olor indicating the number of the division
in a corps. Three divisions of three brigades each usually
constituted a corps. Each officer and soldier wore on his hat or
cap his proper corps badge; the first division being red, second
white, and third blue. The badge appeared prominently in the centre
of all headquarters flags. Division flags were square, brigade,
tri-cornered, all of white ground save those of a second division
which were blue; the flag of a second brigade had a red border next
to the pole, and of a third brigade a red border on all sides.

CHAPTER VI
Plans of Campaigns, Union and Confederate--Campaign and Battle of
the Wilderness, May, 1864--Author Wounded, and Personal Matters--
Movements of the Army to the James River, with Mention of Battles
of Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Other Engagements, and Statement
of Losses and Captures

A full detailed history of the great campaign of the Wilderness
and of the many battles fought in the spring and summer of 1864 in
Southeast Virginia and around Richmond and Petersburg will not here
be attempted. I shall confine myself to a general story of the
campaign, with dates, results of engagements and losses, and some
details of the fighting participated in by troops I was immediately
connected with or interested in.

General Grant (April 9, 1864), in a confidential communication to
General Meade,( 1) outlined his plan for the early movements of
all the principal Union armies. Texas was to be abandoned, save
on the Rio Grande, and General Banks, then on Red River, was to
concentrate a force, not less than 25,000 strong, at New Orleans
to move on Mobile. Sherman was to leave Chattanooga at the same
time Meade moved, "Joe Johnston's army being his objective point
and the heart of Georgia his ultimate aim"; if successful, Sherman
was to "secure the line from Chattanooga to Mobile, with the aid
of Banks." General Franz Sigel (then in command of the Department
of West Virginia ( 2)), was to start two columns, one from Beverly
under General Ord, to endeavor to reach the Tennessee and Virginia
Railroad west of Lynchburg, and the other from Charleston, West
Virginia, under General George Crook, to strike at Saltville and
go thence eastward to join Ord. General Quincy A. Gilmore was to
be transferred, with 10,000 men, from South Carolina to General B.
F. Butler at Fortress Monroe, and the latter General was to organize
a force of about 23,000 men, under the im