At first our own course is northward, toward Culpeper, then we bear off to the right, passing the headquarters of the Sixth Corps, and those of the Army of the Potomac skirting the base of Pony Mountain and on to Germanna, remembered well in our Mine Run campaign. Though nominally, for several days a part of the Fifth Corps, we do not actually meet any part of the Corps itself till just before reaching the ford. We cross the river at about 11 a. m., nowhere encountering any opposition from the enemy, who evidently is endeavoring to ascertain what Grant's objective may be, catching up with the other portions of the Corps late in the afternoon. After an arduous march of considerably more than twenty miles, burdened by heavy knapsacks, filled in winter quarters, our division bivouaced near the Wilderness Tavern.[J] From this point the almost countless campfires of our army could be seen, always an impressive sight, and never were the soldiers of the Potomac Army in a more impressible mood than after their long period in winter quarters. Of the troop thus in bivouac, Lieut. Porter of Company A wrote, "The men were in the best of spirits. They believed that the supreme effort to bring the rebellion to a close was being made. There were enthusiasm and determination in the minds of everyone." A year ago the word "Wilderness" was frequently heard as the events of Chancellorsville were discussed and now it is to gain even wider mention; it seems a name quite out of place in the midst of the Old Dominion, not so far from the very first settlements in British North America.

General Morris Schaff in his story of the great battle says this of the section, "What is known as the Wilderness begins near Orange Court House on the west and extends almost to Fredericksburg, twenty-five or thirty miles to the east. Its northern bounds are the Rapidan and the Rappahannock and, owing to the winding channels, its width is somewhat irregular. At Spottsylvania, its extreme southern limit, it is some ten miles wide." Considerably more than a hundred years before, there were extensive iron mines worked in this region under the directions of Alexander Spottswood, then governor of Virginia. To feed the furnaces the section was quite denuded of trees and the irregular growth of subsequent years, upon the thin soil, of low-limbed and scraggy pines, stiff and bristling chinkapins, scrub-oaks and hazel bushes gave rise to the appellation so often applied. Hooker and Chancellorsville are already involved in memories of the region and coming days will give equal associations with Grant and Meade, while the Confederates, remembering that within its mazes their own shots killed their peerless leader, Jackson, ere many hours have passed will lament a similar misfortune to Longstreet.

Within this tangled thicket, artillery will be of no avail and the vast array of thunderers will stand silent as artillerymen hear the roar of musketry; cavalry will be equally out of the question, but within firing distance more than May 4, '64 two hundred thousand men will consume vast quantities of gunpowder in their efforts to destroy each other. It is generally understood that General Grant did not expect an encounter with Lee within the Wilderness itself, as is evident in Meade's orders to Hancock and the Second Corps; indeed on the 5th the latter was recalled from Chancellorsville to the Brock Road at the left of the Fifth Corps, the Confederates having displayed a disposition to attack much earlier than the Union Commanders had thought probable; how Sedgwick and the Sixth Corps held the Union right, Warren and his Fifth the centre and Hancock with the Second were at the left are figures from the past well remembered by participant and student. While every movement of the Union Army has a southern tendency, a disposition to get nearer to Richmond, yet in the Wilderness all of the fighting was along a north and south line, the enemy exhibiting an unwillingness to be outflanked as easily as the new leader of the Potomac Army had evidently expected.

In the morning of the 5th of May, General Richard S. Ewell commands the Confederate left with "Stonewall" Jackson's old army or what may be left of it; next to him, at his right, is A. P. Hill with the divisions of Wilcox, Heth, Scales and Lane; Longstreet has not arrived as yet, the morning finding him as far away as Gordonville, but he is making all the speed possible towards the scene of conflict, and when he arrives his station will be on the rebel right, his lieutenants being Anderson, Mahone, Wofford and Davis. The intricacies of this jungle-infested region are much better known to the Southern soldiers than to those from the North, and this knowledge is a full compensation for any disparity in numbers known to exist. Burnside and the Ninth Corps of the Federal forces are just crossing the Rapidan after a forced march from Rappahannock Station and when they reach the battle line, it will be to occupy some of the thinly covered interval between Warren and Hancock. All of the amenities of the long winter months are now forgotten, and war to the death is confronting every combatant, whether in blue or gray.

