gagement ensued, and the division which
received the assault was forced back. It quickly, however, reformed,
and being reenforced advanced in turn against General Warren, and,
after a hard fight, he was driven back with a loss of three thousand
men and two pieces of artillery.

This first collision of the armies on the Confederate left was
followed almost immediately by a bloody struggle on the centre. This
was held by A.P. Hill, who had marched down the Plank-road, and was
near the important point of junction of that road with the Brock Road,
when he was suddenly attacked by the enemy. The struggle which ensued
was long and determined. General Lee wrote: "The assaults were
repeated and desperate, but every one was repulsed." When night fell,
Hill had not been driven back, but had not advanced; and the two
armies rested on their arms, awaiting the return of light to continue
the battle.

III.

THE BATTLE OF THE 6TH OF MAY.

The morning of the 6th of May came, and, with the first light of dawn,
the adversaries, as by a common understanding, advanced at the same
moment to attack each other.

The battle which followed is wellnigh indescribable, and may be said,
in general terms, to have been naught but the blind and desperate
clutch of two great bodies of men, who could scarcely see each other
when they were but a few feet apart, and who fired at random, rather
by sound than sight. A Southern writer, describing the country and
the strange combat, says: "The country was sombre--a land of thicket,
undergrowth, jungle, ooze, where men could not see each other twenty
yards off, and assaults had to be made by the compass. The fights
there were not even as easy as night attacks in open country, for
at night you can travel by the stars. Death came unseen; regiments
stumbled on each other, and sent swift destruction into each other's
ranks, guided by the crackling of the bushes. It was not war--military
manoeuvring: science had as little to do with it as sight. Two wild
animals were hunting each other; when they heard each other's steps,
they sprung and grappled. The conqueror advanced, or went elsewhere.
The dead were lost from all eyes in the thicket. The curious spectacle
was here presented of officers advancing to the charge, in the jungle,
_compass in hand_, attacking, not by sight, but by the bearing of the
needle. In this mournful and desolate thicket did the great campaign
of 1864 begin. Here, in blind wrest