march, reached Chancellorsville with its head of column between nine and ten o'clock, and was all closed up at that point by one. The Fifth Corps was in position by two. Grant's army was, therefore, early on the 4th of May, south of the Rapidan, extending from Germanna Ford, through Old Wilderness Tavern, to Chancellorsville, fronting west. Meanwhile Burnside was advancing along the railroad to re-enforce the Army of the Potomac from which the Ninth Corps had long been separated. These troops would in their advance serve to protect Grant's communications with Washington against any counter movement by Lee.

Why was it, we may ask, that the Army of the Potomac had been halted so early in the day? The whole of the terrible fighting of the two succeeding days was to be done within territory over which the troops might have been carried during the remaining hours of the 4th. General Humphreys, the chief of staff, says: "The troops might have easily continued their march five miles farther-the Second Corps to Todd's Tavern, the head of the Fifth Corps to Parker's Store, the head of the Sixth Corps to Wilderness Tavern." It may be said: "If the army was to fight the enemy, what did it matter whether it fought them five miles farther to the west or to the east?" I answer-it made a vast difference. The immediate region of the Wilderness was known to our army and its leaders as one of the most

difficult and perplexing in which soldiers were ever called to operate-a region through portions of which troops could not be forced without completely breaking up their formation, over all of which there. were few opportunities for the use of artillery. It was a region in which the power of discipline almost disappeared, in which the personal influence of commanders was at a minimum, in which tactics were literally impossible. The region beyond was bad enough, like most of Virginia; this, viewed as a battle-ground, was simply infernal.

Nor was it in any sense true that the difficulties and perplexities would be equally felt by both armies. In the first place, Lee was on the defensive; and the woods and swamps of the region were to him better than field works in retarding the movements of his adversary. In the second place, the Confederate army was made up of men who in a high degree possessed woodcraft-the faculty, both inherited and cultivated, of making one's way rapidly and confidently through jungles and thickets, keeping the direction of the sun, finding fords in swamps and streams. In the third place, General Lee had at hand those who knew that district well as their home; at any moment he might call to his bridle rein the very man who owned the land which he was traversing, who could tell not only how every road ran, but whither every woodpath led, at what points the creek was fordable, where lay the highest ground

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 Parker'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. The Fifth Corps in the center had moved but a little way toward Parker's when Ewell was discovered advanc

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