quick glass detects a belfry, from the top of which some earnest worshipper of secession is hurriedly signalling, and telling undoubtedly of the strange fleet which is approaching him.

But now we, too, have reached the landing, and discover, retreating behind the house upon the knoll, a half dozen of the chivalry, who have evidently seen better times, or at least cannot see much worse, if we may judge from the variety and color of their uniform, if it be a uniform.

'Tis now midnight. The fleet is quietly at anchor, and a more beautiful sight one could scarcely behold. The army vessels, have their bow, and stem, and masthead light, varicolored; . the men are clustered around their brightly blazing camp-fires on the shore and on the bank; and the scene looks like an illuminated garden in some wierd fantastic land. And so we wait the morrow.

CURL'S NECK, JAMES RIVER,
Friday Evening, May 6.

forming and marching away toward Richmond; and the region was all activity with the preparations for the movement of the day. It is therefore more than probable that the flag of truce was only a cover under which information might be obtained respecting the anticipated movement.

But we are crossing Harrison bar, and there in front of us, three miles further, is City Point, This morning at six o'clock a flag-of-truce boat a place become famous since the war as a point came down the river, and from it an officer went of exchange for the Union and rebel prisoners. to see the Admiral, who was in the little steamAt the landing we can see the large steamer boat Shawsheen. After remaining awhile the City of New York, the flag-of-truce boat, which officer-messenger returned, and the flag of truce makes its weekly or tri-weekly trips between put back up the river. The fleet were gathered Fortress Monroe and this place. at City Point, two miles below; the army steamOne by one the transports move up, anders were unloading their regiments, which were the soldiers jump off, until the shore is lined with boats and steamers. Baggage-wagons, caissons and limbers are soon ashore, and almost immediately the signal station on the bank is occupied, and the familiar signal flag displayed, ready for communication with any point. The flag-of-truce boat, with the white flag still flying, moves away from the landing; still there is not room for a tenth of the steamers and transports which are coming; faster and faster they gather, until the river all about the point is covered, and almost clogged with the accumulating vessels. The S. R. Spaulding passes, unable to land the two thousand men who cluster from stem to stern, below and aloft, like immense swarms of bees. The men who have landed have formed in line, and then goes marching along the dusty road on the river bank, a full regiment, route-step, arms at will, and bound Richmondward.

The iron-clads move in order to a point two miles above City Point; come to anchor. Admiral Lee, who has been upon the Tecumseh during the afternoon, takes the gunboat Mount Washington and returns to his own ship.

And now, after a day of intense excitement and thrilling interest, the sun slowly settles behind the thick, rich foliage, promising a night of rest-if it may be-to prepare for what the morrow may bring us to do.

But on the shore, on our right, and only a little way off, are three or four ladies grouped together beneath the intertwining trees, and earnestly engaged in discussing a very interesting matter. They are evidently occupants of the fine unique old mansion which stands on the bank immediately behind them. They must be talking about the strange vessels which they have come down to see, and we think we can guess what they are saying by the little girl with a blue dress, who is one of the company, and who turns toward us, and, shutting up her little hand, shakes it at us as though she would do-oh, what terrible things, if she could only bring that little white fist against these great iron turrets.

After breakfast the order was given to "get under way," and soon we were off up the river. Just above our anchorage the west bank shoals off into the river, forming a sort of muddy, marshy point, around which we necessarily slowly steamed.

The steamboat New York, the regular Fortress Monroe and City Point boat, used for the exchange of prisoners, and which we last evening noted at the wharf with a large lot of unexchanged rebels on board, now passed us for the point of exchange, which now is not City Point, but some place above the river, chosen at the option of Admiral Lee.

On our right the bank now is low and marshy, yet with thick woods, while the opposite bank for a long distance is elevated twenty or twenty-five feet. It was on this side that the Union forces landed last evening, and every now and then we see upon this same bank the Union pickets, standing cautiously beneath the shadow of some majestic oak, or pacing their little beats.

