Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/473

Rh ordered Hancock to Shady Grove church, on the headwaters of the Po, and Warren to Parker's store, in the same general direction, and Sedgwick to close up at the Wilderness tavern. Hancock, obeying his orders, had reached Todd's tavern, on the Brock road, and was turning to the southwest, by the Catharpin road, toward Shady Grove church, scarcely three miles away, at 11 a. m., just as Ewell and Heth were in hot engagement with Getty, when he was ordered back to Getty's contest, on the Brock road, which he had only reached at 2 of the afternoon, and to aid in the work of throwing up formidable fortifications along that road, to hold back Hill.

Had Longstreet come to his assigned position, before this juncture of combat, with his 10,000 men, Lee could not only have crushed the advance of Crawford and Getty, as he did with Hill's men, but could have rolled it back into Ewell's battle, and to the probable discomfiture of most of Warren's and Sedgwick's corps. He could also, with the wide interval already made between Warren and Hancock, have struck the latter in flank, with good prospect for defeating him as he turned back from Grant's "on to Richmond." The three hours between 11 and 2 were quite enough for this work, had Longstreet's veterans been there to be directed by Lee. Longstreet wandered along the many roads that led through the great forests of Orange and Spottsylvania, making but 12 miles of easting during all the 5th, and halting at night at Richards' shop, miles away from Hill's right. Under Lee's orders of urgency, Longstreet marched again at midnight, and the morning of the 6th was well advanced when he appeared with his veterans to join in the hotly contested battle that had again begun.

When, in the afternoon of the 5th, Hancock halted on the Brock road, with his right near the plank road, he was not satisfied with having thrown up along that road one line of formidable breastworks, upon its western side, toward Lee's front, but he reared a second, equally formidable, on the other side of the road, making that a covered way—a sort of Spanish trocha. Not satisfied with these two, his busy men erected a third; so each of his triple lines of battle was well hedged in, behind a most formidable line of breastworks, awaiting Hill's attack from the rude line of slight defenses that his men had thrown up; although, according to Grant, the Federal