"Thousands of crows rendered good service by devouring the entrails of animals which had been slaughtered by the butchers, and the carcasses of dead horses and mules. They were never shot, because the citizens had no guns, and the soldiers would be punished if they wasted ammunition; and they grew tame and fat in opposition to the well-known saying, and propagated so rapidly that their immense numbers blackened acres of ground in the vicinity of the camps. One noticeable event was a fire which swept over the field of Cedar Mountain, and caused the explosion of shells that had remained there nearly two years after the battle.
"The ordinary preparations for active operations were made as soon as the roads became dry and hard: the ladies were notified to leave the camps previous to a specified date; surplus baggage resumed its annual visit to the storehouses in the rear; and reviews, inspections, and target-practice daily took place."
| IN THE WILDERNESS. |
The Army of the Potomac was now organized in three infantry corps, the Second, Fifth, and Sixth—commanded respectively by Gens. Winfield S. Hancock, Gouverneur K. Warren, and John Sedgwick—and a cavalry corps commanded by Gen. Philip H. Sheridan; Gen. George G. Meade being still in command of the whole. Burnside's corps, the Ninth, nearly twenty thousand strong, was at Annapolis, and nobody but General Grant knew its destination. President Lincoln and his Cabinet thought it was to be sent on some duty down the coast; and so perhaps did the enemy. Grant knew too well that there was a leak somewhere in Washington, through which every Government secret escaped to the Confederates; and he therefore delayed till the last moment the movement of Burnside's corps to a point from which it could follow the Army of the Potomac across the Rapidan within twenty-four hours.
The Army of Northern Virginia consisted of two infantry corps, commanded by Gens. Richard S. Ewell and Ambrose P. Hill, with a cavalry corps commanded by Gen. James E. B. Stuart; the whole commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee; while, as an offset to Burnside's corps, Gen. James Longstreet's was within call. The exact number of men in either army cannot be told, as reports and authorities differ; nor can the approximate numbers be mentioned fairly, unless with an explanation. The method of counting for the official reports was different in the two armies. In the National army, a report that a certain number of men were present for duty included every man that was borne on the pay-rolls, whether officer, soldier, musician, teamster, cook, or mechanic, and also all that had been sent away on special duty, guarding trains and the like. This was necessary, because they were all paid regularly, and the money had to be accounted for. In the Confederate army there was no pay worth speaking of, and the principal object of a morning report was to show the exact effective force available that day; accordingly, the Confederate reports included only the men actually bearing muskets or sabres, or handling the artillery. Counted in this way, Lee had sixty thousand, or perhaps sixty-five thousand, men—for exact reports are wanting, even on that basis. If counted after the fashion in the National army, his men numbered about eighty thousand. Grant puts his own numbers, everything included, at one hundred and sixteen thousand, and thinks the preponderance was fully offset by the fact that the enemy was on the defensive, seldom leaving his intrenchments, in a country admirably suited for defence, and with the population friendly to him. As each side received reinforcements from time to time about equal to its losses, the two armies may be considered as having, throughout the campaign from the Rapidan to the James, the strength just stated.
It was clearly set forth by General Grant at the outset that the true objective was the Army of Northern Virginia. In that lay the chief strength of the Confederacy; while that stood, the Confederacy would stand, whether in Richmond or out of it; when that fell, the Confederacy would fall. To follow that army wherever it went, fight it, and destroy it, was the task that lay before the Army of the Potomac; and every man in the army, as well as most men in the country, knew it was a task that could be accomplished only through immense labor and loss of life, hard marching, heavy fighting, and all manner of suffering.
The intention was to have the simultaneous movement of all the armies begin as near the 1st of May as possible. It actually began at midnight of the 3d, when the Army of the Potomac was set in motion and crossed the Rapidan, which is there about two hundred feet wide, on five pontoon bridges near Germania, Culpeper Mine, and Ely's fords. On crossing, it plunged at once into the Wilderness, which is here traversed from north to south by two roads, a mile or two apart. And these roads are crossed by two—the Orange turnpike and Orange plank road—running nearly east and west. Besides these, there are numerous cross-roads and wood-paths. It would have been easy for the army to pass through this wooded tract in a very few hours, and deploy in the open country; but the supply and ammunition train consisted of four thousand wagons, and the reserve artillery of more than one hundred guns—all of which must be protected by keeping the army between them and the enemy. Consequently the troops remained in the Wilderness during the whole of the 4th, while the long procession was filing across the bridges and stretching away on the easternmost roads. And after this the bridges themselves were taken up. Grant's headquarters that night were at the old Wilderness Tavern, on the Orange turnpike, near the intersection of the road from Germania Ford. It had been supposed that Lee would either dispute the passage of the river, or (as he had done on previous occasions) await attack on some chosen ground that was suitable for fighting. As he had not disputed the passage, the army now expected to march out of the Wilderness the next day, thus turning the enemy's right flank, and placing itself between him and his capital.