At noon we arrived at a point about ten miles below Fort Darling, and a picket came down from the bank and said he had a contraband who wished to come on board. A boat was sent from our ship, being nearer than any other, and the man came on board, said he knew where the torpedoes were, and could find them. He was immediately sent to the Admiral, who, after questioning him, ordered the fleet to anchor, and the contraband was sent in a small gunboat up the river to find one of the torpedoes, which he stated was only a little way in advance of us. The gunboat Commodore Jones steamed up a little way, though her commander was advised not to by one of the officers of the fleet; yet his position was such at the moment that he was

DOCUMENTS.

obliged to do so to prevent his vessel from running ashore. He had gone but a short distance further when the torpedo was exploded, and the gunboat blown out of the water and entirely demolished. Some forty or fifty were killed and drowned, and as many wounded. Only a few escaped. The first two officers alone were saved. The Paymaster and engineers have not The man who fired the torpedo ran, been seen. but was immediately shot. An officer and men from a steamer rear them went on shore, found the wire connecting another torpedo, traced it, and soon came upon a spot in the bank covered by brush, but from which two men sprung as they approached the spot, and ran. They were immediately canght and carried on the flag-ship and put in irons. In the excavation where the men were concealed was found a galvanic battery, from which ran a small copper wire, as large as a knitting needle, around which was a covering of gutta percha. The wire ran along the shore to the river, a few inches under the surface, and was very nicely adjusted to the torpedo, which could not have been in the water over twenty-four hours.

The wounded and scalded men were brought on board the gunboat Mackinaw, and well cared for. At dusk a portion of the fleet dropped down the river a few miles to this place, in order to coal, and we came to anchor here in the early evening. The army steamer (flag of truce), New York, went up the river, and is probably at some point arranged upon between Commissioner Ould and Major Mulford, the exchange officers, for the transfer of the men now upon the steamer.

Below our present anchorage a few miles, is a place familiarly known as the "Hundreds," and there some of the army steamers are now lying. And so another evening, our second in the James, quietly follows the departing day. The sloping banks crowned with oak and beach, melt away in the darkness. We cannot see the steamers which lie only a few hundred feet from us, and friend and foe all alike, are hidden from the view. The stars look down upon us silently, and the river murmurs as peacefully as when the Indian princess was borne down upon its bosom in her birchen canoe. Perfect stillness and quiet pervade the region. But to us it is an ominous stillness-it is a stiilness that we feel presaging the tumult. It is the calm before the coming storm-that storm, the first murmurings of whose voice we now listen for. Let us pray that its lightning and thunder may purge the land of traitors, and the atmosphere of treason, forever and forever.

Doc. 58.

BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS, VA.
THE BATTLE OF THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864.

From midnight of Tuesday until the dawn of
Thursday the fifth, the Army of the Potomac,

closely succeeded by that of Burnside, had been
crossing the Rapidan river, the Second corps of
Ely's, the Fifth and Sixth corps at Germania
ford. The enemy, from their signal station on
Clark's mountain, observed the entire move-
ment a fact distinctly ascertained by our own
signal officers, who deciphered their messages
during the day.

