ing back upon its supports. It was at this moment that Burnside should have attacked.

About noon a lull occurred, but it was the calm that precedes the storm. Longstreet, following Jackson's tactics, had massed his entire corps on the left. We managed to get Dow's and Edgehill's batteries in position at short range, the 1st Penn. Battery being put in a position commanding the plank road. About 4. P. M. the charge was made, led by Longstreet in person. It was the heaviest of the war and on it Lee staked his hopes of driving us beyond the Rapidan. Our men stood like heroes. The guns were double-shotted with canister and fired at short range, but still the column pushed forward. A portion of Mott's division and an entire brigade of Birney's went to the rear en masse, and for a time we feared the line would be severed. To add to our discouragement the breastworks, which were built of planks, caught fire, compelling us to fall back on the second line. The rebels renewed their shouts and hundreds of them rushed from the wilderness into the road they had gained. The 2d Corps rushed to the front, captured or killed the enemy who had gained the road, drove the remainder back, captured their colors, wounded Longstreet, killed Jenkins, and disabled a number of other prominent generals. The other corps were not engaged as heavily. We had repulsed the enemy, but they held their original ground, besides holding their wounded and thousands of ours. Both had lost heavily. Grant declared that his previous battles were skirmishes compared to this. The picket firing was very heavy during the entire night and succeeding day. On Saturday, about dusk, it was discovered that Lee was moving towards Spottsylvania Court House. The arms captured from the enemy, or belonging to our killed and wounded, were gathered, and broken or buried. In order to deceive the enemy headboards were placed over them, inscribed with the names of fictitious soldiers. During the entire night the weary soldiers were marching. Warren had the advance, followed by Sedgwick; Hancock, commanding the rear guard, did not leave the field until daylight of Sunday. Many men fell by the way, worn out or sunstruck, and had to be abandoned to the mercies of Mosby's guerrillas.

Battle of Spottsylvania.

THE DEFENSE OF "THE ANGLE.'

MAY 12, 1864.

A Heroic Day's Work by the 4th Brigade, 2d Division of the 6th
Army Corps, commanded by the Writer.

GEN. OLIVER EDWARDS, of Warsaw, III., First Colonel 37th Massachusetts.

HE enemy's line in front of Hancock, at Spottsylvania, Va., May 12, 1864, formed a salient angle, and here the Confederates had massed thirty guns, for General Lee considered this the key to his position. General Hancock having captured this angle at daylight, the 12th, General Lee resolved to retake it at all hazard. The position captured consisted of this angle, of a line of breastwork five feet in height and strong enough to resist the fire of light artillery. There was a "head-log" twenty inches in diameter on top of this breastwork, raised sufficient to fire under. There were also heavy traverses for the artillery. Behind this line was an open grove of large hard-wood trees. Near the right of this grove was the head of a ravine, extending back toward the base of the angle, forming a natural covered way for Lee's assaulting columns to approach within forty yards of the breastworks, entirely protected from our fire. It was at this part of the angle that the most desperate and constant assaults of the enemy were directed, and it was in front of the head of this natural approach that the 4th Brigade desperately battled from 5 A. M. to 4.30 P. M. on the 12th, while it further helped to hold the position until 5 A. M., the 13th.

At 4.30 A. M. on the 12th of May, 1864, the bugle at 6th Corps headquarters sounded the assembly. The corps was sleeping

as soldiers can sleep after seven days' of marching and fighting, but in a few moments the 4th Brigade, 2d Division, consisting of the 10th and 37th Mass. Vols., and 2d R. I. Vols., reported "ready to move." A staff officer from corps headquarters gave General Wright's orders that the first brigade under arms should move at once. The 4th Brigade moved at once and marched a short distance to the left, passing the rebel Gen. Edward Johnston, and Colonel Stewart of his staff, prisoners of war. The column soon turned to the right and debouched upon an open plain, with the angle directly in front, six hundred yards away.

Filing to the right the length of the brigade and then by the left flank the 4th Brigade advanced and occupied the works captured by the 2d Corps, and relieved that portion of the 2d Corps directly in front of the head of the approach before described. The 10th Mass. Vols. were on the right, the 37th Mass. on the left, and the 2d R. I. in the center. The brigade connected with the Excelsior Brigade, 2d Corps, on our left, and the 3d Brigade, 1st Division, 6th Corps, formed on our right.

