for a while the two twelve-pounders, but still keeping up a fusillade. We soon closed up our shattered ranks and the brigade settled down again to its task. Our fire was now directed at the top of the breastworks, and woe be to the head or hand that appeared above it. In the meantime the New Jersey brigade, Colonel W. H. Penrose, went into action on our right, and the Third Brigade, General Eustis's, was hard at work. The Vermont brigade, under Colonel Lewis A. Grant, that had been sent to Barlow's assistance, was now at the Angle, and General Wheaton's brigade was deep in the struggle. The Second and Third Divisions of the Sixth Corps were also ready to take part. It will thus be seen that we had no lack of men for the defense or capture of this position, whichever it may be termed.

The great difficulty was the prescribed limits of the Angle, around which we were fighting, which precluded the possibility of getting more than a limited number into action at once. At one time our ranks were crowded in some parts four deep by reënforcements. Major Henry P. Truefitt, commanding the 119th Pennsylvania, was killed, and Captain Charles P. Warner, who succeeded him, was shot dead. Later in the day Major William Ellis, of the 49th New York, who had excited our admiration, was shot through the arm and body with a ramrod during one of several attempts to get the men to cross the works and drive off the enemy. Our losses were frightful. What remained of many different regiments that had come to our support had concentrated at this point, and had planted their tattered colors upon a slight rise of ground close to the Angle, where they staid during the latter part of the day.

To keep up the supply of ammunition pack mules were brought into use, each animal carrying three thousand rounds. The boxes were dropped close behind the troops engaged, where they were quickly opened by the officers or file-closers, who served the ammunition to the men. The writer fired four hundred rounds of ammunition, and many others as many or more. In this manner a continuous and rapid fire was maintained, to which the enemy replied with vigor for a while.

Finding that we were not to be driven back, the Confederates began to use more discretion, exposing themselves but little, using the loopholes in their works to fire through, and at times placing the muzzles of their rifles on the top logs, seizing the trigger and small of the stock, and

*The stump of one of these trees is preserved in Washington. In his official report, Brigadier-General Samuel McGowan, who commanded a brigade in Wilcox's Confederate division, says: "To give some idea of the intensity of the fire, an oak-tree twenty-two inches

elevating the breech with one hand sufficiently to reach us. During the day one of our batteries took position behind us, sending shell after shell close over our heads, to explode inside the Confederate works. In like manner Coehorn mortars eight hundred yards in our rear sent their shells with admirable precision gracefully curving over us. Sometimes the enemy's fire would slacken, and the moments would become so monotonous that something had to be done to stir them up. Then some resolute fellow would seize a fence rail or piece of abatis, and, creeping close to the breastworks, thrust it over among the enemy, and then drop on the ground to avoid the volley that was sure to follow. A daring lieutenant in one of our left companies leaped upon the breastworks, took a rifle that was handed to him, and discharged it among the foe. In like manner he discharged another, and was in the act of firing a third shot when his cap flew up in the air, and his body pitched headlong among the enemy.

On several occasions squads of disheartened Confederates raised pieces of shelter tents above the works as a flag of truce; upon our slacking fire and calling to them to come in, they would immediately jump the breastworks and surrender. One party of twenty or thirty thus signified their willingness to submit; but owing to the fact that their comrades occasionally took advantage of the cessation to get a volley into us, it was some time before we concluded to give them a chance. With leveled pieces we called to them to come in. Springing upon the breastworks in a body, they stood for an instant panic-stricken at the terrible array before them; that momentary delay was the signal for their destruction. While we, with our fingers pressing the trigger, shouted to them to jump, their troops, massed in the rear, poured a volley into them, killing or wounding all but a few, who dropped with the rest and crawled in under our pieces, while we instantly began firing.

The battle, which during the morning raged with more or less violence on the right and left of this position, gradually slackened, and attention was concentrated upon the Angle. So continuous and heavy was our fire that the head logs of the breastworks were cut and torn until they resembled hickory brooms. Several large oak-trees, which grew just in the rear of the works, were completely gnawed off by our converging fire, and about 3 o'clock in the day fell among the enemy with a loud crash.*

Towards dusk preparations were made to in diameter, which stood just in rear of the right of the brigade, was cut down by the constant scaling of musket-balls, and fell about 12 o'clock Thursday night, injuring by its fall several soldiers in the 1st South Carolina regiment."―EDITOR.

relieve us. By this time we were nearly exhausted, and had fired three to four hundred rounds of ammunition per man. Our lips were encrusted with powder from "biting cartridge." Our shoulders and hands were coated with mud that had adhered to the butts of our rifles.*

The troops of the Second Corps, who were to relieve us, now moved up, took our position, and opened fire as we fell back a short distance to re-arrange our shattered ranks and get something to eat, which we were sadly in need of. When darkness came on we dropped from exhaustion.

