On January 20th, 1863, after devising a plan to outflank the rebels at Fredricksburg, Union General Ambrose Burnside begins what is later to be known as "the mud march". The following description is taken from Swinton's "Campaigns Of The Army Of the Potomac":...Morning dawned upon another day of rain and storm. The ground had gone from bad to worse, and now showed such a spectacle as might be presented by the elemental wrecks of another deluge. An indescribable chaos of pontoons, vehicles, and artillery encumbered all the roads, - supply wagons upset by the roadside, guns stalled in the mud, ammunition trains ruined by the way, and hundreds of horses and mules buried in the liquid mud. The army, in fact, was embargoed: it was no longer a question of how to go forward - it was a question of how to get back. The three days rations brought on the persons of the men were exhausted, and the supply - trains could not be moved up; to aid the return, all the available force was put to work to corduroy the rotten roads. Next morning the army floundered and staggered back to the old camps; and so ended a movement that will always live in the recollection of the army as "the mud march" . . .
The rebels taunted Burnside's weary men with signs on the roads and hills saying "Burnside stuck in the mud!"
On January 23rd, the weary men of the 55th Ohio staggered back into camp near Falmouth and encamped at the place prescribed to them from 11th Corps headquarters. They nearly got into a brawl with the 6th Wisconsin (Iron Brigade) as that spot was recently their campground and they were unwilling to give it up. Lt. Col. Safford (temporarily commanding the 55th as Col. Lee was commanding the brigade) managed to avoid a fight by noting that the ground was big enough for both units and that they could share as well as offering the 6th dinner, compliments of the 55th. The 55th went into winter quarters here but was eventually moved to Brooke's Station near Belle Plain.
On January 26th, for his disasters at Fredricksburg and the "mud march", Ambrose Burnside was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac. His replacement was Major-General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker. Although considered boastful and a bit crude, Hooker quickly restored morale to the army over the winter by halting desertions, providing much needed stores as food, uniforms and equipment, and restoring the confidence of the men in the army and their leaders.
Sources:
Trials and Triumphs: A Record of the Fifty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry by Hartwell Osborne, 1904, A.C. Clurg & Co., Chicago.
All Brave And True by Dan Munson, 1987.