About midnight the Second Division was ordered down the plank-road to join Sheridan. Bartlett's brigade had proceeded as far as Gravelly Run, reaching it at dark. They found the stream swollen, the bridge gone, and the enemy strongly posted on the other side. The brigade was withdrawn during the night. It was no easy task to move troops under the circumstances. Orders had to go from corps commander down through brigade, regimental, and company officers to the privates, who had to be aroused from sleep and got into ranks without noise.

Through the deep mud and intense darkness we moved toward Dinwiddie Court-house. The darkness was so deep that we could tell nothing about localities. We must have marched past the Court-house. We might easily have passed the village without being aware of it. We then about-faced and retraced our steps for some distance. There is a road leads north from Dinwiddie toward Five Forks. We may have taken this, or we may have followed the plank-road a couple of miles farther back to a road which leads across to the one just mentioned. However this may be, daylight found us confronting the enemy somewhere in this vicinity. The only force found was a picket or skirmish line, which was easily driven away. The Second Division massed near the residence of J. M. Brooks, on the Five Forks road. Here we remained from about 7 A. M. until 10 A. M. During this time the other two divisions arrived, and took position a little north of us on the same road. When we reached this point the One Hundred and Ninetieth was thrown forward in skirmish line.

Meantime, the rebels had retired to their fortified position at Five Forks. Their works extended more than a mile, east and west, making a slight angle with the White Oak road, turning northward about a half-mile east of the Ford road. A heavy skirmish-line was deployed in front of their left, and extending some distance eastward, and south of the White Oak road. This force consisted of fourteen hundred riflemen, reputed the best in Lee's army. In this position they awaited our attack.

About ten o'clock we began to move, taking the road leading past Gravelly Run Church. At first there seemed to be some uncertainty about the movements and position of the enemy; but it was soon evident that his entire force was in our front. The column advanced along the road, with frequent brief halts, which indicated that we were nearing the foe. Erelong we could hear skirmishing, and an occasional discharge of cannon. Ambulances were passing, freighted with wounded cavalrymen, and later, stretcher-bearers, with their bloody burdens, met us, as we moved slowly toward the front.

Near Gravelly Run Church, our line of battle was formed. The Second Division was on the left, the Third on the right, the First in reserve, close behind the other two, a little on the right of the center. The two divisions in front were arranged as follows: Each division placed two brigades in front, in two lines each, and the remaining brigade in the rear of the center, in two lines. In the Second Division, the Maryland Brigade was on the left, ours on the right, and Winthrop's in reserve. The One Hundred and Ninety-first, including the fragment of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh, and the Fourth Delaware, were the first line of battle, under Colonel Pattee. The One Hundred and Ninetieth was ordered forward to skirmish. We deployed in the woods, and waited for the completion of the arrangements going on in our rear. A few rods farther on there was open ground, which, in our front, gradually sloped down to woods. Opposite the left of the regiment, the open ground extended farther toward the north and west, and on that side was a slight hollow, with rough, broken ground beyond. Rebel skirmishers were in the woods in our front, now exchanging shots with cavalry in the open ground near us. Our skirmish-line was ready for business in a few minutes; but it was some time before the divisions were formed, in readiness for the assault.

If you should attempt to form an idea of that thin line of waiting men, who were to lead the way in the decisive struggle, which all knew was at hand, the mental picture would probably differ widely from the reality. Cast your eye to the left, along the line. You can see a goodly distance. The wood is not very dense. That does not look much like "battle's magnificently stern array." There is nothing magnificent or stern about it. You expected something of a scene. There is nothing of the sort. Instead, these men surprise you by their quiet bearing and seeming indifference. Most of them are young men. A few days ago they were so neat and tidy in dress and appearance, you might almost mistake that they were college students playing soldier. Now they are dirty, smeared with mud, half wet still from the rain, which only ceased this morning. Some are seated, leaning against the trees, taking it easy, conversing as pleasantly as if these were the ordinary occurrences of life. That bright-faced fellow, of Company E, is diligently polishing a little rusty spot, which he has discovered on his gun barrel. If there is time, he will scrape the mud from his shoes, and from his pants, which are stiff with it, almost to the knees. A few are nervous and anxious, but most of the really faint-hearted took advantage of the hard march last night to secure absence to-day. Dunn is on hand,—he that took himself from the field yesterday with such agility, at the beginning of the fight, and gave such comical reasons for his unceremonious flight, when he came up in the evening. R—— is in the line, looking black, silent, and still troubled in his knees. Do these careless men realize that they are about to decide the fate of a great nation? Perhaps they are unconscious of the greatness of the present hour; but what of that? They stood in their lot.

