At the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Union suffered a devastating loss

One of the interesting facts about the Battle of Fredericksburg is that at the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Union suffered a devastating loss. The Union suffered a terrible defeat during the Battle of Fredericksburg, despite the fact that their soldiers fought valiantly and well, but fell victim to mismanagement by their generals, including confusing orders from Burnside to Franklin. Burnside claimed responsibility for the defeat, however many attributed it to Lincoln's pressure to launch an impossible offensive. In the ensuing flurry of political recriminations, a majority of Republican senators voted to remove Secretary of State William Seward, who had been the prime target of their displeasure with the administration's handling of the war. After visiting the battlefield, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin went back to the White House. He told the president that it was a butchery, not a battle. "The President is a weak man, too weak for the occasion," wrote Senator Zachariah Chandler, a Radical Republican, "and those fool or traitor generals are wasting time and yet more precious blood in indecisive battles and delays."

The senators, led by Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, pressured Lincoln to reform his cabinet, and when he refused, Chase resigned. Seward had also offered to resign, but Lincoln refused in both circumstances, smoothing over the cabinet issue and skillfully reducing the political ramifications of the Fredericksburg setback. In January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac.