Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx  
in London  
Manchester, Tuesday, 30 December 1862  

1252 Hyde Road, Manchester, 30 Decbr 62  
Dear Moor,  

On Friday I sent you a registered letter with £10, £5 in a Bank of England note, and £5 in a country note of the Boston Bank, payable at Masterman & Co, bankers, London. Since I have heard nothing from you since then, I am somewhat uneasy.  

Burnside’s defeat is being hideously exaggerated. It is clear that it must affect the morale of the army, but by no means as badly as if they had been beaten in the open field. The tactical arrangements seem to have been very poor. The flank attack of the left wing should obviously have been developed first, before the frontal attack under Sumner took place. But this was entirely bungled; Sumner seems to have been deep in the mire before Franklin even came to serious blows. Then Burnside seems to have been unable to make up his mind about the use of his reserve. The successes of the left wing should have induced him to send at least a part of it there, since that was where the decisive action was bound to occur; instead, he used it in the front, and there too late, namely 1) to relieve, not to support, Sumner’s beaten troops, and 2) so close to nightfall that it was dark before half of them came into action. This, of course, as a result of the poor materials provided by the American papers and without knowledge of the terrain. Incidentally, it seems to me that || Burnside could well have driven out the riff-raff entirely by a turning movement, especially since he appears to have had 150,000 men against 100,000; but the belief that Washington could only be covered as long as one threw oneself across the enemy’s path evidently prevented him from doing so. The stupidity of allowing the Confederates a month to entrench themselves in their position, and then attacking them frontally, is only to be criticised with a horsewhipping.  

Mary and Lizzy send their greetings.  

Yours,  
F. E.  

299  

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