Hunter encountered the Confederates the 5th of June, at Piedmont, and, after an action of several hours, defeated them, capturing fifteen hundred prisoners and three pieces of artillery. This result is attributable to the fact that Lee had ventured on detaching Breckinridge's division from the force in the valley to join the army confronting Grant. The 8th of the same month, Hunter formed a junction with Crook and Averill at Staunton, from which place he moved towards Lynchburg, by way of Lexington. Arriving before Lynchburg, it was found to be well defended; and, as Hunter learned that re-enforcements to the Confederates were arriving by railroad from Lee's army, while his own supplies of ammunition were nearly exhausted, he determined to return. But this he judged too perilous by the route over which he had advanced, seeing that the enemy, by means of the Virginia Central Railroad, might rapidly throw forces in his rear. He thought it better, therefore, to retire by the line of the Kanawha. His supplies had nearly given out; but it was confidently expected that great store would be found at Meadow Bridge, five or six marches from Lynchburg, where a half-million rations had been left a few days before by Crook and Averill, under guard of two Ohio regiments of hundred days' men. These troops, however, were stampeded by a contemptible handful of guerrillas, and, after burning about half the stores, carried off the remainder. The return of Hunter's column by way of the Alpine and almost impracticable region of West Virginia was attended with great privations; but he succeeded in bringing it through. The eccentric line of retreat taken up put him for several weeks out of all relation with military operations, and entirely uncovered the frontier of the loyal States. Aside from great material damage inflicted on the enemy by the destruction of foundries, factories, and mills, Hunter's operations had no sensible influence on the campaign in Virginia.

Both co-operative columns being thus disposed of, it is now time to return to the Army of the Potomac.

The experience of the twelve days before Spottsylvania brought the conviction to every man in the army that the position, as defended, was, in truth, impregnable. Of this even General Grant, anxious as he was to give Lee a crushing blow, was at length convinced. Then, as in the Wilderness, he began a movement to turn the position by a flank march. This is an operation usually accounted very hazardous in the presence of a vigilant enemy. Nevertheless, it was conducted with great precision and skill and complete success. First of all, Hancock's corps, taken from the right of the army, moved on the night of the 20th May, behind the cover of the remaining corps, eastward to Massaponax Church. Thence, heading southward, and preceded by Torbett's cavalry division, Hancock, on the following day, pushed his advance to Milford Station, on the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad, seventeen miles south of his point of starting. The cavalry in advance, with much address, dislodged a hostile force holding the bridge across the Mattapony near this point,* and Hancock threw his left over that stream at Bowling Green. In this position it bivouacked on the night of the 21st, and here also the Second Corps remained till the morning of the 23d, while other movements about to be described were under way. This turning movement, jealously guarded as it was, did not pass unobserved by the wary enemy. Now, it is well

* It happened that a Confederate brigade, under Kemper, on its way from Richmond to Spottsylvania to re-enforce Lee, had reached this point and taken up a position on the right bank of the Mattapony-a position exceedingly strong against an attempt to cross that stream in force. The cavalry showed much skill and pluck in dislodging the enemy from this position, and captured sixty-six prisoners. But more important still, it secured the bridge.

known that a flank march in presence of the hostile army affords unusual opportunity of striking a blow, and a vigorous commander will not willingly let slip such an occasion of taking the offensive, either by falling upon that portion already on the march, or by attacking the portion that remains behind. It can hardly be supposed that it was any thing but Lee's weakness that prevented his adopting this course; for, although made aware of Grant's initiative, he, instead of acting on the aggressive, adopted the course of falling back on parallel roads nearer to Richmond, with the intention, however, of again interposing his army across Grant's line of march. Accordingly, at midnight on the 20th, the same night on which Hancock set out, Longstreet's corps was headed southward, and another grand race between the two armies, similar to that from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania, was begun. But as Lee's front at Spottsylvania gave him command of the best and direct route leading southward (namely, the telegraph road, with the roads converging on and radiating therefrom), and as it was necessary for the Army of the Potomac, on its delicate flank march, to take circuitous routes well eastward, it was, from the start, probable that Lee would gain on his adversary.

Hancock had begun the movement on the night of the 20th. On the morning of the 21st Warren's corps followed. Lee met this by sending Ewell's corps after Longstreet's. There then remained within the lines of Spottsylvania, Burnside's and Wright's corps on the Union side, and Hill's corps on the Confederate side. Burnside left that afternoon. Wright, with the Sixth Corps, prepared to follow. Hill then fancying it to be a good opportunity to assume the offensive, made a sally on Wright's front, and opened an attack, which, however, was easily repulsed.* During the night the Sixth Corps with

* Hill committed an error in making the attack in front; for had he crossed the Ny above, he would have struck the right flank of the Sixth Corps, uncov. ered by the withdrawal of Warren, and would have had a very effective enfilading fire. As it was, he succeeded in breaking Wright's line at one place; but a heavy artillery fire checked his advance.

drew; Hill did the same, and the works of Spottsylvania, ceasing to be the objects either of attack or defence, remained as parts of the series of parallels that along the whole route of the contending armies, from the Rapidan. to the James, stand monuments of the most desperate campaign in history.

The two armies once fairly on the march, their operations belong to the domain of strategy, which deals with the movements of armies out of sight of each other. Neither indeed, seems to have sought to deal the other a blow while on the march, and both headed, as for a common goal, towards the North Anna. Two marches brought the rival forces once more close to each other.

The region between Spottsylvania and the North Anna, through which the advance conducted, is fair and fertile— the face of the country, beautifully undulating, is nowhere bold, and the river-bottoms have many large and fine plantations, which were at this time under cultivation. It was indeed virgin ground over which the army advanced, showing none of those desolating traces of war that marked all Virginia north of the Rapidan. Here were fields with sprouting wheat and growing corn and luxuriant clover; lowing herds and the perfume of blossoms, and the song of summer birds; homesteads of the Virginia planter (every thing on a large and generous scale), and great ancestral elms, dating back to the time before our forefathers learned to be rebels. Coming as the army so lately did from where the tread of hostile feet for three years had made the country bare and barren as a threshing-floor, the region through which it now passed seemed a very Araby the Blest.

The advances of the 21st and 22d brought the different corps, which had moved on parallel roads at supporting distance, within a few miles of the North Anna River. Resuming the march on the morning of Monday, May 23d, the army in a few hours reached the northern bank of that stream. But it was only to descry its old enemy planted on