About midnight, after twenty hours of constant fighting, Lee withdrew from the contest, leaving the Angle in our possession. Thus closed the battle of the second day at Spotsylvania.

On the 13th, early in the day, volunteers were called for to bury the dead. The writer volunteered to assist, and with the detail moved to the works near the Angle, in front of which we buried a number of bodies near where they fell. We were exposed to the fire of sharpshooters, and it was still raining. We cut the name, company, and regiment of each of the dead on the lids of ammunition boxes which we picked up near by. The inscriptions were but feebly executed, for they were done with a pocket knife. This work ended, we went close up where we had fought on Thursday and viewed the spot appropriately called the "Slaughter Pen," or " Bloody Angle."

Our pieces at times would become choked with burnt powder, and would receive the cartridge but half way. This fact, however, did not interfere with their discharge.-G. N. G.

A momentary gleam of sunshine through the gloom of the sky seemed to add a new horror to the scene. Hundreds of Confederates, dead or dying, lay piled over one another in those pits. The fallen lay three or four feet deep in some places, and, with but few exceptions, they were shot in and about the head. Arms, accouterments, ammunition, cannon, shot and shell, and broken foliage were strewn about. With much labor a detail of Union soldiers buried the dead by simply turning the captured breast works upon them. Thus had these unfortunate victims unwittingly dug their own graves. The trenches were nearly full of muddy water. It was the most horrible sight I had ever witnessed.

The enemy's defenses at this point were elaborately constructed of heavy timber, banked with earth to the height of about four feet; above this was placed what is known as a head log, raised just high enough to enable a musket to be inserted between it and the lower work. Pointed pine and pin-oak formed an abatis, in front of which was a deep ditch. Shelves ran along the inside ledges of these works (a series of square pits) and along their flank traverses which extended to the rear; upon these shelves large quantities of "buck and ball" and "minie" cartridges were piled ready for use, and the guns of the dead and wounded were still pointing through the apertures, just as the men had fallen from them.

G. Norton Galloway.

The Confederate General McGowan officially says: "The trenches on the right in the bloody angle ran with blood and had to be cleared of the dead bodies more than once."-EDITOR.

From a careful examination of the Official Records the total effective strength of Grant's army at the beginning of the Wilderness campaign is estimated at about 118,000, and that of Lee's army at about 61,000 of all arms.

On June 1st, at and about Cold Harbor the Army of the Potomac numbered, "present for duty," 103,875. The Eighteenth Corps, from the Army of the James, added to the army on the same date about 10,000 men. The strength of Lee's army at Cold Harbor is nowhere authoritatively stated. This also applies to the Confederate losses from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor.

The losses in battle of the Union army, as denoted by the revised tables prepared by the late Colonel Robert N. Scott, may be summarized as follows:

A Missing Confederate Cipher Dispatch. ON the 6th of April, 1887, a statue of General A. S. Johnston, who fell at Shiloh twenty-five years before, was unveiled in the Metarie Cemetery at New Orleans. Among those present at that interesting ceremony was the Confederate ex-President, Mr. Jefferson Davis. Being called upon, he spoke in his usual controversial vein, including these words: "On the field of Shiloh he [Johnston] made but one mistake. He had planned that battle and had sent me a telegram,—which was lost,- which described it just as it was fought - the only battle in the world's history that was fought as the general expected."

In effect this is but a re-averment of a story first

broached in his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate

Government," and repeated orally in one or more public addresses. In his book (Vol. II., p. 57) Mr. Davis gives the full text of a telegram from General Johnston to himself dated April 3d, 1862, which he describes as explaining the proposed Confederate "order of movement" upon Pittsburg Landing, and the concluding paragraph of which is in these words: "Hope engagement before Buell can form junction." This was immediately followed, on the same page, with a telegram which he says he sent on the 5th of April, to wit, "General A. S. Johnston: Your dispatch of yesterday received. hope you will be able to close with enemy before his two columns meet."

