May 24, 1864. |
 |
| Rifle-pits.2 |
1864. |
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forced back; but the rifle-pits were soon recovered by a brigade under Colonel Howell, after heavy fighting and much loss on both sides.
The attack was renewed on the following day, with no better success, when Beauregard ceased all attempts to dislodge Butler.
Two or three days later, Fitzhugh Lee, with a considerable body of Confederate cavalry,
attacked the post at Wilson's Wharf, then held by two regiments of negro troops, under General Wilde.
After being three times repulsed, Lee withdrew.1
Operations of greater magnitude and importance nearer Richmond, now
absorbed attention.
Let us consider them.
We left the Army of the Potomac at Spottsylvania Court-House, about to resume its march toward Richmond.3 It was then disencumbered of its twenty thousand sick and wounded men, who were taken to the hospitals at Washington and elsewhere, and-of about eight thousand prisoners who had been sent to the rear.
At the same time twenty-five thousand veteran recruits, with ample supplies, were on their way to join the army, and full thirty thousand volunteers, recruited for one hundred days service, had been mustered in. It was under these favorable auspices that the Army of the Potomac began another flank and forward movement on the night of the 20th and 21st of May.
It was begun by Hancock's corps, which, at midnight, moved eastward to Mattaponax Church, and then turned southward, with Torbert's cavalry in advance.
Lee, anticipating the movement, was very vigilant, and Longstreet's corps was put in motion southward immediately after Hancock's started.
Warren followed the latter on the morning of the 2 1st, when Ewell marched in the track of Longstreet.
Then began another exciting race of the two great carnies, the immediate goal being the North Anna River.
The Confederates had the more direct
1 At about this time a forgery, in the form of a proclamation by the President, calculated to inspirit the Confederates, alarm and distract the loyal people, depress the public securities, and embarrass the Government at a most critical moment, appeared in two Opposition newspapers in the city of New York. The pretended proclamation was dated the 17th of May, at the moment when Grant's march toward Richmond was temporarily checked at Spottsylvania Court-House, and the news of the failure of the Red River expedition was creating much disappointment. It declared that the campaign of the Army of the Potomac was “virtually closed,” and, in view of the gloomy aspect of affairs, it recommended the setting apart of an early day throughout the United States as one for “fasting, humiliation, and prayer.” It also called for 400,000 more troops, and threatened an “immediate and peremptory draft” for that number if they were not forthcoming within thirty days. The Secretary of State immediately pronounced the paper a forgery, and the publication offices of the offending newspapers were taken possession of by the military. Their proprietors at once declared themselves the innocent victims of an adroit forgery, and offered rewards for the apprehension of the perpetrator. He was discovered to be one of the editors of an Opposition newspaper in Brooklyn, and declared that his purpose was simply to make a profitable speculation in stocks, and that no political designs had been considered.
2 this picture gives the appearance of a rifle-pit in summer, when the men in them have little canvas shelters from the sun. Rifle-pits are of two kinds, namely, a hole for the shelter of one man, or a short trench for the use of several men. They are shallow, with a parapet formed of the earth thrown out, in which is often a loop-hole or embrasure formed of bags of sand. These pits are used by pickets, and by infantry placed in advance of fortifications or fortified camps.
3 See page 311.
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