But our waiting is over at last; and, at the word of command, every soldier is in his place. These men were not stolid, ignorant, nor inexperienced. Their thinned ranks show how well they know what battle means. You can see some pale faces, and lips compressed, as "FORWARD" passes down the line. We pass out of the woods into the open field. A few rods ahead, some mounted cavalrymen are firing toward the woods, which conceal the enemy. We can see a puff of smoke here and there among the trees. A little farther, and the cavalry gallop away to the right, and bullets begin to whistle past, some over, some tossing up the dirt at our feet. It would be a waste of powder to return the fire at this distance; besides, we are going down there. But the bullets begin to come closer. They are fairly hot as they hiss around us. We quicken our pace. It is five hundred yards to the woods. The men on our left open fire—four hundred yards, three, the line slackens a little, and a volley, and another, and another, bursts in quick succession from our Spencer rifles. Then a cheer, as we dash for the woods at headlong speed, yelling and firing as we go. The rebel skirmishers give way before our charge, and the woods are gained.

Up to this time I had not looked back. I supposed we had advanced about a thousand yards, and would soon encounter the main force of the enemy. As we reached the woods, I turned to see if the line of battle was yet in sight. My eyes fell upon the most stirring scene I ever witnessed. This was the grandeur, the sublimity of war. The corps was coming in order of battle, line after line sweeping on with steady step. Their front extended nearly a mile across the open ground, guns at a right-shoulder, glittering in the sunlight like silver, battle-flags fluttering in the air. In front, the skirmishers were fighting savagely; on the left a score of cannon were thundering, shells screaming out their horrid warning, as they leaped from the smoking guns. But this living avalanche swept on in stern silence, as if there breathed within it a great soul, which scorned to speak or strike but once. A single glance took in the inspiring scene. I gazed but a moment, and then hurried into the woods.

The ground here consisted of alternate ridges and depressions, covered with trees and bushes, with occasional open places. It was hard ground to fight over, every ridge serving as a rallying point, and affording a superior position for defense. Our advance was now a succession of charges. When the rebels were driven from one ridge, they rallied at the next. A short distance from the edge of the woods, where we first encountered them, was a little brook, running nearly east; along its banks were some large rocks, while a few rods nearer were piles of wood, logs, and other means of shelter. Quite a large group of rebels made a stand here. Sergeant Hasler, Crocket, one or two others and myself, centered our attention on these, and advanced upon them, at first taking what cover we could among the trees, firing rapidly as we went. As we were pressing forward, my foot tripped on something, and I came to the ground with stunning force. Crocket, who was a few yards to my right, hurried toward me, his face the very picture of anxious sympathy, and inquired if I was struck. Recovering my breath, in a moment I was on my feet again, and assured him I was all right.

We now rushed on them with a cheer, and they broke and fled. We were so close on them, that seven of their number took refuge behind a large rock, while three or four more fled across the brook, leaving one of their number wounded on its bank. The men behind the rock now waved hats past it in token of surrender, and soon they were marching toward the rear in charge of Crocket. The wounded rebel whom I had seen fall, lay about a rod to the left, shot through the thigh. I gave him a drink, filled my canteen, and went on.

We had now become scattered, and made our way onward without much regard to order or concert of action. For a while the two lines were mingled together in the underbrush, so that you scarcely knew which way to look for friend or foe. Sometimes I was with others, and again entirely alone. The woods resounded with the yells of the combatants and the crack of rifles, as the deadly fight raged along the line.

Passing through the corner of an open field, I noticed some rebels eight or ten hundred yards to the left and front in such a position that I could give them a flank fire, while just a short distance from me in the field was a stone pile. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. I repaired to the stone pile and opened on them. At the first shot they looked to see whence it came; the next, they dodged, and hugged close to their rifle-pit, and then discovering me, they returned the fire. Their first shots went wild, but they soon got the range, and began to strike the stone pile. I gave them a few parting shots from my Spencer, and went on into the woods.

The skirmishing continued at close range, as before. The rebels fought stubbornly from point to point. Their works seemed farther off than we expected, but the crisis must come soon. We had just passed over a ridge, and the rebels had made a stand among the timber beyond. A slight depression lay between us, down which a gully had been washed by the water. None of our men were in sight, but I could hear their firing in the brush, right and left.

