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[473] the opposite side!1 The problem then passed from the domain of strategy into the tactical question of forcing the passage of the river—an operation always delicate and difficult when vigorously resisted. And that it would be vigorously resisted there was every promise; for if Lee purposed making a stand between the North and South Anna, he would naturally seek to gain all the time possible in order to establish himself well in his new position. Moreover, the North Anna covers the Virginia Central Railroad (here but from one to three miles south of the river), by which re-enforcements were coming to him from the Valley of the Shenandoah. The lines on which the army had pushed its advance brought the columns to the North Anna, near the point at which the Fredericksburg and Richmond Railroad crosses that stream. The left column under Hancock, indeed, struck it at the railroad, and at a point one mile above where the telegraph road from Fredericksburg to Richmond crosses the North Anna on a wooden bridge: the right column, under Warren, four miles higher up, at Jericho Ford. By a contrary fortune, Warren was able to effect the passage without any resistance, but was savagely assailed on the other side; while Hancock had to fight on the north bank for a crossing. When Warren's column reached the North Anna at Jericho Ford, the Confederate commander, absorbed in guarding the points of passage opposite his right, either unwittingly neglected, or did not heed the crossing above; so that on Warren's arrival at Jericho Ford, no enemy was observed on the southern bank—a circumstance of which advantage was at once taken. The river has here very precipitous banks and a rocky bed; and Jericho Ford is a ford in name rather than in reality. Nevertheless, the head of Warren's column, the brigade of Bartlett, accoutred as it was, plunged into the stream breast deep, waded across, and, forming line of battle on the opposite side, covered the building of a ponton-bridge.
1 ‘The enemy was seen in large force marching in column on the opposite bank, evidently en route. from Spottsylvania.’—Hancock's Report.
1866.
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