ock in the afternoon. The day had been the most sultry of the
season, and many of the men, overcome by the intensity of the heat, and
exhausted by the constant fighting and marching since the morning of the
4th, had fallen by the wayside. The corps halted for about two hours,
and was then ordered to the front to the assistance of Warren's corps,
which was again hotly engaged with the enemy. We pressed forward along a
narrow road leading through a thick growth of timber, until we came
where the Fifth corps was contending the ground. The corps was drawn up
in line of battle, but did not at once commence an attack.

Before us the ground was rolling and partially wooded, admirably adapted
for defensive warfare. A wooded ravine, at a little distance from our
front, concealed a rebel line of battle, and in our rear, were dense
woods extending to the road along which our line was formed. These woods
were on fire, and the hot blasts of air which swept over us, together
with the burning heat of the sun, rendered our position a very
uncomfortable one. Before long, however, the corps was ordered to the
left, and took its position in the woods on the left of Warren's corps.
Our Second division was formed in three lines with the view of attacking
the enemy.

Soon after dark all things being ready, the division moved forward to
the attack, but after some desperate fighting on the part of both the
Fifth corps and our own division, finding the enemy too strongly posted,
the attack was relinquished.

Toward midnight some changes of position were ordered, but, in the
darkness, regiments lost their brigades, and wandered about in the woods
until daylight, some narrowly escaping capture within the lines of the
enemy.

There was little hard fighting on Monday the 9th, though skirmishing was
briskly kept up along the whole line throughout the day. Our line of
battle was now extended from northwest to southeast with Hancock's
Second corps on the right, Warren's Fifth corps on the right center,
Sedgwick's Sixth corps on the left center, and Burnside's Ninth corps on
the extreme left. Our Second division was formed in a clearing on the
side of a hill which sloped gradually until it reached a swamp, which,
however, turned and passed through our line at our left. About three
hundred yards in front of us was a strip of woods one-fourth of a mile
wide, and beyond the woods an open field where the rebel forces were
posted behind formidable earth