Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[57] the surrounding woods far and near, so as to prevent any surprise. Moreover, as we we have stated, Barlow, in going to Sickles' assistance, had reduced Howard's forces to five brigades. In order to defend a position so extended as that he was obliged to guard, he had placed Buschbeck's brigade at Dowdall's Tavern; Schurz's division was deployed more to the westward, also facing south, to the right and left of the church of the Wilderness. The extremity of the line, over the fields of the Taylor farm, was occupied by Devens' division, which fronted two ways, McLean's brigade prolonging that of Schurz, while the largest portion of the brigade of Gilsa was drawn up triangularly in a perpendicular line with the Old Road and facing west. Earthworks covered Howard on the south side, but his right wing was entirely exposed and without protection, the brigade of Gilsa having been obliged, before it could think of reducing its own strength, to clear a space in the dense forest for the purpose of connecting the western extremity of the Taylor farm-lands with the Hawkins clearing. This gap, which was necessary for locating his encampments, was too narrow to shelter him from any surprise. Devens had planted on the Old Road or turnpike the only battery he had with him, two pieces of cannon facing west, and four facing south; he had been able to place but two regiments in reserve, all the rest of his division, which scarcely numbered four thousand men, having been deployed on a single line.

By a kind of fatality a reconnoissance made by one of Schurz's regiments in the direction of the Brock Road had advanced as far as the Carpenter farm, only about two-thirds of a mile from the enemy's column, and, returning without having seen them, had imparted a dangerous sense of security to the commanders of the right wing. This security was not, however, fully justified, for since ten o'clock in the morning Lee's mounted men, with a view of reconnoitring the ground, had exchanged some musket-shots with Howard's outposts, to whom these demonstrations should have been a warning; Jackson's passage above the Furnace had been noticed by the Federals; in short, toward three o'clock two soldiers who had been sent out as scouts came to inform General Devens that the enemy was massing on his right—a valuable piece of information, which, unfortunately for him, he merely