Night crept gradually on, the fires were extinguished,
the cannonading slackened gradually, then ceased, and the vast army, save those whom duty kept awake, silently slept under frosted blankets.
Cannonading was resumed at early dawn of the next day, and the slow progress of the troops towards the river continued. Before night our advance had crossed upon the pontoon bridges, notwithstanding a galling fire of the Rebel sharpshooters under cover of the buildings along the river, and was firmly established in the town. Late in the day our Division turned into a grove of young pines, a short distance in the rear of the Phillips House. Upon beds of the dead foliage, soft as carpets of velvet, after the fatigues of the day, slumber was sound.
The reveille sounded at early morn of the next day,—Saturday, the memorable thirteenth of December,—by over three hundred pieces of artillery, again aroused the sleeping camps to arms, and in the grey fog, the groves and valleys for some miles along the river appeared alive with moving masses. As soon as the fog lifted sufficiently, a large balloon between us and the river arose, upon a tour of observation. It was a fine mark for a rifled battery of the Rebels, and some shells passed close to it, and exploded in dangerous proximity to our camp.
Under an incessant artillery fire the main movement of the troops across the river commenced. Leaving our camp and passing to the right of the Phillips mansion, we found our Division, one of a number of columns moving in almost parallel lines to the river. On the western slope of the hill or ridge upon which the house stood, we came to another halt, until our turn to cross should come.
Whatever modern armies may have lost in dazzling appearance, when contrasted with the armies of old
that moved in glittering armor and under "banner, shield, and spear," they certainly have lost nothing in the enginery of death, and in the sights and sounds of the fight itself. A twelve-pound battery under stern old Cato's control, would have sent Cæsar and his legions howling from the gates of Rome, and have saved the dignity of her Senate. The shock of battle was then a medley of human voices, confused with the rattle of the spear upon the shield; now a hell of thunder volumed from successive batteries,—and relieved by screaming and bursting shell and rattling musketry. The proper use of a single shell would have cleared the plains of Marathon. More appropriately can we come down to later times, when
"The old Continentals,
In their ragged regimentals,
Faltered not,"
for the ground upon which our army stood had repeatedly been used as a rallying point for troops, and a depot for military stores in Continental and Revolutionary times. How great the contrast between the armies now upon either side of the Rappahannock, and the numbers, arms, and equipage then raised with difficulty from the country at large. Our forefathers in some measure foresaw our greatness; but they did not foresee the magnitude of the sin of slavery, tolerated by them against their better judgment, and now crowding these banks with immense and hostile armies. Since that day the country has grown, and with it as part of its growth, the iniquity, but the purposes of the God of battles prevail nevertheless. The explosion that rends the rock and releases the toad confined and dormant for centuries, may not have been intended for that end by the unwitting
miner, nor the civil convulsion that shatters a mighty nation to relieve an oppressed people and bestow upon it the blessings of civilization, may not have been started with that view by foul conspirators.