tre, during the two days' fight,
but the positions of the corps remained unchanged.

[Illustration:

2. Second Corps.
5. Fifth Corps.
6. Sixth Corps.
9. Ninth Corps.
T. Old Tavern.
C. Old Church.
P. Parker's Store.
== Rebel Lines.]

Standing by the old tavern and looking west, you see the line of battle.
At your feet is a brook flowing from the southwest to the northeast, and
there is another smaller stream joining its waters at the crossing of
the roads. Beyond the bridge the turnpike crosses a ridge of land. On
the southern slope is the house of Major Lucy, with a smooth lawn, and
meadows green with the verdure of spring. Beyond the meadows are hills
wooded with oaks, pines, and cedar-thickets. At the right hand of the
turnpike the ridge is closely set with pines and cedars. Farther out it
breaks down into a ravine. Ewell has the western slope, and Warren with
the Fifth Corps the eastern, with the Sixth on his right.

It is a mixture of tall trees and small underbrush,--dense, almost
impenetrable. There are hills, knolls, dells, dark ravines. It is a
battle-ground for Indians, but one not admitting of the military
movements,--of advance by columns, or lines, as laid down in the books.

The battle commenced on Thursday afternoon and closed Saturday morning.
It was fierce, terrible, bloody, and yet indecisive. It was one unbroken
roll of musketry. There was a hostile meeting of two hundred thousand
men. There were bayonet-charges, surgings to and fro of the opposing
lines, a meeting and commingling, like waves of the ocean, sudden
upspringings from the underbrush of divisions stealthily advanced. There
was the continuous rattle, the roll deepening into long heavy swells,
the crescendo and the diminuendo of a terrible symphony, rising to
thunder-tones, to crash and uproar indescribable, then dying away to a
ripple, to silence at last!

Lee hastened from his intrenchments beyond Mine Run to strike Grant a
damaging blow,--to fall upon him while his line was thin and attenuated.
Grant was in column, moving southeast,--Lee in two columns, moving
northeast. These lines show it to the eye:--

[Illustration]

The advance of Lee has its parallel in naval warfare,--in Nelson's lines
of battle at Trafalgar. But there the comparison fails. The advance is
the same,--the result, instead of a victory, a defeat. He fell upon the
Fifth Corps, first at Parker's store, then on the right centre