Scarcely was the 4th Brigade in position when suddenly appeared three lines of the enemy, charging upon the works. The first line was scarcely twenty yards away, when the 4th Brigade delivered its fire and the enemy's lines were swept away; the ground seemed covered with dead, dying, and wounded. The firing under the "head-log" made the effect far more deadly, for there was almost no overshooting. Expecting another assault, I ordered each regiment to hold its fire until the first line of the enemy was within fifteen yards of the works. Five times the enemy charged desperately in three lines in close column, and five times they went down before that wall of fire. The enemy then ceased to attack in close order, but threw forward clouds of skirmishers, endeavoring to advance in open order and mass enough men under their side of the breastworks to capture them. We then began filefiring, each man loading and firing as fast as was practicable, and this was kept up until 3 A. M. the next morning.

The fighting was continuous, and at times almost desperate. Two rebel color-bearers were shot down within a few feet of the works, and their colors captured, and at one time-for a few minutes-a rebel flag floated over the works, and then, as its brave bearer was bayoneted, the flag came to us. Lieutenant

Colonel Reed, commanding the 2d R. I. Regt., received a bullet through his scalp. Major Parker of the 10th Mass. received his death shot, Major Moody of the 37th Mass. was wounded and had to leave the field, Lieutenant-Colonel Montague, commanding the 37th, was slightly wounded but retained his command. Many other officers of the 4th Brigade were killed and wounded by sharpshooters off on the right. Col. Waldo Merriam was killed while speaking to me. Without warning a regiment out of ammunition broke from the works to the rear. I had not one regiment out of the front line that had a round of ammunition. The 37th Mass. were asleep in the mud a few steps in rear of the fighting line. No noise of the battle could disturb them, but as I command "37th advance, and hold the works with the bayonet!" their line arises and moves into the works and crosses bayonets over the parapet. Midnight came, and with it plenty of ammunition. What a relief it was! The night wore on. At 3 A. M. the enemy suddenly stopped firing. Our lines ceased to fire, and at once sent out a small reconnoitering party, who reported that the enemy had fallen back. I immediately covered our front with a skirmish line, and my tired soldiers slept on their arms. At 4.30 the firing of the rebels slowing down and the 4th Brigade being out of cartridges, I relieved them with regiments of the 2d Corps and placed them a few paces in the rear in support. The 4th Brigade had up to this time used an average of about four hundred rounds of ammunition per man. The brigade had had nothing to eat all day. Gen. David A. Russell, commanding the 1st Division, 6th Corps, walked forward with me and said that he felt for us, and if we were not relieved before daylight that he would relieve us from his own division. A New Jersey regiment reported promptly and went into position on my right; they were nearly 1,000 strong and fought nobly, easing me from all anxiety for that part of my line.

In the mean time as soon as a relieved regiment could gather from the dead and wounded a few rounds of cartridges I relieved the regiments in the front line and the relieving regiments used their scant ammunition slowly and deliberately. These regiments belonged to the 2d Corps and fought well. I remember one of them, whose commander would reply to me each time I put them into the front line, "All right, we have but a few days to serve; give us all the fighting you can.”

Lee's Conduct Under Fire.-The Daring Act of a Federal Battery. By J. H. MOORE, 7th Tenn. Regiment.

N the 5th day of May, 1864, Heth's division opened the battle of the Wilderness, and for at least two hours held Grant's army at bay on the plank road. On the 10th, when General Hancock led his corps to attack and flank our right, Heth's division was directed to meet and repulse him. In this last movement Gen. H. H. Walker, then commander of the Tennessee brigade, was wounded and lost a leg. The evening of the 11th found Heth's division, weary and fatigued, resting on the right of Lee's army. For days, officers and men were unable to take time to remove or to change their scanty clothes; every waking brought an imperative duty, and now, these veterans, as by a military instinct, could readily detect the significance of the movement. There are times when disposition of troops and orders executed with the utmost secrecy impress their aim upon the very privates in the ranks. It was apparent that all had forebodings of some great movement going on and that danger was imminent. Yet there was no excitement or hurry; all was quiet and in keeping with the approaching day. Now after ten days of constant service, hungry, weary, and unwashed, we might reasonably hope that the time had arrived when we could take some rest. Indeed, our position might justify this hope, as we believed the Federals were concentrating somewhere besides in our front. The works occupied by the Tennessee brigade extended about fifty yards in front of the general direction of our line and terminated in an acute