and Meade passed these on to Warren, who in turn forced his subordinates into premature action. In the end, about noon, Griffin's division of Warren's corps attacked directly along the Pike and crushed the enemy's first line, but, unsupported by the VI. corps on the right and Wadsworth's division (V. corps) on the left, both of which units were still groping their way forward in the woods, was forced back with heavy losses. Wadsworth took a wrong direction in the woods and presented himself as an easy victim to Ewell's right, soon after Griffin's repulse. The VI. corps advanced later in the day on Warren's right, but was only partially engaged. The result of the attack on Ewell was thus completely unsatisfactory, and for the rest of the battle the V. and VI. corps were used principally as reservoirs to find supports for the offensive wing under Hancock, who arrived on the Plank Road about 2 P.M.
Hancock's divisions, as they came up, entrenched themselves along the Brock Road. In the afternoon he was ordered to attack whatever force of the enemy was on the Plank Road in front of him, but was unwilling to do so until he had his forces well in hand. Finally Getty was ordered to attack “whether Hancock was ready or not.” This may have been an attempt to force Hancock's hand by an appeal to his soldierly honour, and as a fact he did not leave Getty unsupported. But the disjointed attacks of the II. corps on Hill's entrenchments, while forcing the Confederates to the verge of ruin, were not as successful as the preponderance of force on the Union side ought to have ensured. For four hours the two lines of battle were fighting 50 yds. apart, until at nightfall the contest was given up through mutual exhaustion.
The battle of the 6th was timed to begin at 5 A.M. and Grant's attack was wholly directed on Parker's Store, with the object of crushing Hill before Longstreet could assist him. If Longstreet, instead of helping Hill, were to attack the extreme Union left, so much the better; but the far more probable course for him to take was to support Hill on or north of the Plank Road, and Grant not only ordered Hancock with six of the eleven divisions of Meade's army to attack towards Parker's Store, but sent his own “mass of manœuvre” (the IX. corps) thither in such a way as to strike Hill's left. The cavalry was drawn back for the protection of the trains,[1] for “every musket” was required in the ranks of the infantry. Warren and Sedgwick were to hold Ewell occupied on the Pike by vigorous attacks. At 5 o'clock Hancock advanced, drove back and broke up Hill's divisions, and on his right Wadsworth attacked their left rear. But after an hour's wood fighting the Union attack came to a standstill, and at this moment, the critical moment for the action of the IX. corps, Burnside was still more than a mile away, having scarcely passed through Warren's lines into the woods. Then Longstreet's corps, pushing its way in two columns of fours through Hill's retreating groups, attacked Hancock with the greatest fury, and forced him back some hundreds of yards. But the woods broke the force of this attack too, and by 7.30 the battle had become a stationary fire-fight. After an interval in which both sides rallied their confused masses, Longstreet attacked again and gained more ground. Persistent rumours came into the Union headquarters of a Confederate advance against the Union left rear, and when Grant realized the situation he broke off one of Burnside's divisions from the IX. corps column and sent it to the cross roads as direct reserve to Hancock. At this moment the battle took a very unfavourable turn on the Plank Road. Longstreet had sent four brigades of infantry by a détour through the woods south of the Plank Road to attack Hancock's left. This was very effective, and the Union troops were hustled back to the cross-roads. But Longstreet, like Jackson a year before in these woods, was wounded by his own men at the critical moment and the battle again came to a standstill (2-2.30 P.M.).
Burnside's corps, arriving shortly before 10 A.M. near Chewning's house, the position whence it was to have attacked Hill's left in the early morning, was about to attack, in ignorance of Hancock's repulse, when fortunately an order reached it to suspend the advance and to make its way through the woods towards Hancock's right. This dangerous flank march, screened by the woods, was completed by 2 P.M., and General Burnside began an attack upon the left of Longstreet's command (R. H. Anderson's fresh division of Hill's corps). But Hancock being in no condition to support the IX. corps, the whole attack was, at 3 P.M., postponed by Grant's order until 6 P.M. Thus there was a long respite for both sides, varied only by a little skirmishing. But Lee was determined, as always, to have the last word, and about 4.15-4.30 a fierce assault was delivered amidst the burning woods upon Hancock's entrenchments along the Brock Road. For a moment, aided by the dense smoke, the Confederates seized and held the first line of works, but a counter-stroke dislodged them. Burnside, though not expecting to have to attack before 6, put into the fight such of his troops as were ready, and at 5.30 or thereabouts the assaulting line receded into the woods. Grant cancelled his order to attack at 6, and at the decisive point the battle was at an end. But on the extreme right of the Union army a sudden attack was delivered at sunset upon the hitherto unmolested VI. corps, by Gordon, one of Ewell's brigadiers. This carried off two generals and several hundred prisoners, and a panic ensued which affected all the Union forces on the Pike, and was not quieted until after nightfall.
Lee, therefore, had the last word on both flanks, but in spite of this and of the very heavy losses,[2] Grant had already resolved to go on, instead of going back like his various predecessors. To him, indeed, the battle of the Wilderness was a victory, an indecisive victory indeed, but one that had given him a moral superiority which he did not intend to forfeit. His scheme, drafted early on the morning of the 7th, was for the army to march to Spottsylvania on the night of the 7th-8th, to assemble there on the 8th, and thence to undertake a fresh manœuvre against Lee's right rear on the 9th. This movement required the trains with the fighting line to be cleared away from the roads needed for the troops at once, and Lee promptly discovered that a movement was in progress. He mistook its object, however, and assuming that Grant was falling back on Fredericksburg, he prepared to shift his own forces to the south of that place so as to bar the Richmond road. This led to a race for Spottsylvania, which was decided more by accidents to either side than by the measures of the two commanding generals. On the Union side Warren was to move to the line Spottsylvania Court House-Todd's Tavern, followed by Hancock; Sedgwick was to take a roundabout route and to come in between the V. and II. corps; Burnside to follow Sedgwick. The cavalry was ordered to watch the approaches towards the right of the army. The movement began promptly after nightfall on the 7th. But ere long the head of Warren's column, passing in rear of Hancock's line of battle, was blocked by the headquarters escort of Grant and Meade. Next, the head of the V. corps was again checked at Todd's Tavern by two cavalry divisions which had been sent by Sheridan to regain the ground at Todd's Tavern,[3] given up on the 6th, and after fighting the action of Todd's Tavern had received no further orders from him. Meade, greatly irritated, ordered Gregg's division out towards Corbin's Bridge and Merrill's (Torbert's) to Spottsylvania. On the latter road the Union cavalry found themselves opposed by Fitz Lee's cavalry, and after some hours of disheartening work in the woods, Merrill asked Warren to send forward infantry to drive the enemy. This Warren did, although he was just preparing to rest and to feed his men after their exhausting night-march. Robinson's division at the head of the corps deployed and swiftly drove in Fitz Lee. A little beyond Alsop's, however, Robinson found his path barred by entrenched infantry. This was part
- ↑ Wilson's division, in its movement on Shady Grove Church on the 5th, had been cut off by the enemy's advance on the Plank Road and attacked by some Confederate cavalry. But it extricated itself and joined Gregg, who had been sent to assist him, at Todd's Tavern.
- ↑ The Union losses in the battle were 18,000, the Confederates at least 11,500.
- ↑ In consequence of a mistaken order that the trains which he was protecting were to move forward to Piney Branch Church.
