here followed
a rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard the
crackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating of
Federal drums--the long roll, the long roll! _Boom!_ Into action came
the grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched the
breastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the third
line. _Yaaai! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaaiiihh!_ rang the Wilderness.

Several miles to the eastward the large old house of Chancellorsville,
set upon rising ground, reflected the sun from its westerly windows. All
about it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It lay
like a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house,
tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of his
officers. Eastward there was firing, as there had been all day, but it,
too, was decreased in volume, broken in continuity. The main rebel body,
thought the Federal general, must be about ready to draw off, follow the
rebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, to
get off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "main
body". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory,
waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of the
Wilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton and
Sickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasanton
and Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment,--whatever it was;
Stonewall Jackson and a division probably--that was trying to get out of
the Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morning
dawned it should be pounded small, piece by piece, by the blue impact!
"We've got the men, and we've got the guns. We've got the finest army on
the planet!"

The sun dropped. The Wilderness rolled like a sea, hiding many things.
The shaggy pile of the forest turned from green to violet. It swept to
the pale northern skies, to the eastern, reflecting light from the
opposite quarter, to the southern, to the splendid west. Wave after
wave, purple-hued, velvet-soft, it passed into mist beneath the skies.
There was a perception of a vastness not comprehended. One of the men
upon the Chancellor's porch cleared his throat. "There's an awful
feeling about this place! It's poetic, I suppose. Anyhow, it makes you
feel that anything might happen--the stranger it was, the likelier to
happen--"

"I don't feel that way. It's just