Wishing to gain the timber beyond the gully, I started forward without waiting to recharge my rifle, which I had just fired. The trees which I wished to gain were not more than forty feet away, and the gully about half that distance. I had gone but a step or two when a rebel soldier rose to his feet in the gully, facing me, with rifle in hand. It was a groundhog case. As he rose, I rushed at him, aiming at his heart and calling on him to surrender. He instantly dropped his gun. It was all over in less time than it takes to pen this sentence. His gun was loaded and capped. We waited till the line of battle came up. As they pushed through the brush behind us, seeing a rebel soldier, a dozen rifles were leveled on us; but they saw how it was in time to withhold their fire. Leaving my prisoner with them, I started forward again.

We soon reached an abrupt rise of ground beyond which we could not advance. Before us was the left of the enemy's intrenched position. We had done our work. We had driven every thing before us, and others must face the storm now. Some kneeling, others lying flat on the ground, we continued to fire and waited for the line of battle. In a few minutes we could see them coming on through the woods. A short distance behind us was a small patch of swampy, boggy ground. As this was approached orders were given and executed as coolly as if on the parade ground. The portion of the line opposite the swamp folded back of the other toward the left, and when the ground was passed, went back to place again without the least delay or confusion.

As they moved up the bank upon which we were, a volley burst upon them before which they wavered and swerved backward a few paces, as here and there a man reeled and staggered or sank to the earth. There was no panic—not a back turned—only that instinctive shrinking which Life sometimes feels when Death unexpectedly thrusts out his ghastly face through the smoke of battle. A color-bearer sprang forward with the battle-flag. He halted beside me and rested the end of the flagstaff on the ground. He half-faced about toward the men. His voice rang out like a bugle blast, as he raised his arm and shouted:

"Here are your colors!"

The line responded with a yell as it sprang forward, and soon was wrapped in the sulphurous smoke of its volleys which it thundered against the foe.

As the line moved on, I stepped behind them and passed farther to the right, and again went out ahead. The "left wheel" which the corps made in this battle resulted naturally from the position of the forces engaged. If we had moved directly forward in the direction in which we started, only the left of the Second Division would have struck the rebel's works; but the men posted in their front, as they were forced back, retreated toward the north-west, and we naturally swung around in following them.

We were now in front of the Third Division, the rebels still contesting every foot of ground. We finally drove them across an open field about a hundred yards wide. A road was on our left; at least all the Bucktails in sight were on the right of the road. A house stood near the road next to the woods, out of which we had driven the rebels, who were now firing from the farther side of the field. We were crossing the field, and some had reached the woods beyond, when the line of battle came up by the house behind us and opened fire. We hurried back to escape their bullets, which we considered more dangerous than those of the enemy. I stood behind them near the house, watching their firing, very much disgusted with the performance. There was a young lady in the house, apparently the only occupant. She was almost wild with fright, and gave vent to her feelings in screams and cries of terror.

A little lieutenant was prancing around back of the line, flourishing his saber in gallant style. He accosted me, and demanded why I was standing back, doing nothing. I replied that I did not belong on his—line, and made some comments perhaps not strictly polite. This added wrath to his excitement. I think this must have been the first time he had smelled gunpowder, except at a distance, and he supposed they were doing grandly. There was no telling how much effort it had cost him to get his courage screwed up sufficiently to bring him thus far; and to have this dirty, mud-bedraggled scrub of a boy intimate that the whole outfit should be furnished with long ears, was too much. As Homer would say, "his diaphragm became black all over." At this point Captain Birkman appeared on the scene and announced that he was responsible for me. This ended the matter.

After firing awhile, this brigade started to advance across the field. The regiment on the left moved up in good order as far as the edge of the woods. The others straggled forward in disorder. Both officers and men seemed to be confused. By the time they reached the woods they were little better than a mob, and had to halt to re-form. I think the man in command of the brigade was responsible for this. I now started out to skirmish again, intending to keep in front of the regiment on the left. As I reached the point where the road entered the woods, I met Mike Coleman coming on a run, and greatly excited.

"Why, Mike, I thought you were kilt! I heard you were shot in the head back yonder."

Scarcely pausing for a reply, he went on:

"We've got them! we've got them! We're right in their rear. We'll take them all! Why don't these men come on?"

