Sedgwick changed his dispositions as speedily as possible, and sent out
his orders to his subordinates within fifteen minutes after receipt of
Hooker's despatch; but it was considerably after midnight before he
could actually get his command faced about, and start the new head of
column toward Fredericksburg.
Knowing the town to be occupied by the Confederates, Sedgwick was
obliged to proceed with reasonable caution the five or six miles which
separated his command from Fredericksburg. And the enemy appears to
have been sufficiently on the alert to take immediate measures to check
his progress as effectually as it could with the troops at hand.
Fredericksburg and the heights beyond were held by Early's division and
Barksdale's brigade, with an adequate supply of artillery,--in all some
eighty-five hundred men. Sedgwick speaks, in his testimony before the
Committee on the Conduct of the War, as if he understood at this time
that Early controlled a force as large as his own; but he had been
advised by Butterfield that the force was judged to be much smaller than
it actually was.
In his report, Early does not mention Sedgwick's advance on the
Bowling-Green road, nor is it probable that Sedgwick had done more than
to advance a strong skirmish-line beyond his column in that direction.
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