But Grant kept pickets out on all the roads to the west; and it cannot be said that he was surprised, though he was probably disappointed, when he found his lines attacked on the morning of the 5th. The movement was believed at first to be only a feint, intended to keep the Army of the Potomac in the Wilderness, while the bulk of the enemy should slip by to the south and take up a position covering the approach to Richmond. But it was developed rapidly, and it soon became evident that the Confederate commander had resorted to the bold device of launching his whole army down the two parallel roads, with the purpose of striking the Army of the Potomac when it was ill-prepared to receive battle. Under some circumstances he would thus have gained a great advantage; as it was, the army was clear of the river, with all its trains safe in the rear, was reasonably well together, had had a night's rest, and was not in any proper sense surprised. Hancock's corps, which had the lead and was marching out of the Wilderness, was quickly recalled, Burnside's was hurried up from the rear, and a line of battle was formed—so far as there could be any line of battle in a jungle. Neither artillery nor cavalry could be used to any extent by either side, and the contest was little more than a murdering-match between two bodies of men, each individual having a musket in his hand, and being unable to see more than a few of his nearest neighbors. This went on all day, increasing hourly as more of the troops came into position, with no real advantage to either side when night fell upon the gloomy forest, already darkened by smoke that there was no breeze to waft away. Lee's attack had been vigorous on his left, but imperfect on his right, where Longstreet's corps did not get up in time to participate in the fighting that day. No sooner had the battle ended than both sides began to intrench for the struggle of the morrow, and they would hear the sound of each other's axes, only a few rods distant, as they worked through the night, cutting down trees, piling up logs for breastworks, and digging the customary trench.
| Reproduced by permission of Dick & Fitzgerald, N. Y., from "Twelve Decisive Battles of the War." |
Grant intended to take the initiative on the morning of the 6th, and gave orders for an attack at five o'clock. But Lee, who did not want the real battle of the day to begin till Longstreet's corps should be in place on his right, attacked with his left at a still earlier hour. Grant recognized this as a feint, and went on with his purpose of attacking the enemy's right before Longstreet should come up. This work devolved upon Hancock's corps, which, as usual, was ready to advance at the hour named; but just then came rumors of a flank movement by Longstreet, and Hancock, detaching troops to meet it, greatly weakened the blow he was ordered to deliver. This was all a mistake, as there was no enemy in that direction, save Rosser's Confederate cavalry, which Sheridan's defeated that day in three encounters. But Hancock's advance was powerful enough to drive the enemy before him for more than a mile. At that juncture Longstreet came up, the broken Confederate line rallied on his corps, and Hancock was driven back in turn. Here the fighting was stubborn, and the losses heavy. Gen. James S. Wadsworth, one of the most patriotic men in the service, was mortally wounded, and died within the Confederate lines. The Confederate General Jenkins was killed, and Longstreet was seriously wounded in almost exactly the same way that Stonewall Jackson had been, a year and three days before, on nearly the same ground. As he was returning from the front with his staff, some of his own men mistook them for National cavalry and fired upon them. Longstreet was shot through the neck and shoulder, and had to be carried from the field. His men had been thrown into great confusion, and General Lee, who now took command of them in person, found it impossible to rally them for an attack on Hancock's intrenchments, or at least deferred the attack that had been planned. But late in the afternoon such an assault was made, and met with a little temporary success. The Confederates burst through the line at one point, but were soon driven back again with heavy loss. At this time a fire broke out in Hancock's front, and soon his log breastworks were burning. His men were forced back by the heat, but continued firing at their enemy through the flame. Large numbers of the dead and wounded were still lying where they fell, scattered over the belt of ground, nearly a mile wide, where the tide of battle had swayed back and forth, and an unknown number of the wounded perished by the fire and smoke. Burnside had come into line during the day, and fighting had been kept up along the entire front, but it was nowhere so fierce as on the left or southern end of the line, where each commander was trying to double up the other's flank. At night the Confederates withdrew to their intrenchments, and from that time till the end of the campaign they seldom showed a disposition to leave them.