from the line held by them, and falling into the rear of the rest of the
army, marched rapidly from the right to the left flank toward
Spottsylvania. The Sixth corps, taking the Chancellorsville road,
reached the old battle-field at daylight, and halted for breakfast near
the ruins of the historic Chancellor House. The Fifth corps taking a
more direct road to Spottsylvania, and being unencumbered with the
train, marched rapidly and reached Piney Branch Church, a little hamlet
in the midst of the woods, about five miles north of Spottsylvania Court
House, at nine o'clock in the morning. These two corps were quickly
followed by the Ninth and Second corps, leaving the old wilderness field
entirely in the hands of the enemy.

Another of those distressful necessities of war occurred on withdrawing
from the Wilderness. Wounded men of the Fifth and Sixth corps had
already been left on the site of the hospitals near the old gold mine
mills, and now hundreds more from every corps were abandoned for want of
sufficient transportation. Let it not be thought that the Army of the
Potomac was deficient in ambulances. Our hospital train was immense, yet
insufficient for such an emergency as the present. To have provided a
train sufficient for such a time, would have been to incumber the army
with an enormous establishment, which would so interfere with its
movements as to defeat the very object in view. The present was one of
those terrible but unavoidable contingencies which must sometimes occur
in war.

Trains had returned and brought away some of the wounded left at the old
gold mine, but many were still there; and now, again, as we loaded
ambulances and army wagons to their utmost capacity, making a train of
many miles in extent, some two hundred of the wounded of our Sixth corps
were left upon the ground. It was, indeed, a sickening thought that
these noble fellows, who had nobly fallen in their country's cause, must
be abandoned to the enemy, many of them, perhaps the majority of them,
to die in their hands. All communication with their friends at home
hopelessly cut off, and with no expectation of any but the roughest
treatment from their enemies, it was a sad prospect for the unfortunate
ones. Medical officers from each corps were directed to remain and care
for those thus left behind, and a limited supply of rations and
medicines were also left. Surgeon Phillips, of the Third Vermont, and
Assistant Surgeon Thompson, of the