With this he hurried back to the men just behind us, and in a breath told them the situation, and urged them to come on without delay. To his great disgust, his appeals were unheeded, and he turned to me saying we would go alone. But now we saw some of the Bucktails coming forward, and soon about twenty of us were deployed at skirmish distance, advancing on the rebel rear. Their line could be seen stretching far to right and left. Our Spencers rattled among the trees as we rained the bullets upon them. They turned on us savagely, and their rifles blazed and flashed in reply. Presently their fire slackened. They right-faced, and began to move off toward the west, at first with some order; but soon they were only a panic-stricken mob, fleeing in all directions, some to the right, some to the left, others toward us. The latter we disarmed and sent to the rear without any guard, and kept up a fire on those who were running to the right. They threw down their guns by hundreds, and surrendered.

Toward the close a rebel soldier came toward me at full speed, with his gun at a trail-arms. I did not notice him until he was within twenty-five or thirty yards of me. I yelled at him to surrender; but he came on without checking his speed. I stepped from the tree by which I was standing, and leveled my rifle on him.

"Drop that gun!" I yelled again.

He dropped it as if it had burned him, and hustled off his accouterments, and threw them on the ground. I made him stay with me, intending to take him back myself. My cartridges were about exhausted, and I fired all but one or two at the rear of the fleeing rebels, and started back with the prisoner.

The sun had now gone down. The moon was shining peacefully. How quickly those fateful hours of battle had passed! I started for the point where our line had formed, expecting to dispose of my prisoner there, and then sleep all night. As we passed along, the dead lay scattered here and there as they fell. There was something startlingly solemn in those motionless forms, the stony eyes staring in the moonlight.

Beyond the church I found a large number of prisoners, and turned over my man to the guards, and started to return. I was joined by L. C. Walb, who had also been back with prisoners. The church had been turned into a hospital. It was full of wounded, and many were laid on the ground outside. A few rods past the church we lay down to sleep. There came a reaction after the excitement of the day. Nerves, strained to their utmost tension for hours, relaxed, and seemed to tingle with the pain of weariness. The jarring noises of battle were reproduced as the senses glided through that strange interval between waking and sleeping, and more than once I came back to consciousness with a start, scarcely able, for a moment, to distinguish the real and the unreal. A low, moaning sound came from the hundreds of wounded about the church; not any single groan or cry of pain, but only a sound as if the hurried breath from suffering lips smote upon the strings of an unseen harp, which sounded out its sad cadences through the air. But at last I sunk into a sound sleep.

Our losses were less severe than on the preceding day. Eight hundred and thirty-four were killed and wounded, and fifty-four were missing. The opposing force of the enemy was practically annihilated. Three thousand were killed and wounded, and five thousand five hundred were made prisoners. Eleven stand of colors were taken, and four guns, with their caissons; also wagons and other material.

Captain Birkman, of Company A, says of this battle, in an extract kindly furnished from his diary: "The most successful attack I ever witnessed." It was a decisive battle, and settled the fate of the Confederacy. Since leaving camp on the morning of March 29th, three days before, the Fifth Corps had lost nearly one-fourth of its number in battles.

In this engagement the direct assault was made by the Second Division, the other divisions swinging around on the enemy's left flank and rear. The Third Brigade first struck, and broke through the rebel works. Sergeant Huck, with the colors of the One Hundred and Ninety-first, was the first man across the rebel rifle-pits. Colonel Pattee, commanding the first line, was the first mounted officer across, and leaped his horse over the breastwork while the foremost of the assailants were crowding over. They found themselves in the midst of the panic-stricken rebels, who threw down their arms and surrendered in large numbers. The Maryland brigade struck the rebel position almost at the same time, and with like results. The division then passed on down along the rear of the rebel position, doubling them up rapidly, and driving them in confusion.

We have read how the infantry faltered, till General Sheridan led them to the charge. We venture the opinion that this is wholly imaginary. These two brigades moved upon the rebel works as steadily and swiftly as the nature of the ground would allow. General Sheridan's reputation does not need any artificial bolstering, least of all at the expense of deserving men and officers.

The arbitrary removal of General Warren from the command of the Fifth Corps was unknown to the soldiers until the following morning. We heard only expressions of surprise and disapproval. It must be a cause of regret to all fair-minded men, that he was not allowed to share in this grand success with the men whom he had so long commanded. He was held in high esteem by the private soldiers, who regarded him as a brave and skillful officer.