parated from
each other by say fifty feet, and you have a division line of masses.
Three divisions made up an army corps. The army was formed in three
lines of masses, of two corps each, on the large open plain opposite
Fredericksburg, to the south and east of where the railroad crossed the
river. Each of these lines of masses contained from seventy to eighty
regiments of infantry, besides the artillery, which was paraded on the
several lines at different intervals. I do not remember seeing any
cavalry, and my impression is that this branch of the service was not
represented. Some idea may be formed of the magnificence of this
spectacle when I state that each of these lines of masses was more than
a mile in length, and the depth of the three lines from front to rear,
including the spaces between, was not less than four hundred yards, or
about one-fifth of a mile. Each of the regiments displayed its two
stands of silk colors, one the blue flag representing the State from
which it came, the other the national colors. There were here and there
a brace of these flags, very conspicuous in their brilliant newness,
indicating a fresh accession to the army, but most of them were tattered
and torn by shot and shell, whilst a closer look revealed the less
conspicuous but more deadly slits and punctures of the minie-balls.

Now place yourself on the right of this army paraded for review and look
down the long lines. Try to count the standards as the favoring wind
lifts their sacred folds and caressingly shows you their battle scars.
You will need to look very closely, lest those miniature penants, far
away, whose staffs appear no larger than parlor matches protruding above
lines of men, whose forms in the distance have long since merged into a
mere bluish gray line, escape your eye. Your numbering will crowd the
five hundred mark ere you finish, and you should remember that each of
these units represented a thousand men when in the vigor and enthusiasm
of patriotic manhood they bravely marched to the front. Only a fifth of
them left? you say. And the others? Ah! the battle, the hospital, the
prison-pen, the h-ll of war, must be the answer.

How can words describe the scene? This is that magnificent old battered
Army of the Potomac. Look upon it; you shall never behold its like
again. There have been and may yet be many armies greater in numbers,
and possibly, in all the paraphernalia of war, more showy. There can
never be another