below. There he reined up and waited, as they filed down the road past him; and the time must have seemed long till dawn. But at last it came, and with its approach, the pale fog, as if it had heard a mysterious signal, began to lift slowly, and the surrounding region became visible.

Meanwhile Grimes of Gordon's corps, a squarefaced, resolute man with eyes wide apart and penciled brows, to whom Bushrod Johnson's divisions had been assigned, had crossed the river, and passing through the village, had formed athwart the Lynchburg road. James A. Walker's division also of Gordon's corps, drew up in the fog-gray darkness on Grimes's left, and Evans, with his Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia brigades, under whose command was all that survived of the old Stonewall brigade, on Walker's left.

Grimes put Bushrod Johnson on his right, Cox's brigade of North Carolinians holding the extreme flank. The batteries assigned to accompany Gordon took their places; cannoneers mounted, ready to follow Grimes. The cavalry formed on the infantry's right, first W. H. F. Lee's division, then Rosser, and then the young, gallant Munford, all under the command of stocky, blue-eyed, fullrusty-bearded, jolly Fitz Lee, but he was not in a joking mood that morning. A little before daylight Gordon accompanied by Fitz Lee, came to where Grimes stood, and began in his presence to talk

about what should be done. Grimes says Gordon was of the opinion that the troops before them were cavalry, and that Fitz Lee should begin the attack; Fitz Lee thought they were infantry, and that Gordon should attack. They discussed the matter so long that Grimes got impatient and blurted out that it was somebody's business to attack at once, and that he was sure he could drive our forces from the Bent Creek road, which it had been decided the Confederate trains were to take.

It may help to vivify the landscape if we stand where Gordon and Grimes stood and look at it through their eyes. They were within one hundred yards of the McLean house, on the edge of the village and facing south. Before them, spread out like a tilted fan, old fields, veiled with mist and creased with gentle folds, rose toward the south, crowned at last with dark circling woods. About midway of the incline, the Bent Creek road strikes off westward from the Lynchburg, but after a while rambles back into it again beyond Appomattox Station. It will be remembered that the First Maine's videttes, carbine in hand, were posted along it, and that their division, Crook's, was up in the woods a half mile or more to the rear, dismounted, their horses browsing, and some of the men behind a line of temporary defenses of rails, brush, and pieces of old logs, whose centre was on the Lynchburg road; and that while Gordon and Grimes

were having their interview, Mackenzie's small division was moving under orders from Sheridan to take position on Crook's left.

"Well!" replied Gordon, to Grimes's soldierly, blunt remark, "drive them off!"

"I cannot do it with my division alone," observed Grimes.

"You can take the other two divisions!" responded Gordon.

Grimes then rode to Walker on his left and asked him to go with him while he pointed out Crook's position and explained his plan of attack.

Meanwhile Gordon and Fitz Lee settled on the following plan: the cavalry should bear to its right, then circle to the left till it got well on Crook's left and rear, and as soon as they were ready, Grimes was to advance, and they together make an attack on Crook and clear the road. But the cavalry's movements were sluggish, and it was not till my classmate "Jim" Lord, by order of Colonel Smith of the First Maine, let drive a few rounds from his battery, pushed well up on the encircling ridge, down in among the swarm of cavalry, infantry, and wagons dim in the enshrouding fog, that any advance was made. Thereupon Grimes started a light force up the pike and drove the videttes from the Bent Creek road back on the main line.

The road clear, the right of Fitz Lee's command, Rosser and Munford, took it, moving briskly, and

Grimes with lines extended waited for them to get to Crook's left. Meanwhile, the sun rose, as did the fog, and the dewy tree-tops on the timbered hills, which zigzag round the head of the Appomattox, began to loom free against the fresh sky of that Palm Sunday morning, a sky that soon, north and south, would hear the bells of many a steeple ringing.

XII

BUT before Fitz Lee strikes it should not be forgotten that at that very time Mackenzie was moving toward Crook's left let us turn to Ord's troops, who had bivouacked at midnight within four or five miles of Appomattox Station. They were called from their slumbers at three A. M., and although weary and foot-sore, and without breakfasting, "but a few had had anything to eat since noon of the previous day," say the War Records, - fell in without murmuring, and resumed the march. Foster's division of Gibbon's corps was in the lead; behind him Turner's, of the same corps, the Twentyfourth, and then Griffin, with the Fifth corps.

About the time Gordon was replying to Grimes, Foster had reached the vicinity of Sheridan's headquarters, the little frame house just south of the Station, and halted for breakfast. Their fires were barely started when Ord rode up, dismounted, and, after a short consultation with Sheridan, started Foster on at full speed and then rode back to hurry on the rest of the infantry, for word had just come in that the enemy were moving.

Rienzi was stamping in front of the door; Sheri