This is presented, however, by Mr. Davis not as the answer to the telegram of the 3d of April, but to "one in cipher" of the 4th of April, which he declares is lost, thus strangely overlooking the fact that the closing words of his own dispatch are too clearly the echo of those of Johnston's telegram of April 3d not to be his answer thereto, as is made indisputable by the history of that telegram.

As after the 29th of March, 1862, General Johnston really exercised no active command over the army at Corinth, he either had not found it necessary to provide himself with the means of cipher communication with the Richmond authorities or had mislaid them. Be this as it may, after the conference with Beauregard and the corps commanders at the quarters of the former, on the morning of April 3d, when Beauregard explained his plan of battle, which General Johnston approved, the latter, wishing to inform Mr. Davis of the forward movement, wrote the dispatch of that date. To secure the transmission of it with essential secrecy he sent it to Beauregard for translation into a dictionary cipher (based upon Webster's school dictionary, three columns to the page) which that general had for such communications with his government. That translation I give as it exists in General Beauregard's official telegram book in its regular order of date as follows: "CORINTH, April 3d, 1862, 3 P. M. "TO THE PRESIDENT, RICHMOND, VA. General Buell 132. R. 5- 166 L 26-250. M 20 Rg239 M 32-III M 28-Columbia 43 M 6- Clifton 252 M 6. 218 M. 26. Mitchell 32. R. 22- 124. R. 32. 276 R 27 248 M, I- -250 R. 9 -59 R. 17- 108 20 109. R. 16 — 175 R 6 ed 109 R. 18- 252. M 6174 L. 28 31 M. 10- 69. L. 12 Pittsburg 84 M. 4 -III. M. 28 — Bethel-156 M. 4-37 M. 20-111. M 28

250

M.

After translation the original was returned to General Johnston, among whose papers it was found and published by Mr. William Preston Johnston, in the biography of his father, as well as by Mr. Davis, but on the part of the son, altogether unwittingly of the fact that it was the translation of the very cipher dispatch whose loss Mr. Davis had deplored, for the reason, as he imagined, that it was not only the plan of battle as Johnston had devised, but as he had fought it. On the other hand, the son adduces it as "clearly" showing that it was the plan of battle as his father had originally devised, but not as he had fought it; “doubtless," as he naïvely suggests, "in deference to General Beauregard's opinion in the matter, and for reasons which seemed sufficient at the time." In that biography this dispatch appears without the evidence of the hour of its transmission, and is thus and otherwise made to do duty inconsistent with the fact of that hour, to wit, 3 P. M. Here is the text of it as printed both by Mr. Davis and by Mr. W. P. Johnston:

"CORINTH, April 3d, 1862. "General Buell in motion 30,000 strong, rapidly from Columbia by Clifton to Savannah. Mitchell behind him with 10,000. Confederate forces -40,000 - ordered forward to offer battle near Pittsburg. Division from Bethel, main body from Corinth, reserve from Burnsville, converging to-morrow near Monterey on Pittsburg. Beauregard second in command, Polk the left, Bragg the center, Hardee the right wing, Breckinridge the reserve. Hope engagement before Buell can form junction.

"TO THE PRESIDENT, RICHMOND."

Mr. Davis admits that he has vainly sought to resurrect the alleged missing cipher dispatch of the 4th of April. In other words, the original of no such paper was among the very full files of official papers left by General Johnston; though it is a fact that they were so full as to be worth ten thousand dollars after the war to the United States government. But Johnston's papers did contain the telegram of the 3d of April — really the only cipher dispatch that was transmitted. The alleged tenor of the telegram of April 4th makes it improbable, I may add, that any dispatch revealing the plan of battle was sent.

The text of the cipher telegram of the 3d of April disposes of two myths: the one born of the bad memory of Mr. Davis as to its scope and tenor; the other, begotten in the brain of the son by an ill-grounded criticism on the part of the Comte de Paris, to the effect that the attack should not have been made, as it was, in three deployed lines parallel with the line of the enemy, but with the three corps moving in columns of attack perpendicularly to the Federal line, each corps having its own reserve. Turning his back square upon the fact that he had just been laboriously seeking to show that his father, not Beauregard, had planned the manner of the battle as well as of the march, Colonel

Lord Wolseley's Estimate of General Lee.

