for miles around. In the fourth place, the artillery of the Army of the Potomac was largely superior, both in number of pieces and in effectiveness of fire, to that of the Southern army, however gallantly served; yet in the Wilderness most of the guns of the Potomac army might as well have been spiked. Of Hancock's vast battery, only six guns fired so much as a shot in the two days' action. In the fifth place, not only were the Northern regiments, as a rule, better drilled, but they were, by the genius of their people, far more mechanical in their actions; they depended, in a higher degree than did their antagonists, upon the nature of the ground. The Southerner was, both by instinct and training, more of an out-of-doors animal, more independent, selfgoverning, self-reliant. He would come up on the line in good time and ready for fight, but it was by his own way. He did not need "the touch of the elbow," the dressing by-the-right, or the file-closer behind him. In the sixth place, the Northern army had been accustomed to depend very much more upon the personal attention and devotion of its high officers than had the Southern army. Take Gettysburg for an example. On the 3d of July Gibbon, commanding the Second Corps, was wounded on the very front line, falling among the soldiers of the Nineteenth Maine; Hancock, commanding the left center, fell even a little in advance of the line. On the opposite side Pickett did not cross the Emmitts

burg road while his troops were making their great charge; Longstreet never left Seminary Ridge.

I have said the troops could have made the further march necessary to carry them out of these jungles into a region rough and tangled enough, yet paradisiacal in comparison with the Wilderness. Of this there is no question. The one objection was the possibility of Lee's interposing between our right and the river. This reason prevailed; yet for one I do not believe it was sufficient. With our distinct superiority in infantry, in cavalry, in artillery, it ought to have been seen to be possible to make our right perfectly secure while advancing our columns five or six miles to the west.* * With us Burnside was coming up behind; while it was known that Longstreet with his corps was at an even greater distance in the rear of his own army.

But it was not so ordered. It was destined that the Battle of the Wilderness should be fought. The Second Corps, as recited, halted at Chancellorsville,

* “Had he [Grant] really wished to fight a battle on the 5th, the Second Corps, after crossing at Ely's Ford on the 4th, should have moved out the Orange plank road to New Hope Church; the Fifth Corps out the pike to Robertson's Tavern ; the Sixth Corps to Old Wilderness Tavern, and, on the morning of the 5th, to position between the Second and the Fifth Corps; Wilson's cavalry out the Orange plank road in advance of the Second Corps, and moving to the left at New Hope Church. That would have brought on a battle in more open and better ground for the Army of the Potomac than that of the Wilderness."Humphreys's Virginia Campaign of 1864-'65, p. 56.

and spent the afternoon and the night of the 4th
upon the very battlefield where Hancock's and
French's divisions had fought just one year before.
The ground about the Chancellor House was still
strewn with the wreckage of battle; and here and
there the bones of half-buried men were to be seen
protruding from their shallow graves. In the early
morning Hancock set out, under orders to move, by
way of Catherine Furnaces and Todd's Tavern, to
Shady Grove Church, on the Catharpin road; thence
to extend his right toward the Fifth Corps at Par-·
ker's Store. The Fifth Corps was in turn to extend
its right toward the Sixth at Old Wilderness Tavern.
But this movement was never to be executed.
Fifth Corps in the center had moved but a little way
toward Parker's when Ewell was discovered advanc-

The

ing in force. At half-past seven a dispatch was sent to Hancock informing him of this and directing him to halt at Todd's Tavern. When this message reached Hancock, at about nine o'clock, his head of column was a mile and a half beyond that point. About two hours later he received orders to move to his right, by the Brock road, to its junction with the Orange plank road. Hancock accordingly countermarched to Todd's Tavern, and then took the route northward toward the main body of the army. Birney's division-which, having formed the rear in the morning, took the lead in the retrograde movement-arrived at the intersection

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNITEL

of the Brock and Plank roads about two o'clock. Here it found Getty's division of the Sixth Corps holding the plank road against a movement of Hill's corps which had been intended to interpose a Confederate force between Grant's two wings. Getty had not as yet become seriously engaged; but Warren's Fifth Corps, farther to the north, had been fighting a severe battle with Ewell, in which the Union troops were rather roughly handled.

Even while Birney's division was coming up, the bullets of the enemy's skirmishers were flying across the Brock road, by which we were moving. Birney at once placed his division in two lines of battle, the formation being greatly retarded by the narrowness of the road and the density of the woods on either side. Mott's division was the next to arrive, and took position, also in two lines, on Birney's left. General Hancock found Getty anxious to make an early attack in obedience to repeated instructions from Meade, who addressed similar urgent representations to Hancock himself as soon as he arrived upon the ground. The latter was strongly desirous of getting his whole corps up and in hand; and would, if left to himself, have awaited the arrival of Gibbon and Barlow. But at a quarter past four Getty moved forward. Scarcely had his troops advanced four hundred yards through the thickets when Hill was encountered, and so fierce at once became the fighting that Hancock had no resource but

to throw Birney forward with his own and Mott's division. Birney went in on both Getty's right and left, a section of Ricketts's Pennsylvania battery moving up the road abreast of the troops. Dow's Sixth Maine Battery was put into position at the junction of the two roads to fire over the heads of Our men. Meanwhile Gibbon's and Barlow's divisions were forming in the road farther to the left, Frank's brigade of the latter having been halted to hold the junction of the Brock road and a road leading out to the Catharpin road. All of the Second Corps artillery, except the six guns accounted for, was established on some high, cleared ground which ran backward from the extreme left of our line, forming a marked exception to the general topographical character of the Wilderness.

No sooner had Getty, Birney, and Mott become fairly engaged in front of the Brock road than the disadvantages resulting from a lack of more complete preparation became painfully evident. It was scarcely possible to bring up the remaining troops through the dense woods with sufficient rapidity to meet the demands from the leading divisions for reenforcements. One of the fiercest battles of history had begun, and both armies were entering upon the first action of the opening campaign with ferocious resolution. Owen's brigade, from Gibbon, was thrown in upon either side of the plank road to support Getty. Then Smyth's and Brooke's brigades,