228
THE EIGHTEENTH CORPS AT COLD HARBOR.
that what I failed to do to-day, viz., to carry the enemy’s works on my front by columns otassault on the most practicable point (on my front), I would hardly dare to recommendpracticable to-morrow with my diminished force. General Ames’s column is reported quitenear here, which will a little more than make good my loss of to-day.”)
There was very little straggling during the battle,— far less than I hadusually observed. Shortly after the attack began in the morning there cam eout from the fray a fine-looking sergeant in the new and untarnisheduniform of a “Heavy Artillery Regiment” which had joined the army th 0
day before. As lie passed I asked hh lJwhere he was going. Touching his hatin the most approved military mad'ner, he said, “ General, I am going backto the hill to rally.”
The stragglers did not always sib"ceed in reaching a place of safety, f°ifour or five of them had hidden in adense thicket in the ravine down wliickMartindale had moved. A seriesmost unearthly screams near 1 leadqiud'ters occasioned the sending of a staff'officer to ascertain the cause. He i‘ e 'ported that a shell which had pass e dover the column of assault had OHploded in this thicket and had liorrild)mangled all the skulkers.
At the close of the battle the front 0General Martindale was less than tw°hundred yards from the enemy’s fi lie ’and in the open space between were many dead and wounded. For tin 100days no cessation of hostilities was asked for, and common rumor gavea reason that there was fear of a refusal, as there were no dead or wound 01of the enemy between the lines to be cared for. Some of our wound 0 'were brought in by men who risked their lives in the act, and some we r<3rescued by digging trenches to them. The groans of such as could not b 0reached grew fainter and fainter until they ceased.
On the morning of June 5th General Meade came to my headquarters tothat he was going to fill the gap on my rigid, and during Ms visit I ask° lhim how he came to give such an order for battle as that of the 2d.replied that he had worked out every plan for every move from the crossiUkof the Rapidan onward, that the papers were full of the doings of Gr(i^ sarmy, and that he was tired of it, and was determined to let General Grabplan his own battles. I have no knowledge of the facts, bid have alwa> vsupposed that General Grant’s order was to attack the enemy at 4:20 A-of the 3d, leaving the details to his subordinate.
j During the evening some regiments rejoined which had been detained at the J'amunkey by vV ‘^-of transportation, and that night General Ames came up with 2500 men, having been relievedother troops from duty at White House. —W. F. S.