The order issued to the Army of the Potomac,
Wednesday night-after the crossing of that
Army had been effected, and when Burnside
was on the way-directed it to move forward
in parallel lines, Hancock's corps to the vicinity
of Shady Grove Church, the Fifth and Sixth
corps along the Germania plank-road to Old
Wilderness Tavern and beyond. The Fifth and
Second corps were to connect as soon as pos-
sible, throw out strong reconnoissances toward
Catharpen run, Todd's Tavern, and on the
Orange Court-house road; the Sixth corps to
preserve a flank communication with the river,
where the trains and herds were still crossing,
and the whole afterward to "hold itself in
that this disposition of the Army was intended
readiness to move forward." It would seem
to be preserved until the trains could cross the
river, when all should move on, avoiding a
The hope was futile. The enemy's movement
battle in the Wilderness to the right.
began Wednesday night, and on the following
morning Ewell's whole corps had marched from
the direction of Verdiersville, and was found on
our right flank between the Orange Court-house
pike and the river, threatening us at right
the Sixth corps was then marching. The for-
angles with the Germania plank-road, up which
ward movement of the Army was checked at
once; the Fifth and Sixth corps formed in line of
battle along the Germania plank-road, and ad-
vanced into the forest on the right, pushing
forward a strong line of skirmishers to meet
and feel the enemy. The proposed connection
between Hancock and Warren was thus sev-
ered, and Hancock was ordered to diverge up
the Brock road from his march to Shady Grove
Church, and immediately join the latter on his
left wing, which crossed the Orange Court-
house turnpike. The great danger which me
naced us was, that the enemy, by throwing a
strong body of troops against our left flank,
would obtain possession of this turnpike before
Hancock could come up, cutting our army in
two. The First, Second, and Fourth brigades
of Getty's division of the Sixth corps, were
therefore detached and sent in on Warren's left
morning. Word came in from the cavalry in
as a support. Skirmishing began in the early
front that the enemy were still advancing from
Verdiersville and above; that Hill's corps had
driven in our cavalry and were moving down
the plank-road in the direction of Parker's
store; that the whole rebel army was doubtless
on the march.

Generals Meade, Warren, and Sedgwick held council at Old Wilderness Tavern. It was decided not to wait for Hancock, but to attack at

REBELLION RECORD, 1862-65.

once. General Warren mounted, rode to his command, and ordered an assault. At eleven o'clock word was sent to General Sedgwick that skirmishing in front of the Sixth corps was be. coming heavy, and that now was the time. General Sedgwick mounted in turn, galloped down the Germania plank-road about a mile, dashed into the forest at the head of his staff, and penetrated to the front just as the firing began to increase. We follow him.

A moment's halt for consultation-a moment's look around. Not a far look, nor an inspiring one; for, about, beneath, and overhead, the tangled underbrush, and knotted trunks and ragged foliage of a chapparal consume the spaces into which the eye yearns to penetrate. Is a battle to be fought here in this labyrinth, are troops to be manoeuvred, are lines of battle to be formed and shifted, are weapons to be used, charges made, the tragedy of a modern combat enacted in this hideous place?

Listen: the clanking music of the skirmish line sounds in the distance; the voice of cannon is deep in the recesses of the woods. There is a volley at last-General Griffin's division of the Fifth corps has opened the fight.

"Forward! by the right flank; forward!" rings along the lines. Yonder in front are the gleaming bayonets of our first line of battle; back, just in rear, is the second line, the anxious eyes of the soldiers peering through the trees.

Was it a sadder wind than usual that swept down from the front that moment, bearing the first earnest clangor of the combat? Else why, as that wind touched the faces of the men, did such a mournful fervor blend with, but not blight the resolute curves of lips that pride forbade to tremble?

"Forward! by the right flank; forward!" again and again repeated far to right and left, until it becomes an echo.

Crawford and Getty, who are on the Orange
Court-house road, is the junction of that and the
Brock road, up which, from the direction of
Chancellorsville, Hancock is advancing to make
connection. That is the vital point-that juno-
tion; to be held against all odds unto the death,
else the army is severed.

to prevent his massing any forces in our front
To hold the enemy all along the line in check,
and the Sixth corps is about to enter.
upon that point, the Fifth corps is pressing on,

eral John Sedgwick and his officers, between
Here, marching through the forest with Gen-
the first and second lines of battle of that grand
old corps, which has left its mark in blood on
every great battle-field in Virginia, we can hear
but not see the progress of the contest in front
and on the left. We hear that Griffin and Wads-
worth, after gallantly charging the enemy, ad-
vancing over two lines of works, have met with
but have been pushed back. The cannon that
superior numbers, have fought courageously,
spake a moment ago are silent. They were two
guns of Captain Winslow's (Second Massachu-
setts) battery, the horses of which have been
ed, and which have been spiked and abandoned.
killed, the men of which have been sorely press-
We hear that Crawford's division of Pennsylva
nia Reserves, sent forward to Parker's store to
check the surging tide of Hill's troops, pouring
on to attack that junction of two roads on which
same overwhelming pressure that forces Wads-
so much depends, have been hurled back by the
worth, and that the Seventh Pennsylvania regi-
ment has been captured. We hear that every-
where the enemy is strongly posted, everywhere;
on height, in the dense forest, using occasional
open fields in the rear for artillery, but forcing
own artillery is impossible. A cunning and a
us to attack in positions where the use of our
deceitful foe, knowing of old the splendid aim
to silence.
and discipline of our batteries, now compelled

On!