In coming days, these men will recount the events of May, 1864, and while the roar of musketry will play a veritable diapason of war for them, they will not forget how readily they dropped the musket and, grasping axe or shovel, felled the trees and, weaving them into earth-covered breastworks, interposed thus much protection from the cruel missiles of the enemy. If the survivors of the Potomac Army in the battle summer had chosen to wear subsequently as under-guards or supports of their respective Corps-badges, whether, trefoil, Greek or Maltese Cross or shield, the semblance of musket and shovel crossed, no one would have questioned its oppositeness. However averse men may have been to the regular use of pick and shovel, experience soon told them that an old fence rail, a small sapling or a shovelful of earth might ward off a hostile bullet and, lacking the intrenching tools, they were known to throw up, in an incredibly brief time, serviceable defenses, using no more effective utensils than their bayonets, case-knives and tin plates. Future archaeologists, in the Wilderness region, will have difficulty in distinguishing between the works of the Eighteenth century miners and their soldier successors more than a hundred years later. Deeply scarred was the battle-riven surface of the Old Dominion and, centuries hence, poets and historians will wax as eloquent over some of these fiercely contested places as did Charles Dickens over the bloody field of Shrewsbury where "the stream ran red, the trodden earth became a quagmire and fertile spots marked the places where heaps of men and horses lay buried indiscriminately, enriching the ground." Macaulay, too, never wrote with more brilliant pen than when he described the poppy-strewn plain of Neerwinden, "fertilized with twenty thousand corpses." May 5, '64 If Grant had known as definitely the mind of Lee as the latter appeared to divine the intentions of the Union General, the story of the Wilderness might have been very different. The orders for the morning of the 5th were for Warren to move to Parker's store, towards the southwest; Sedgwick was to follow Warren, ranging up at his right; Hancock with the Second Corps was to advance, also towards the southwest, his left to reach to Shady Grove Church. The enemy was discovered before Warren reached Parker's store and he was ordered to attack; Getty and the Second Division of the Sixth Corps were sent to defend Warren's left flank and Wright with the First Division of the Sixth Corps was ordered up to Warren's right, and at nine o'clock Hancock was ordered to come to the support of Getty, all this happening where Grant had expected, at least had hoped for, an unopposed passage. Instead of a retreating enemy, Warren opened the great battle of the Wilderness by an attack upon a foe ready for the fray; but let the Fifth Corps Commander tell his own story:—

During the day, General Alexander Hays, commanding a brigade in the Second Corps was killed, a contemporary of Grant at West Point, he was one of the bravest of the brave; Generals Getty and Carroll were wounded, but remained on the field. The report of General Robinson, commanding the division, does not add any essentials to the report of General Warren. Unfortunately no report of our Brigade nor of the regiments composing it are found. Comrade Beck of Company C has this to say of his observations during the day:—

Readers with memories will recall that, some time after Gettysburg, Longstreet was detached from the Army of May 5, '64 Lee and sent to Georgia to help the Confederates whom Rosecrans was pressing hard; sometime before this, early in 1863, two divisions of the Ninth Corps had been withdrawn from the Potomac and dispatched to the Department of the Ohio to aid in the campaign Burnside was then projecting. Both Confederates and Federals had returned to the East; Longstreet, most remote of the rebel array, had been striving to reach the field where his chief was struggling with the Union Army and, by one of the most wonderful coincidences in all history, Burnside and his following, save two divisions, were swinging into position between Warren and Hancock, only a few minutes later than Longstreet when the latter came up to the help of Hill. Grant in his Memoirs says that Meade wished the hour of attack on the 6th to be set at 6 a. m., an hour and a half later than the orders of the night of the 5th. "Deferring to his wishes as far as I was willing, the order was modified and 5 was fixed as the hour to move." So then we come to the 6th of May and a resumption of Warren's report:—

