“To the rear!” shouted the troops, as he rode in front of them; “to the rear!”
And he was obliged to obey.
He was not needed.
The gray lines surged forward: the thicket was full of smoke and quick flashes of flame: then the woods took fire, and the scene of carnage had a new and ghastly feature added to it. Dense clouds of smoke rose, blinding and choking the combatants: the flames crackled, soared aloft, and were blown in the men’s faces; and still, in the midst of this frightful array of horrors, the carnival of destruction went on without ceasing.
At nightfall, General Lee had driven the enemy from their front line of works—but nothing was gained.
What could be gained in that wretched country, where there was nothing but thicket, thicket!
General Grant saw his danger, and, no doubt, divined the object of his adversary,—to arrest and cripple him in this tangle-wood, where numbers did not count, and artillery could not be used.
There was but one thing to do—to get out of the jungle.
So, on the day after this weird encounter, in which he had lost nearly 20,000 men, and Lee about 8,000, Grant moved toward Spottsylvania.
The thickets of the Wilderness were again silent, and the blue and gray objects in the undergrowth did not move.