Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[520] by which a force of Federal infantry was advancing. The latter fell into the errour of supposing that the force behind the fence was dismounted cavalry, and rushed forward with the utmost confidence. The Confederates reserved their fire until their foes got within a few paces, and then, taking deliberate aim, gave them a volley which covered the ground with their slain. The combat was short and sharp; some of the Federals got to the fence, and actually used the bayonet; but in less than half an hour they were driven rapidly back, leaving five hundred dead and mortally wounded, and two hundred prisoners in the hands of the victorious Confederates.

On the 10th May, the struggle was renewed at an early hour, Warren's corps being the one most hotly engaged against the Confederates, though all were fighting heavily. About half-past 5 P. M. two divisions of Hancock's Second corps crossed the Po River, and advanced against Lee's left, making a strong show of giving battle there. Lee, supposing the enemy was massing forces at that point, moved his troops during the night and next day to that quarter, but, in the morning of the 12th, it was found that Hancock was again in the centre, and vigorously assaulting Johnson's division.

This division held a salient of the Confederate line; and as the enemy, taking the forces within in flank, rushed over the angle, they were quickly in possession of the work, capturing most of Johnson's men along with their commander, and taking twenty pieces of artillery. Charge after charge was made by the Confederates to regain what ground they had lost. It was a conflict of sublime fury and terrible carnage. The dead and wounded lay piled over each other, “the latter often underneath the former.” What remained of Ewell's corps held the enemy in check with a courage that nothing could subdue. Gen. Hill moved down from the right, joined Ewell, and threw his divisions into the struggle; Longstreet came on from the extreme left of the Confederate line; it was a dead-lock of slaughter, in which neither side gained ground, and the intervening spaces were piled with the slain. At the close of the day the enemy held about three hundred yards of the Confederate works; he had taken twenty-five pieces of artillery and about two thousand men in Johnson's division; he had inflicted a loss of about six or seven thousand; but his own loss was stated at eighteen thousand men, and at this cost he had purchased what the Northern newspapers called a “brilliant victory,” but of which Gen. Grant had been candid enough to state: “The advantage gained did not prove decisive.”

Thus, without decisive results-certainly without any appreciable advantage on the Northern side-had been fought a series of battles such as had never been compressed into so many days in the history of man, and such as had never before been exhibited by a single army, contending