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rout, but whirled along in its resistless current. Beside the road was General Lee, irritated and excited beyond precedent, eager to stem the torrent of flight hy catching hold of any organized body of men and launching them in person against the head of the Federal advance. Upon this hurly-burly of confusion and alarm supervened at the most critical moment Longstreet and his Corps. This fresh body of troops, with Kershaw's Division in advance, came forward upon the exhausted Federal troops in such force, overlapping the left, that the Third Brigade, Colonel Frank, broke and fled back. The pressure was so great along the whole line of the command thus assaulted, that it was also broken in several places. Portions of the front line retreated in disorder. Officers who commanded there, commanded in some instances troops not their own, and of whose fighting qualities they knew nothing. Those officers did their best, but could not stem the panic. General Wadsworth, galloping, appealing, commanding, fell dead from his horse in the front of the battle, deserted by more than half his troops. The line fell back before the advancing rebels, and the ground whence Heth and Wilcox had been forced once more passed into their hands. Hancock's whole force retired behind the line intrenched the day before on the Brock road. In this encounter the enemy lost Geneneral Jenkins killed, and General Longstreet wounded. The circumstances under which the latter was injured were thus described by a Southern spectator: "At this moment (the retreat of Hancock) Longstreet, after brief cousultation with General Lee, suggested a flank movement not dissimilar to that by which, twelve months before, the bloody day of Chancellorsville was decided by Jackson. It was commenced: the promise of the first movement was richly encouraging. Generals Longstreet and Jenkins rode in great glee with their staff along the plankroad, when one of those unforeseen accidents which are inseparable from war, and doubly hazardous with undisciplined troops, checked in an instant all laughter and merriment. A volley at short range, issuing from Mahone's Brigade of Confederates as they poured bliquely through the tangled undergrowth of the Wilderness, struck Longstreet's little party like a white squall; General Jenkins sprang high from his saddle and fell dead with a bullet through his brain; Longstreet himself lay stretched in the road pulseless and inanimate, nd, as all thought, with but few minutes of life left in him. Instantly he flank movement was arrested. About an hour later, Longstreet, waking from his swoon, exclaimed to Dr. Cullen: In another half our, but for my wound, there would not have been a Yankee regiment anding and unbroken on the south of the Rapidan.' It is somehat remarkable that this took place very near the spot where "Stone.

James Samuel Wadsworth was born in Gene-. New York, October 30th, 1807, was educated at rvard and Yale Colleges, and admitted to the in 1833. But having inherited an immense led estate in Western New York, he devoted self chiefly to its improvement. He was a ninent member of the Republican party from period of its formation, and a commissioner The Peace Conference at Washington in 1861. embarked heartily in the cause of the Union, appointed brigadier-general of volunteers

999

August, 1861, and in March, 1862, became Military
Governor of Washington. In the fall of that year
he was the Union candidate for Governor of New
York, but was defeated by Horatio Seymour. As
commander of a division of the Army of the Po-
tomac he fought with reputation at Fredericks-
burg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and fell
at the head of the Fourth Division of the Fifth
Corps, at the battle of the Wilderness, May 6th,
1864, as described in the text.

wall" Jackson, a year previous, lost his life by a similar mistake of his

own men.

