[
230]
a loss probably greater than the numerical strength of the army that inflicted it. The continued attacks by new Federal troops, notwithstanding these startling losses, however, produced a depressing effect on the
Confederate soldiers.
They were often heard to say: ‘It is of no use to kill these fellows; they are like flies, kill one and two come in its place.’
At midnight on May 3d,
General Grant's army began to cross the
Rapidan, and move on the
Germanna ford road toward the
Wilderness.
General Webb, of that army, gives this concrete illustration of the comparative strength of the two armies:
His [Grant's] 118,000 men, properly disposed for battle, would have covered a front of twenty-one miles, two ranks deep, with one-third of them held in reserve; while Lee, with his 62,000 men, similarly disposed, would cover only twelve miles. Grant had a train which he states in his ‘Memoirs’ would have reached from the Rapidan to Richmond, or sixty miles.
Through the Wilderness.
This great army marched toward
Richmond on the Germanna road.
Two parallel roads, the
Orange turnpike and the
Orange plank road, cross the Germanna road, nearly at right angles, not far from the famous Wilderness tavern.
As
General Grant's columns stretched out along the Germanna road,
General Lee moved the corps of
Ewell and
A. P. Hill on the two parallel roads, to strike the
Federal flank.
General Longstreet's corps at the time of contact of these armies, May 5th, was distant a day's march.
General Ewell's corps, moving on the turnpike, was diminished by the absence of
Gen. R. D. Johnston's North Carolina brigade, then stationed at Hanover Court House, and by
Hoke's North Carolina brigade, just then ordered up from
North Carolina.
Anderson's division of
Hill's corps also was not present at the opening of the battle.
‘So,’ says
Colonel Venable of
Lee's staff,
on May 5th, General Lee had less than
