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

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[800] cover the left of the army, and thus form the extremity of the marching wing. Passing Ely's Ford, it will take the route designated on the map as the Brock road, the same which Jackson had followed during the battle of Chancellorsville, and will halt at Corbin's Bridge, a bridge thrown across the river Po not far from Todd's Tavern, a place whose name is already known to our readers. The two other cavalry divisions remain behind. Custer will observe the fords of the Rapidan on the right, and Merritt will guard the trains parked at Richardsville near the confluence of the Rapidan with the Rappahannock. Meade, rightly thinking that he will at first encounter his adversaries on his right, and wishing to separate them in their first resistance and not allow them time to concentrate, orders the Sixth corps to follow the Third. The column led by French will comprise nearly thirty thousand men. Newton, while leaving a division to guard the railroad, will march with the other two in Sykes' steps, thus giving to the right about twenty-five thousand men. The centre, composed of a single corps and of the reserve artillery, will have an effective force of about ten thousand. This plan has the objection of giving the better roads to the weaker columns and compelling the most numerous to follow the narrower and winding ones. The movement was to commence on the 24th, but a heavy rain having soaked all the roads on the 23d, it was definitively fixed for the 26th of November. After a fine and late autumn the bad weather at last gives unmistakable signs of its approach.

Meade believes that the whole army will cross the Rapidan before sunset on the same day, and will occupy on the 27th, at noon, Robertson's Tavern and Parker's Store. He has ordered eight days provisions to be taken in the soldiers' knapsacks and in the division trains, and will thus find himself during one week entirely free in his movements. Each of the three columns is accompanied by a bridge-train—a very wise precaution, for the slightest flood may submerge the fords.

The First and Sixth corps, being at a greater distance from the Rapidan, will pass behind the Fifth and Third; each corps will march at six o'clock in the morning. As Meade has reckoned, the Fifth corps on the left, and the Second in the centre, arrive before ten o'clock at the Rapidan. But the right