with him on the Orange Plank road. The two divisions of Longstreet’s corps, encamped near Gor-donsville, were ordered to move rapidly across the country and follow Hill on the Plank road. Ewell’s corps was the first to find itself in the presence of the enemy. As it advanced along the turnpike on the morning of the 5th, the Federal column was seen crossing it from the direction of Germanna Ford. Ewell promptly formed line of battle across the turnpike, and communicated his position to General Lee, who was on the Plank road with Hill. Ewell was instructed to regulate his movements by the head of Hill’s column, whose progress he could tell by the firing in its front. . . .
General Warren, whose corps was passing when Ewell came up, halted, and turning to the right made a vigorous attack upon Edward Johnson’s division, posted across the turnpike. J. M. Jones’s brigade, which held the road, was driven back in confusion. Steuart’s brigade was pushed forward to take its place. Eodes’s division was thrown in on Johnson’s right, south of the road, and the line thus reestablished moved forward, reversed the tide of battle, and rolled back the Federal attack. The fighting was severe and bloody while it lasted. At some points the lines were in such close proximity in the thick woods which covered the battlefield that when the Federal troops gave way Several hundred of them, unable to retreat without exposure to almost certain death, surrendered themselves as prisoners.
Ewell’s entire corps was now up — Johnson’s division holding the turnpike, Eodes’s division on the right of it, and Early’s in reserve. So far Ewell had been engaged only with Warren’s corps, but Sedgwick’s soon came up from the river and joined Warren on his right. Early’s division was sent to meet it. The battle extended in that direction, with steady and determined attacks upon Early’s front, until nightfall. The Confederates still clung to their hold on the Federal flank against every effort to dislodge them.
When Warren’s corps encountered the head of Ewell’s column on the 5th of May, General Meade is reported to have said: “ They have left a division to fool us here, while they concentrate and prepare a position on the North Anna.” If the stubborn resistance to Warren’s attack did not at once convince him of his mistake, the firing that announced the approach of Hill’s corps along the Plank road, very soon afterward, must have opened his eyes to the bold strategy of the Confederate commander. General Lee had deliberately chosen this as his battle-ground. He knew this tangled wilderness well, and appreciated fully the advantages such a field afforded for concealing his great inferiority of force, and for neutralizing the superior strength of his antagonist. General Grant’s bold movement across the lower fords into the Wilderness, in the execution of his plan to swing past the Confederate army and place himself between it and Bichmond, offered the expected opportunity of striking a blow upon his flank while his troops were stretched out on the line of march. The wish for such an opportunity was doubtless in a measure “father to the thought” expressed by General Lee three days before, at the signal station on Clark’s Mountain.
Soon after Ewell became engaged on the Oldturn-
CONFEDEEATE LINE WAITING OBDEES IN THE WILDEENESS.
drawers. By nursing these carefully he managed to get through the winter. Before the campaign opened in the spring a small lot of clothing was received, and he was the first man of his regiment to be supplied.
I have often heard expressions of surprise that these ragged, bare-footed, half-starved men would fight at all. But the very fact that they remained with their colors through such privations and hardships was sufficient to prove that they would be dangerous foes to encounter upon the line of battle. The morale of the army at this time was excellent, and it moved forward confidently to the grim death-grapple in the wilderness of Spotsylvania with its old enemy, the Army of the Potomac.
General Lee’s headquarters were two miles northeast of Orange Court House; of his three corps, Longstreet’s was at Gordonsville, Ewell’s was on and near the Eapidan, above Mine Bun, and Hill’s on his left, higher up the stream. When the Federal army was known to be in motion, General Lee prepared to move upon its flank with his whole force as soon as his opponent should clear the river and begin the march southward. The route selected by General Grant led entirely around the right of Lee’s position on the river above. Grant’s passage of the Eapidan was unopposed, and he struck boldly out on the direct road to Eiekmond. Two roads lead from Orange Court House down the Eapidan toward Fredericksburg. They follow the general direction of the river, and are almost parallel to each other, the “ Old turnpike ” nearest the river, and the “Plankroad” a short distance south of it. The route of the Federal army lay directly across these two roads along the western borders of the famous Wilderness.
About noon on the 4th of May, Ewell’s corps was put in motion on and toward the Orange turnpike, while A. P. Hill, with two divisions, moved parallel
amined closely through their field-glasses the position of the Federal army then lying north of the river in Culpeper county. The central figure of the group was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, who had requested his corps and division commanders to meet him there. Though some demonstrations had been made in the direction of the upper fords, General Lee expressed the opinion that the Federal army would cross the river at Germanna or Ely’s. Thirty-six hours later General Meade’s army, General Grant, now commander-in-ehief, being with it, commenced its march to the crossings indicated by General Lee.
The Army of the Potomac, which had now commenced its march toward Bichmond, was more powerful in numbers than at any previous period of the war. It consisted of three corps: the Second (Hancock’s),the Fifth (Warren’s),and the Sixth (Sedgwick’s); but the Ninth (Burnside’s) acted with Meade throughout the campaign. Meade’s army was thoroughly equipped, and provided with every appliance of modern warfare. On the other hand, the Army of Northern Virginia had gained little in numbers during the winter just passed, and had never been so scantily supplied with food and clothing. The equipment as to arms was well enough for men who knew how to use them, but commissary and quartermasters’ supplies were lamentably deficient. A new pair of shoes or an overcoat was a luxury, and full rations would have astonished the stomachs of Lee’s ragged Confederates. But they took their privations cheerfully, and complaints were seldom heard. I recall an instance of one hardy fellow whose trousers were literally “worn to a frazzle” and would no longer adhere to his legs even by dint of the most persistent patching. Unable to buy, beg, or borrow another pair, he wore instead a pair of thin cotton
MAJOE-GENEKAL STEPHEN D. BAMSEUB, C. S. A.
mately. He is a different man entirely from what I had supposed. He is slender, not tall, wiry, and looks as if he could endure any amount of physical exercise. He is able, and thoroughly honest and truthful. There were probably but few men in the South who could have commanded successfully a separate detachment, in the rear of an opposing army and so near the border of hostilities, as long as he did without losing his entire command.
On this same visit to Washington I had my last interview with the President before reaching the James Biver. He had, of course,become acquainted with the fact that a general movement had been ordered all along the line, and seemed to think it a new feature in war. I explained to him that it was necessary to have a great number of troops to guard and to hold the territory we had captured, and to prevent incursions into the Northern States. These troops could perform this service just as well by advancing as by remaining still; and by advancing they would compel the enemy to keep detachments to hold them back or else lay his own territory open to invasion. “ Oh! yes, I see that,” he said. “As we say out West, if a man can’t skin he must hold a leg while somebody else does.”
. . . Soon after midnight, May 3-4, the Army of the Potomac moved out from its position north of the Eapidan, to start upon that memorable campaign destined to result in the capture of the Confederate capital and the army defending it.
Note.—Grant’s campaign from the Eapidan to the James is usually referred to as “ The Wilderness Campaign.” The first battle of the series took place in a region known as “ The Wilderness.”
THROUGH THE WILDERNESS. —THE CONFEDERATE SIDE.
BY E. M. LAW, MAJOE-GENEEAL, C. S. A.
Commanding a brigade under Longstreet.
ON the 2d of May, 1864, a group of officers stood at the Confederate signal station on Clark’s Mountain, Virginia, south of the Eapidan, and ex-