And through a thicket, blind and interminable; over abattis of fallen trees; through swamps, and ditches, and brush-heaps; and down through the jagged limbs of the chappa The air is stifling, the sun sends its rays once a glorious breathing-space-across a half ral around like red hot spears. This march is acre of open field, the obedient troops move on. long, these bullets from an unseen foe are stainHow long, and weary, and expectant the strug-ing some sleeves and jackets too soon. gling march is, with the hollow roar of that for our share of the battle cannot too soon be fight sounding nearer and nearer in the hot air! over. Sometimes the eyes of the men sink to note a by-path in the forest, like that which many a one has travelled in old days to some old spring of home-like memory. And here is the "birr of a bullet, like that which startled one who heard it one summer afternoon, when a brother hunter was careless, and fired at a partridge as he stood in range. The bee-like sounds are thicker on this ridge; in the forest, a little way ahead, there is a crackling, roaring tumult, seasoned with wild cheers.

The Fifth corps has begun the fight in earnest-Griffin is pressing on. Wadsworth, and Robinson, and Crawford are going in; the latter on the left, supported by Getty, is advancing toward the enemy at Parker's store. Behind

thick as the sprigs and leaves that partly hide They are there at last; the bushwhackers, their treacherous faces. As the ponderous battheir front, it sends a volley in greeting that tle-line of the Sixth corps swings into level in thins those faces even as a wind of autumn rushing through an oak. General Ricketts is on the left, General Wright next, General Neill, of the Second division, whose iron brigade is made up of men who never flinched a desperate strait, holds the right of the line in support.

thousand men can be seen at once, yet for miles
The fighting-who shall describe it? Not a
in the front thousands are engaged. The vol-
leyed thunders of the combat roll among the
glens and ravines hoarser and higher than the

voices of an Eastern jungle. The woods are alive with cries and explosions, and the shrill anvil-clatter of musketry. One cannon, pitched afar, times the wild tumult like a tolling bell. The smoke is a shroud about our heroes; there is not wind enough to lift it into a canopy.

And now, out of the concealed and awful scenery where the fight goes on, there come the ruins it has wrought, in shapes borne in blankets and on litters-maimed, tortured, writhing; with eyes dull with the stupor of coming death, or bright with delirious fire. Listen to the hell raging beyond and below; behold this silent, piteous procession, that emerges ceaselessly, and passes on. Into and out of the ordeal of fire; from the pride of the ranks to the suffering of the hospital, these forms have been, and come, and are of no more avail. Who stands at gaze between a battle and these ghastly effects, and keeps not the banner of the future his mental vision, had better let his thought be still. For else he does, that cry of the human always evoked by human suffering cannot be kept down in a presence like this.

Two o'clock. In the momentary calm that sinks upon the forest in front we can hear a louder conflict gathering and growing on the left. There Crawford has been driven back; there the enemy are pressing in hordes down the turnpike, to gain the junction of the Brock road. Getty has advanced and met them. Hancock has come up at last, and Birney is going in on Getty's right. Mott and Barlow are forming on the left of the line, and Gibbon's division is coming up as a reserve. The enemy are checked, but their concentration continues. Troops are sent to the left from the Fifth corps, and by four o'clock General Hancock is in command of half the army in action.

of soldiers make the obeisance of death before him, he does not come on.

And as the day dies, and the darkness creeps up from the west, although no cheer of victory swells through the Wilderness from either side, we have accomplished this much at least, with much sore loss: the concentration of our army, the holding of the junction of the Orange Court-house and Brock roads; the turning back of the enemy's right flank from our path toward Richmond, and the average gain of a half mile of ground.

