of the stone wall, notwithstanding the deadly aim of the Confederate infantry behind it and the destructive fire of the artillery on the heights above, so skillfully arranged by General E. P. Alexander.