w and try his favorite flank movement. Accordingly, on the night
of the 26th, the army was withdrawn to the north bank of the river. The
night was very dark, and the mud deep. Several days' rain had rendered
the roads, proverbial for their mud, almost impassable; but heeding no
difficulties, the army followed without hesitation wherever our great
leader directed. The Sixth corps, with two divisions of cavalry under
Sheridan, who had now rejoined the army from his great raid on which he
had started from Spottsylvania, took the advance. On Saturday, the 28th,
the corps and the cavalry divisions, after a good deal of hard fighting,
crossed the Pamunkey river, at Hanovertown. The cavalry, at once
advancing several miles beyond the river, encountered a large force of
rebel cavalry, which was driven back. The army encamped at Hanovertown,
stretching from the river several miles southward.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE HOSPITALS AT FREDERICKSBURGH.

The journey from the battle-field--Sufferings of the wounded--A
surgeon's letters--Rebel hatred--Assistance from the north--A
father in search of his boy--The wounded sent to Washington.

Let us turn now from the field of battle to Fredericksburgh, that great
depot for wounded men.

It will be recollected that, from Piney Branch church, the trains, with
the wounded from the Wilderness, were sent to Fredericksburgh. Over a
rough road, nearly fifteen miles, these unfortunate men, with shattered
or amputated limbs, with shots through the lungs or head or abdomen,
suffering the most excruciating pain from every jar or jolt of the
ambulance or wagon, crowded as closely as they could be packed, were to
be transported. Already they had been carted about over many miles of
hard road, most of them having been carried from the old gold mine to
Chancellorsville, and now again loaded and brought to Spottsylvania.
They were worn out with fatigue and suffering, and yet there was much
misery in store for them. Slowly the immense train labored over the
rough road, now corduroy, now the remains of a worn out plank road, and
anon a series of ruts and mud holes, until, at three o'clock on the
morning of the 9th of May, the head of the train arrived in
Fredericksburgh.

The train had been preceded by some three hundred men who were wounded
but able to walk. Mayor Slaughter and other rebel citizens surrounded
these unarmed men, made them prisoners and delivered them to some rebel
cavalr