“Bring the guns to bear and shell them out.” It was a command Union Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt probably hoped he wouldn’t have to give. But on December 11, 1862, after a series of aborted attempts by the Federals to cross the Rappahannock River into Fredericksburg, Va., the Army of the Potomac’s chief of artillery was given little choice. It was time for Hunt’s big guns to “batter” the bucolic colonial town into submission. For the first time, not an army but an American city itself would be the target of bombardment by the U.S. military.