A comparative lull occurred at noon, and our forces took the opportunity it afforded to draw up and concentrate their lines, interposing the greater part of Burnside's Ninth Corps between Hancock and Warren. The left also was brought forward a little from the Brock road, to which it had been driven, towards the centre. Hardly had these fortunate dispositions been made, when again, in the middle of the afternoon, the enemy fell upon our left and centre with great fury, and again pushed them back. At the junction of the left and centre the attack was particularly severe, Crawford's Third Division of the Fifth Corps, Carr's Fourth Division of the Second Corps, and Stevenson's Division of the Ninth Corps suffering its brunt. The latter division, on Hancock's right, giving way overpowered, the enemy rushed through the gap. Hancock then dispatched Carroll's Third Brigade, Second Division of the Second Corps, to sweep along the whole line and attack the enemy in flank. The manœuvre was most gallantly and successfully executed, the enemy retiring with much loss, and our troops gradually gaining their old alignment. The left and centre. of the army, thus having attacked and been attacked throughout the day, stood firm at last-the field and forest floor before it and around it strewn with its and the enemy's dead, and throbbing with its wounded. It had taken in the course of the day many prisoners; it held a larger part of the field than that occupied in the morning; its losses were severe. The resolute and persevering enemy was not yet at rest, however, but now massed his troops for a final rush at the extreme right, where were posted the commands of Shaler and Seymour. On the extreme right, towards the river, a dark column wound its way out of the breast works of the enemy, through the thick forests towards our right flank, moving with such deliberation that a working party was enabled to throw up a slight earthwork between themselves and our troops. A supporting column formed behind this work. Between six and seven P. M., the attack burst with resistless force upon the troops of Shaler and Seymour, who were mostly captured, with their commanders, a few only escaping to Germania Ford. This disaster on the right exposed the whole army to imminent peril. Amid the panic, however, are seen Sedgwick and the officers upon his staff building up order out of the ruin. The grand old commander-his hat off, his bridle dropped, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other-is an assurance of safety preventing further panic. The enemy come on, but to no further conquest. For there is a line of steel which cannot be broken-Neill's Brigade. Against it, as a billow against a rock, the exultant masses of the enemy fall and break, and are thrown back, and retire.

The disaster to the extreme right of the Sixth Corps was of a serious character, and might have proved fatal had the enemy been in a condition to follow up his advantage. But so dearly was the advantage gained that their effort to thrust themselves between us and the Germania Ford was left unprosecuted, even when it was nearest being successful. Artillery, however, had been posted to command the column of rebels, in case it should burst through and over the right flank

of our army. Our losses in this wing fell little below six thousand, of which four thousand, probably, occurred during the enemy's assault. Our losses in the Second Corps ranged in the neighborhood of three thousand. And our total losses in the two days' fighting were not far from fifteen thousand men. Those of the enemy were probably no less severe. In these battles there was an unusual proportion of wounded among the casualties, arising from the fact that so little artillery was used on either side. Among our general officers killed in the two battles were Hayes and Wadsworth; and on the rebel side, Jones and Jenkins, with Longstreet, Pegram, and Hunter severely

wounded.

It is remarkable that in the official dispatches on both sides, including those of our Secretary of War and of General Lee, each army claimed to have "repelled the fierce attack of the enemy," rather than to have initiated the attack. At all events, it seems clear that both armies designed attack. On Tuesday our forces undoubtedly moved out to find the enemy, and discovered him advancing to oppose us. In like man

The

ner, it is certain that an attack both on the right and left was ordered for our forces at five A. м. on Friday. On the left it was made, but on the right it was anticipated by the enemy, who had the same intent, but had set the time of execution a few minutes earlier than we. same mutual disposition to attack reappeared more than once during the day, and with marked emphasis in the afternoon, and at the attack on Hancock. It may be added, that this terrific infantry contest of Friday closed on a disputed field, neither army having gained great advantage, and friend and foe lying side by side over a broad stretch of territory in attestation of the equal fortune of the day. General Grant held substantially the same line as on Thursday evening, but he had strengthened it on the left. During the night, preparations were made to strengthen the right also, and to repair the disaster which the enemy's last charge had wrought on that flank. Except for this work, the night was comparatively quiet, our army lying silently along their hasty lines of rifle-pits, and the rebels still keeping their more formidable intrenchments on the edge of the woods, while the intervening space so often fought over was held by the dead and wounded of both the combatants.

CHAPTER L.

Movement upon Spottsylvania.-The Enemy on the Alert.-Attack of May 10th.-
Death of Sedgwick.-Position of the Troops.-Grant "to Fight it out on that Line."
-Assault by the Second Corps on May 12th.-Large Captures of Prisoners and
Guns. Results of the Struggle.-Sheridan's Cavalry Raid.-Death of General
Stuart.-Battle at Meadow Bridge.-Sheridan at the James River.

THE morning of Saturday, May 7th, opened with an interchange of hot and shell. The right wing had been protected and strengthened view of renewed attack. The morning wore away, however, with othing of more importance than skirmishing. About noon a rather igorous demonstration was made against our centre, and repelled by portion of the Fifth Corps and a battery which obtained position in

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