BATTLE OF FRIDAY, MAY SIX.

It will be seen that the battle just partially sketched was a forced battle, consisting for the most part of a series of assaults for the purpose of defending the position obtained Thursday morning, and effecting the junction of the army. The uncertainty of the situation had prevented the full and combined exertion of our strength, and as Longstreet had not yet been heard of, it was surmised that the enemy would prove himself in stronger force on the morrow. During the night the sound of axes and talling trees in our front showed that the foe intended to contest his position on the morrow behind new defences. Our lines were consolidated and freshly posted, the three corps retaining their respective positions-Warren in the centre, Sedgwick on the right, Hancock on the left, the latter still having the lion's share of troops, gathered from all the corps.

An attack was ordered to be made by the whole army at five o'clock Friday morning, until which time, save slight skirmishing in the night, fighting was suspended, and the troops slept upon their arms, disposed as follows:

On the right of General Sedgwick's line, nearest the river, were three regiments of Gen

And now, from left to right the sound of the shock of battle arises anew. Hancock is ad-eral Shaler's brigade-the Sixty-fifth New York vancing, Sedgwick is advancing. Warren is in partial wait. Along the left a guttural, oceanic roar prevails, without an interval of rest. Like a great engine, dealing death, the Second corps and its supports move forward, taking equal death in return. Companies fall, regiments are thinned, brigades melt away. Stricken in the head by a bullet, General Alexander Hayes, commanding the Second brigade of Birney's division, has rolled from his horse, dead. General Getty is wounded; Colonel Carroll, commanding the Third brigade of the Second division, is wounded; a host of line officers are stricken low; the enemy fights ke a demon, but the fight moves on.

Sedgwick moves on, breaking the enemy's line for a moment, and taking four or five hundred prisoners. There are ripples of disaster on all the line, but they are quickly repaired.

Slowly, for the enemy is stubborn; slower yet on the extreme right, toward the river, for the enemy there has massed another force, and strives to break our flank. He finds a rock, and though he checks our advance, though hundreds

Chasseurs, One Hundred and Twenty-second New York, and Sixty-seventh Pennsylvania; General Seymour's brigade, of Ricketts' division, connected on the left. Next came General Neill's brigade, composed of the Forty-third, Forty-ninth, and Seventy-seventh New York, the Seventh Maine, and the Sixty-first Pennsylvania volunteers. Next came Upton's and Russell's brigades of the First divison; and last the Second brigade, of the Third division, commanded by Colonel Smith. A second and third line of battle, supporting the centre, was formed of the New Jersey brigade and the Fourth New York heavy artillery. The other brigades, of Ricketts' and Getty's division, were still detached, and acting with the Fifth and Second corps.

General Warren's command was still reduced to the two divisions of Crawford and Griffin and a brigade of Robinson's, General Wadsworth and Robinson being under command of Hancock. The lines formed by the two commands of Gen erals Warren and Sedgwick stretched from near the river, through the forest, across the road

REBELLION RECORD, 1862- 65.

leading to Locust Grove, to within half a mile
of the Orange Court-house road.

Across this road, and far to the left, the troops
led by Hancock were disposed-Colonel Car-
roll's and General Hayes' (now Colonel Crocker's)
brigades on the right, and Generals Ward's and
Owen's brigades on the left of the thoroughfare.
The three brigades of General Getty's division
of the Sixth corps, commanded by Generals
Eustis, Wheaton, and Grant, were in support.
General Mott's division, of the Second corps,
adjoined on the left-the whole left of this line
being under command of Birney. The divisions
of Generals Gibbon and Barlow formed the left
of the line, under command of Gibbon.
cavalry were operating still further on the left,
Our
and the left flank of the army was, for the first
time, in a position strongly supported by
artillery.

At precisely twenty minutes before five o'clock, Friday morning, the enemy anticipated and took from us the opening honors of the intended attack, by throwing themselves, with considerable impetus, against our left and left centre. They were repulsed and driven back by the Sixth corps, which accomplished the work in time to join the advance movement begun at five o'clock by most of the army.

