Chapter 20: from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor
- Another Slide to the east, and another, and another -- the armies straining like two Coursers, side by side, for the next goal -- Grant waiting for reinforcements -- Lee seriously Indisposed -- one of his three corps commanders disabled by wounds, another by sickness -- Mickey and the children -- “it Beats a furlough Hollow” -- a baby in battle -- death of Lawrence M. Keitt and demoralization of his command -- splendid services of Lieut. Robt. Falligant, of Georgia, with a single gun -- hot fighting the evening of June 1st -- building roads and bridges and getting ready June 2d -- removal of Falligant's lone gun at night.
After feeling our lines, feinting several times, and making, on the 18th, what might perhaps be termed a genuine attack, Grant, on the evening of the 20th, slid off toward Bowling Green; but although he got a little the start of Lee, yet, when he reached his immediate objective, Lee was in line of battle at Hanover Junction, directly across the line of further progress. It is the belief of many intelligent Confederate officers that if Lee had not been attacked by disabling disease, the movements of the two armies about the North Anna would have had a very different termination. Grant ran great risk in taking his army to the southern bank of the river with Lee on the stream between his two wings; it is fair to add that he seems to have realized his peril and to have withdrawn in good time. General Lee's indisposition, about this time, was really serious. Some of us will never forget how shocked and alarmed we were at seeing him in an ambulance. General Early, in his address before mentioned, says of this matter:
One of his three corps commanders had been disabled by wounds at the Wilderness, and another was too sick to command his corps, while
