Note The wild day is closed — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Page 449. The wild day is closed. Burnside's attempt to carry the heights behind Fredericksburg by storm was perhaps the most insane of the war. In spite of McClellan's lack of promptness, thoroughness, and vigor, and a sort of incapacity of doing anything until an ideal completeness of preparation was reached, he was in many ways the best commander the Army of the Potomac ever had. Pope, Burnside, and Hooker were admittedly his inferiors.