THE ADVANCE TOWARD RICHMOND.

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remainder of the corps; all marching toward Germania Ford.

The Fifth Corps was closely succeeded by the Sixth, under General Sedgwick, which quitted its camp at four o'clock, A. M. Both the Fifth and Sixth Corps crossed the Rapidan at Germania Ford.

General Sheridan, commanding the cavalry, encountered Stuart's rebel cavalry, and, after heavy fighting, drove the enemy back on Orange Court-House.

General Lee prepared during the night of the 4th for battle on the ensuing day.

On Thursday, May 5th, 1864, the Fifth and Sixth Corps were early in motion, and at about eight o'clock, A. M., the center of the Fifth Corps had reached the intersection of the pike and plank road leading from Fredericksburg to Orange Court-House, marked on the maps as "Wilderness.' "" This desolate tract of land, about a dozen miles long, and five in width, is in Spottsylvania County, Virginia. It is an exceedingly broken table-land, irregular in its conformation, and so densely covered with dwarf timber and undergrowth as to render progress through it very difficult and laborious off the few roads and paths that penetrate it. This timber was so effectually an ally of the rebels-for they had taken care to take position near its edge, leaving us an open country at our back-that a whole division drawn up in line of battle might be invisible a few hundred feet off. The knotty character of the ground, in conjunction with this timber, also prevented us almost entirely from using our artillery, depriving us of our undoubted superiority in that arm. At the Wilderness, is the crossing or intersection of the pike and plank roads from Fredericksburg to Orange Court-House, in a general southwest direction. These roads are here reached by the roads from Culpepper and Brandy Station, via Germania Ford; and at Chancellorsville, four miles and a half eastward of the Wilderness, the pike is crossed exactly at a right angle by the road from Ely's Ford to Spottsylvania Court-House.

Thursday morning, the army in column was along the road to Germania Ford and the pike. The hours wore away,

and the battalions, wondering at the pause, sought such diversions to beguile the time of suspense as were within their reach and suited to their tastes. Officers unrolled maps, and consulted together over them. There were no sounds nor signals of battle.

Suddenly, aids from General Sheridan's horsemen, who had been pushing southeastward, come back with dispatches. General Meade, a tall, thin man, a litle stooping in the shoulders, breaks the seal, and reads. The next moment he turns to General Grant, remarking:

"They say that Lee intends to fight us here."

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'Very well," coolly replies General Grant.

Then they step aside and talk. The Lieutenant-General smokes, and whittles in musing mood while he converses. He now changes the direction of the cutting from him, and with quicker motion. He has matured his plan. Action will swiftly follow.

Like the collision of rushing engines will be the shock. Lee is determined to crush through, and break the equally resolute ranks of our unshrinking "boys."

Warren's column moved toward a hill near the Wilderness Tavern, and soon its summit was the head-quarters of the army.

Then came the falling shot, the rattle of picket-firing, and the louder report of the skirmish, followed in a brief period by the opening of general battle.

The rebels knew the ground, and suddenly charging upon a brigade of Griffin's division before it was fairly formed, captured two guns. After noon, the lion-hearted Sedgwick's battalions met the rebel tide of battle, and grandly checked its threatening progress.

On the left, the brave Hancock took charge of Longstreet, and showed how "Yankee hirelings" could fight. It was a day of blood, whose descending sun fell on unnumbered gaping wounds, and upon many glazing eyes, which were bright in the splendor of his rising.

General Grant was in the field, silent, cool, and confident of ultimate success.

Friday renewed the awful carnage, whose fiercest work was done by Hancock's corps. Back the superior forces

THE CARNAGE OF FRIDAY.

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of Longstreet pressed him to his breastworks, then like the billow returning from the unyielding shore, the enemy were compelled to fall back, wasted by the unsuccessful onset. The rebel and the Union dead were piled together. Next, Sedgwick entered the arena of unsurpassed valor and death.

The twilight hour lulled the tumult of the fray, and nature seemed to breathe calmly again, relieved from the horrors of the human struggle for victory. But the deepening stillness was broken by unexpected volleys of musketry, followed by the yells rebels could only raise-and our right was turned-Generals Seymour and Slater were overborne, and the day seemed lost.

Providentially, Sedgwick was at hand, and, when the force of the first charge was spent, re-formed his corps, and beat the enemy backward from his breast works.

The terrors of the scene were hightened by a stampede of straggling soldiers, extending to the teamsters, until the wildest confusion spread for half an hour before order could be restored.

An hour before midnight, another desperate assault was made on Warren's corps, before which heroism itself was forced to give way.

Meanwhile, the trains uninterruptedly moved onward, and by the dawn nearly all had passed to the left of the right center. The wounded were also removed in the same direction.

Disaster, but not defeat, was the record of the memorable 6th of May. The enemy, determined at the outset not to let General Grant get through the Wilderness, was defeated in his design, and in every battle failed to crush or fatally cripple the Union army. The general result, in its bearing on future success, was a victory to the cause of the Republic.

In this day's engagement, Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, of New York, an able and noble officer, fell mortally wounded into the hands of the enemy; and, a few hours later, Brigadier-General Alexander Hays was killed. The entire Union loss for the two days' fighting, in killed,

wounded and missing, was fifteen thousand, and the rebel sacrifice certainly equal in number.

The rebel columns had turned the right flank of the Union army, and the fighting, with any prospect of success, was over there. Germania Ford was within the enemy's grasp, and, with the fearful slaughter, the gain upon his right seemed a small purchase with so much bloodshed. Still, it was a great fact, that the Potomac Army was not thrown backward from its grand object; nor had the onsets of the hostile battalions broken its lines.

General Grant's faith in the righteous cause, and its hastening success, was unshaken by the indecisive results; and during the night he calmly carried forward his flanking movement on Lee's position, by contracting his lines on the right, and extending his left to the south, threatening the enemy's communication with Richmond. A change of base was made to the Rappahannock and Fredericksburg. By these skillful movements, General Lee was unable to profit by his success on our right, while General Grant secured a similar, yet bloodless, victory over his antagonist.

The great rebel chieftain, though foiled and chagrined, "promptly accepted the gage of battle thus thrown down," and hastened to a strong position which had been prepared for the emergency, near Spottsylvania Court-House. Both armies were at this time so far out of the Wilderness that artillery could be employed with effect.

Saturday dawned, and General Grant was ready to fight; but no signs of conflict appeared along the rebel lines, beyond a little skirmishing during the morning; when, assured of the advance of the Confederate columns, he prepared for the chase. Anticipating the dodge, Grant had sent Sheridan with his cavalry on the road through Spottsylvania Court-House, to Granger's Station and Hanover Court-House, encountering Fitzhugh Lee, who offered a fierce resistance. Before night, Stuart's cavalry corps protected the right flank of General Lee's army, which General Grant hoped to turn. The preparation now went forward to put the entire army in motion along the irreg ular line of flanking toward Richmond. It was the purpose of the Chief to make time by forced marches, and in