The right of Hancock's forces, swinging on the left like a pivot, pushed on in advance of Griffin and Crawford, leaving a gap there. The flank thus exposed was at once supported by General Wadsworth's division and the brigade of General Webb in time to repulse an effort of the enemy against it. At eleven o'clock the determined fighting of Hancock's troops had won a mile and a half of ground, part of which was open in their front, charged and taken a portion of the enemy's line of rifle-pits, together with several hundred prisoners, and were still fighting, lacking ammunition.

Meanwhile, the Sixth corps was thundering in the forest below, with musketry and a few scattered cannon. The enemy's artillery was not silent; it began early to play bass above the infernal falsetto of musketry that drowned the fair sounds and songs of early morning.

A battle fought upon the field, seen from some height, or even watched from the midst of its own danger, has a conspicuous sublimity which dulls the sense of horror. Carry the same fight into the depth of a jungle; watch it or listen to it, if you can, without a ghastly thrill. There, in the depths of those ravines, under the shadows of those trees, entangled in that brushwood, is fluttering of banners in an unhindered breeze, no pomp of war, no no solid tramp of marching battalions, no splendid strategy of loved to fight on. the fields Napoleon There gloomy, hideous, desperate, rages confined. a Saturnalia, That metallic, hollow rack of musketry is like the clanking of great chains about the damned; that sullen yell of the enemy, a fiendish protest and defiance. each minute is freighted with a burden that the How the hours lag; now

days would have groaned to bear in other emerging out of the smoke and tumult and passtimes! Still the sad, shuddering procession, ing on. Still the appealing eyes and clenched hands and quivering limbs of human creatures, worse than helpless, whose fighting is over. The paths are full of them; the woods are thick with them; the forest seems to take up the slow movement, and move with them, like giants hovering over the funeral of Liliputians. Piled in ambulances, they move on further yet, while the torture of battle plies on below, making more victims. Here and there, beside some path, you shall see a heaped the name the corpse beneath it bore in life; here blanket, labelled by some thoughtful bearer with and there you shall come across a group of men bending over one wounded past help, and dying shameful spectacle of one bearing a weapon, unan agonized death. And often-too often-the hurt, pallid and fear-stricken, flits through an opening toward the rear and is gone. You shall meet with soldiers in groups of one, or two, or three, hidden in some thicket or, coolly making coffee by the roadside. And hearing the roar of the battle below, and seeing the bloody trails of the battle behind, it shall be a back with curses to the ranks, to share the danglad thing to see these men hunted by officers gers of their nobler comrades.

It is like a maelstrom. You feel it sucking you
About this battle there is a horrible fascination.
in, and you go nearer to see men fall like those
you have seen fallen. Down through the break,
underneath the edges of the smoke, where the
bullets are thick and the trunks of trees, like
the ranks of men, sway and fall with the smiting
and the carnage of this fight. There are the
of shells, you have a little view of the courage
enemy, retreated to the breastworks-a ragged
their heads, spitting lead and flame. Here is
pile of fallen trees and heaped-up earth-hiding
the Sixth corps-what you can see of it-
plunging on, firing continually, tumbling over
branches and limbs, sinking waist deep in
swamps, fighting with its might and bleeding at
under Wright, are martyred for a time in a ra-
at every pore. The troops of the First division,
vine swept by musketry in front, and by a cross-
fire of artillery from right and left. The few
guns that we have posted to the left have fune-
ral voices for our enemy on the ridge, perishing
the division breathes once more, but on come
beneath their fire in scores. The ridge is taken,
the enemy, an avalanche of greater numbers,
made in a place like this against positions like
pushing us back. Not much headway can be
these, and although at eleven o'clock, when a
lull drops upon the field, not more than half a
works are not taken.
mile of ground has been gained, and the enemy's

Hancock's advanced line and the left of War-
Before noon, the gap still existing between
ren's was made the opportunity of the enemy.
were not in position. They were on the way.
Burnside was expected, but Burnside's troops