The report of General Robinson of the Second Division repeats some of Warren's statements, at the same time mentioning the fact that he accompanied General Baxter with the Second Brigade, which went with Wadsworth of the First Division on the 5th, when all hastened to the relief of Hancock; he names Colonel Lyle, of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania as commanding the First Brigade. He also mentions the death of his Assistant Inspector General, Lieut. Colonel David Allen, Jr., of the Twelfth Massachusetts on the 5th, and mentions the charge of the First Brigade (ours) late on the 5th, when the Ninetieth Pennsylvania suffered so severely. In the afternoon of the 6th, he was ordered to send another brigade to the support of Hancock, and later still one more which he accompanied, ranging them on the right of the Second Corps. There he ordered the building of rifle-pits, while he rode to Hancock's headquarters; the latter telling him that he is ordered to attack, and requesting Robinson to join in the assault, our Division Commander returned to his command and made ready to advance, awaiting orders. Two hours later, heavy firing was heard on his left and he was visited by General D. B. Birney who stated that the enemy had broken through our lines and that Hancock was cut off. Robinson at once faced his second line about and made ready to receive attacks on his left and rear. Before any further change was effected, General Birney was summoned by Hancock, and Robinson learned that, instead of breaking through, the enemy had been repulsed. It seems a little strange that the General does not mention the death of General Wadsworth, his fellow division commander, nor the wounding of Baxter of his own command. The taking off of Wadsworth was a great calamity, representing, as he did, the vast array of citizen soldiery. Far past the age of military duty, one of the wealthiest men in the Empire State, he nevertheless threw in his services and, eventually, his life for the cause he loved.[K] May 6, '64 Returning to the meager records of our own Regiment, we glean certain facts, as that the Brigade was advanced in the morning to nearly its former position and that it was shortly withdrawn and sent to the extreme left on the plank-road, where breastworks were thrown up under active skirmishing. Also on this day, in the various changes of position, the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Regiments were met, all of them in the Ninth Army Corps, and all of them having officers largely drawn from the older organizations of the Bay State. Private Horton of "E" says, "We lay all night in the same place, the rebels keeping up the firing. We are relieved at 4 a. m. and go back and get breakfast. Travel around almost all day; go to the left where is heavy firing; throw up some rifle-pits." Beck of "C" in effect coincides with the foregoing, though he closes the day's account with the words, "Some of the hardest fighting on record; we build intrenchments on the side of the road and sleep in them through the night; troops were passing and repassing all of the evening; we are having nice warm weather for our operations." Lieutenant Dusseault of "H" relates the incident of a false alarm, while the men were lying along the road, between that and the breastworks:—"About midnight, while the boys were trying to get a little sleep, a great racket was heard not far away, and some in their alarm thought the whole rebel army was upon us. It proved to be a stampede of our own cattle, and they came bellowing down the space between the flanks and the works, and over the prostrate forms of our men. The choice language of the startled sleepers, when they came to understand the situation, added not a little to the tumult." During the day, in one of the several charges made upon us, "A rebel prisoner, apparently wounded and just able to crawl about, on hearing the shouts of his compatriots so near, and dreading to fall into their hands, much to our amusement, jumped up a well man and ran like a deer towards our rear."

Of the charge made in the afternoon of the 5th, this story is told in the history of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania whose Colonel, Peter Lyle, was in command of the Brigade, having succeeded Colonel Leonard of the Thirteenth Massachusetts:—

Colonel Peirson in a paper read before the Loyal Legion also has a fling at these same guns to the following effect:—

Two such days, as were the 5th and 6th of May in the Wilderness, evidently were as much as even Grant and Lee could endure. The former is said to have remarked to Meade on the 7th, "Joe Johnston would have retreated after two such days' punishment." The losses on both sides were frightful; there was little of the spectacular which will always characterize Gettysburg, but men, in all their mortal combats, never grappled in fiercer, more determined struggles than in those of the dense and tangled Wilderness. In his Memoirs, Grant says, "More desperate fighting has not been witnessed on this continent than that of the 5th and 6th of May," and he was at Shiloh and Chattanooga; evidently the great Westerner was changing his mind as to the fighting qualities of Eastern armies. The Union force had lost 2,265 killed, 10,220 wounded, and 2,902 missing; an aggregate of 15,387. While Confederate data as to numbers are frequently questioned, the Medical and Surgical History of the War makes the Southern losses, 2,000 killed, 6,000 wounded and 3,400 missing; a total of 11,400. The Confederates also had lost Brigadier Generals Micah Jenkins and John M. Jones, both gallant officers, but their greatest personal loss was that of General Longstreet, grievously wounded on the 6th and immediately carried from the field. Thomas Nelson Page refers to the event as the fourth similar incident where, seemingly, the loss of one man ended the hope of rebel victory, as the deaths of A. S. Johnston at Shiloh, "Stonewall" Jackson at Chancellorsville, the wounding of "Joe" Johnston at Seven Pines and of Longstreet, "at the critical moment when victory hovered over his arms."