Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[312] horrid nourishment of blood; and near where Wadsworth was smitten was a little clearing, inclosed with palings, and used as “God's acre” for the bodies of the slain heroes of the war.

Returning to Chancellorsville, we took the road for Spottsylvania Court-House, over which Warren and his troops passed and Hancock followed, lunching at Aldrich's,¹ passing the now famous old wooden building of Todd's Tavern,² then a school-house, early in the afternoon, and not long afterward emerging from The Wilderness at the point where Warren's troops did. As we rode over the high plain where Robinson fought, we began to see the scars of the Battle of Spottsylvania Court-House. After visiting and sketching the place where Sedgwick was killed, we rode over the ground where Hancock and the Confederates struggled so fearfully for the salient of the intrenchments, everywhere seeing the terrible effects of the battle. At sunset we rode into the battered village of Spottsylvania Court-House, sketched the old building depicted on page 304, crossed the Ny at twilight, arrived at Fredericksburg at near midnight after a ride of nearly fifty miles, with a dozen sketches made during the day, and left the next morning for Washington City, by way of Acquia Creek and the Potomac River.

We have observed that when the Army of the Potomac emerged from The Wilderness, Sheridan was sent to cut Lee's communications. This was the first of the remarkable raids of that remarkable leader, in Virginia, and, though short, was a destructive one. He took with him a greater portion of the cavalry led by Merritt, Gregg, and Wilson,³ and cutting loose from the army, he swept over the Po and the Ta,⁴ crossed the North Anna on the 9th,

May, 1864.

and struck the Virginia Central railway at Beaver Dam Station, which he captured. He destroyed ten miles of the railway; also its rolling stock, with a million and a half of rations, and released four hundred Union prisoners on their way to Richmond from The Wilderness. There he was attacked in flank and rear by General J. E. B. Stuart and his cavalry, who had pursued him from the Rapid Anna, but was not much impeded thereby. He pushed on, crossed the South Anna at Ground-squirrel Bridge, and at daylight on the morning of the 11th, captured Ashland Station, on the Fredericksburg road, where he destroyed the rail-way property, a large quantity of stores, and the road itself for six miles.

Being charged with the duty of not only destroying these roads, but of menacing Richmond and communicating with the Army of the James, under General Butler, Sheridan pressed on in the direction of the Confederate capital, when he was confronted by Stuart at Yellow Tavern, a few miles north of Richmond, where that able leader, having made a swift, circuitous march, had concentrated all of his available cavalry. Sheridan attacked him at once, and, after a sharp engagement, drove the Confederates toward Ashland, on the north fork of the Chickahominy, with a loss of their gallant leader, who, with General Gordon, was mortally wounded. Inspirited by this success, Sheridan pushed along the now open turnpike toward Richmond, and