PROMPT

ROMPTED by the appearance of General Long's "Memoirs of Robert E. Lee," Lord Wolseley has followed in the trail of the expert reviewers who allude to a new book as an excuse for enlarging the subject with the fruits of their own study and observation. His critique is printed in “Macmillan's Magazine" for March, and is worthy of general perusal for two reasons: It affords a view (from the English standpoint) of the war of secession and the best-known Southern chieftain; and although it has little to say that is important or true with regard to General Lee, it sheds a flood of light on the military learning and mental strategy of the most conspicuous general in the British army.

No people are better acquainted with Lee's merits as a soldier than the Army of the Potomac. They admire also those traits of character which endeared him to his fellow-Confederates. So if Northerners cannot assist Lord Wolseley in placing him "on an equal pedestal with that of Washington," it is from no contempt of his abilities. The chief reason is the fact that Washington labored to create a Union of States and that Lee, with sorrow, but with greater love for a particular State, labored to divide the Union. But now that the Union he would yet have been glad to see preserved, is preserved, General Lee is for the whole country an American hero.*

In 1862 Lord Wolseley was a visitor at General Lee's headquarters, where he undoubtedly had opportunities of taking a studious interest in Confederate persons and affairs. He assures us frequently in the course of his paper that he has been a student of our war, and the following sentiment, alone, would point to such study as a duty for a man in his responsible position, since he says that "the influence which the result of this Confederate war is bound to exercise upon man's future history will seem very great."

Lord Wolseley's enthusiasm for Lee springs from personal knowledge, for he says that Lee" is stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to all others, in every way." But it is fortunate for Lee's fame that the admiration of his countrymen, North and South, rests upon solid facts, and not, as in Lord Wolseley's case, upon misconception of his character and ignorance of the leading events of his career. It is remarkable also that with all his admiration Lord Wolseley has not allowed his opinions to be influenced by those of his hero, even where Lee might be supposed to be an authority; nor consulted Lee's orders and reports for clews to his motives in strategy and battle. He would seem also to have imitated the traditional reviewer who found it bad method to read a book before criticising it, for certainly he has not leaned heavily on General Long for information.

* In his recent speech at Nashville, Senator John Sherman, referring to the losses and sacrifices of the war, said in part: "The courage, bravery, and fortitude of both sides are now the pride and heritage of us all. Think not that I come here to reproach any man for the part he took in that fight, or to revive in

For convenience let us catalogue some of the points in which Lord Wolseley differs from General Lee and other esteemed authorities :

1. At the outset he says that any "unprejudiced outsider will admit the sovereign right, both historical and legal, which each State possessed under the Constitution to leave the Union when its people thought fit to do so." But General Lee thought differently. In a letter to his son dated January 23d, 1861 (see General Long's "Memoirs," page 88), General Lee says:

"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolubled. It is idle to talk of secession.' tion or the consent of all the people in convention assem

2. "As I study the history of the secession war," says Lord Wolseley, presumably with a wink at the Muse of History, "these [Lee and Lincoln] seem to me the two men who influenced it most.”

Whatever parallel might be drawn between the native integrity and manliness of Lincoln and of Lee, it has been accepted hitherto that Lincoln was the chief executive on one side, and that Lee, shrinking from the responsibilities of civil war, "save," as he writes, "in the defense of my native State," devoted his energies to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, while other Southerners of great abilities wielded the executive power, and other Southern generals, whose services Lee was great enough to admire, worked faithfully under the executive power, like Lee himself, for the common cause. The early victories that nerved the Southern heart for great sacrifices were won by other men. Lee's first service in the field, in West Virginia, though wisely conservative in view of the difficulties, was a public disappointment. Later he fell heir to Johnston's good beginnings at Seven Pines, in which action the latter was severely wounded. Though almost a fruitless battle, it checked McClellan's aggressive policy, so that Lee had to do at the outset with an enemy whose ardor had subsided; who, in fact, was more concerned about his own safety and “a change of base" than about the capture of Richmond. Lee's daring campaign in the Seven Days' fighting was no compliment to General McClellan, though Lord Wolseley remembers that Lee expressed greater admiration for McClellan than for any other Union general. From this time on Lee was, without question, the chief prop to the military confidence of the South; but he was responsible only for the leadership of the Army of Northern Virginia, until- and now comes a fact for which Lord Wolseley should have the credit of accuracy —

the heart of any one the triumph of victory or the pangs of defeat. No man in the North questions the honesty of purpose or the heroism with which the Confederates maintained their cause, and you will give credit for like courage and honorable motives to Union soldiers, North and South.”