g of the infantry was assured, the cavalry pushed
forward, Wilson's division by Wilderness Tavern to Parker's store, on
the Orange Plank Road; Gregg to the left towards Chancellorsville.
Warren followed Wilson and reached the Wilderness Tavern by noon, took
position there and intrenched. Sedgwick followed Warren. He was across
the river and in camp on the south bank, on the right of Warren, by
sundown. Hancock, with the 2d corps, moved parallel with Warren and
camped about six miles east of him. Before night all the troops, and by
the evening of the 5th the trains of more than four thousand wagons,
were safely on the south side of the river.

There never was a corps better organized than was the quartermaster's
corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864. With a wagon-train that
would have extended from the Rapidan to Richmond, stretched along in
single file and separated as the teams necessarily would be when moving,
we could still carry only three days' forage and about ten to twelve
days' rations, besides a supply of ammunition. To overcome all
difficulties, the chief quartermaster, General Rufus Ingalls, had marked
on each wagon the corps badge with the division color and the number of
the brigade. At a glance, the particular brigade to which any wagon
belonged could be told. The wagons were also marked to note the
contents: if ammunition, whether for artillery or infantry; if forage,
whether grain or hay; if rations, whether, bread, pork, beans, rice,
sugar, coffee or whatever it might be. Empty wagons were never allowed
to follow the army or stay in camp. As soon as a wagon was empty it
would return to the base of supply for a load of precisely the same
article that had been taken from it. Empty trains were obliged to leave
the road free for loaded ones. Arriving near the army they would be
parked in fields nearest to the brigades they belonged to. Issues,
except of ammunition, were made at night in all cases. By this system
the hauling of forage for the supply train was almost wholly dispensed
with. They consumed theirs at the depots.

I left Culpeper Court House after all the troops had been put in motion,
and passing rapidly to the front, crossed the Rapidan in advance of
Sedgwick's corps; and established headquarters for the afternoon and
night in a deserted house near the river.

Orders had been given, long before this movement began, to cut down the
baggage of officers and men to the lowest p