of Anderson's (Longstreet's) corps. That officer had been ordered to draw out of his (Wilderness) works, and to bivouac, preparatory to marching at 3 A.M. to the Court House, but, finding no good resting-place, he had moved on at once. His route took him to the Catharpin Road (Hampton's cavalry protecting him towards Todd's Tavern), and thence over Corbin's Bridge to Block House Bridge. At or near Block House Bridge the corps halted to rest, but Stuart (who was with Fitz Lee) called upon Anderson for assistance and the march was resumed at full speed. Sheridan's new orders to Gregg and Merritt did not arrive until Meade had given these officers other instructions, but Wilson's cavalry division, which was out of the line of march of the infantry, acted in accordance with Sheridan's plan of occupying the bridges in front of the army's intended position at Spottsylvania Court House, and seized that place, inflicting a smart blow upon a brigade of Stuart's force that was met there.
The situation about 9 A.M. on the 8th was therefore curious. Warren, facing E., and opposed by part of Anderson's corps, was seeking to fight his way to Spottsylvania Court House by the Brock Road. Wilson, facing S., was holding the Court House and driving Fitz Lee's cavalry partly westward on to the backs of the infantry opposing Warren, partly towards Block House Bridge, whence the rest of Anderson's infantry was approaching. All the troops were weary and hungry, and Sheridan ordered Wilson to evacuate the Court House and to fall back over the Ny. Warren fruitlessly attacked the Confederate infantry at Spindler's, General Robinson being severely wounded, and his division disorganized. The other divisions came up by degrees, and another attack was made about 11. It was pressed close up to, and in some places over, the Confederate log-works, but it ended in failure like the first. A third attempt in the evening dwindled down to a reconnaissance in force. Anderson was no longer isolated. Early's division observed Hancock's corps at Todd's Tavern, but the rest of Ewell's and all Hill's corps went to Spottsylvania and prolonged Anderson's line northward towards the Ny. Thus the re-grouping of the Union army for manœuvre, and even the running fight or strategic pursuit imagined by Grant when he found Anderson at Spottsylvania, were given up, and on the 9th both armies rested. On this day General Sedgwick was killed by a long-range shot from a Confederate rifle. His place was taken by General H. G. Wright. On this day also a violent quarrel between Meade and Sheridan led to the departure of the cavalry corps on an independent mission. This was the so-called Richmond raid, in which Sheridan defeated Stuart at Yellow Tavern (where Stuart was killed) and captured the outworks of Richmond, but, having started with empty forage wagons,[1] had then to make his way down the Chickahominy to the nearest supply depots of the Army of the James, leaving the Confederate cavalry free to rally and to rejoin Lee.
Finding the enemy thus gathered in his front, Grant decided to fight again on the 10th. While Hancock opposed Early, and Warren and Wright Hill and Anderson, Burnside was ordered by Grant to work his way to the Fredericksburg-Spottsylvania road, thence to attack the enemy's right rear. The first stage of this movement of the IX. corps was to be made on the 9th, but not the attack itself, and Burnside was consequently ordered not to go beyond a place called “Gate” on the maps used by the Union staff. This, it turned out, was not the farm of a person called Gate, as headquarters supposed, but a mere gate into a field. Consequently it was missed, and the IX. corps went on to Gale's or Gayle's house, where the enemy's skirmishers were driven in.[2] The news of an enemy opposing Burnside at “Gate,” which Grant still supposed to be the position of the IX. corps, at once radically altered the plan of battle. Lee was presumed to be moving north towards Fredericksburg, and Grant saw an opportunity of a great and decisive success. The IX. corps was ordered to hold its position at all costs, and the others were to follow up the enemy as he concentrated upon Burnside. Hancock was called in from Todd's Tavern, sent down to force the fords of the Po at and below Tinder's Mill, and directed upon Block House Bridge by an officer of Grant's own staff, while Warren and Wright were held ready. But once more a handful of cavalry in the woods delayed the effective deployment of the moving wing, and by the time that the II. corps was collected opposite Block House Bridge it was already night. Still there was, apparently, no diminution of force opposite Burnside, and Hancock was ordered to resume his advance at early dawn on the 10th.
Meade, however, had little or no cognizance of Grant's orders to the independent IX. corps, and his orders, conflicting with those emanating from the Lieutenant-General's staff, puzzled Hancock and crippled his advance. At 10 the whole scheme was given up, and the now widely deployed Union army closed on its centre as best it could for a direct attack on the Spottsylvania position. At 4, before the new concentration was complete, and while Hancock was still engaged in the difficult operation of drawing back over the Po in the face of the enemy, Warren attacked unsupported and was repulsed. In the woods on the left Wright was more successful, and at 6 P.M. a rush of twelve selected regiments under Colonel Emory Upton carried the right of Lee's log-works. But for want of support this attack too was fruitless, though Upton held the captured works for an hour and brought off 1000 prisoners. Burnside, receiving Grant's new orders to attack from Gayle's towards Spottsylvania, sent for further orders as to the method of attack, and his advance was thus made too late in the day to be of use. Lee had again averted disaster, this time by his magnificent handling of his only reserve, Hill's (now Early's) corps, which he used first against Hancock and then against Burnside with the greatest effect.
This was the fourth battle since the evening of the 4th of May. On the morning of the 11th Grant sent his famous message to Washington, “I purpose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” The 12th was to be the fifth and, Grant hoped, the decisive battle. A maze of useful and useless entrenchments had been constructed on both sides, especially on the Union side, from mere force of habit. Grant, seeing from the experience of the 10th that his corps commanders were manning these entrenchments so strongly that they had only feeble forces disposable for the attack, ordered all superfluous defences to be given up. Three corps were formed in a connected line (from right to left, V., VI., IX.) during the 11th, and that night the II. corps moved silently to a position between Wright and Burnside and formed up in the open field at Brown's in an attacking mass of Napoleonic density—three lines of divisions, in line and in battalion and brigade columns. Burnside was to attack from Gayle's (Beverly's on the map) towards McCool's. Warren and Wright were to have at least one division each clear of their entrenchments and ready to move.
Up to the 11th Lee's line had extended from the woods in front of Block House Bridge, through Perry's and Spindler's fields to McCool's house, and its right was refused and formed a loop round McCool's. All these works faced N.W. In addition, Burnside's advance had caused Early's corps to entrench Spottsylvania and the church to the south of it, facing E. Between these two sections were woods. The connexion made between them gave the loop around McCool's the appearance from which it derives its historic name of The Salient. Upon the northern face of this Salient Hancock's attack was delivered.
On the 11th the abandonment of Burnside's threatening advance on his rear and other indices had disquieted Lee as to his left or Block House flank, and he had drawn off practically all Swell's artillery from the McCool works to aid in that quarter. The infantry that manned the Salient was what remained of Stonewall Jackson's “foot cavalry,” veterans of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. But at 4.35, in the mist, Hancock's mass swept over their works at the first rush and swarmed in the interior of the Salient, gathering thousands of
- ↑ Owing to the circumstances of his departure, the angry army staff told him to move out at once with the forage that he had, and Sheridan, though the army reserve supplies were at hand, made no attempt to fill up from them.
- ↑ A further source of confusion, for the historian at least, is that on the survey maps made in 1867 this “Gayle” is called “Beverly” (see map II.).
