Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/475

Rh against every effort until night, when the contest closed."

During the night of the 5th, Hill's and Ewell's men held the lines from which they had fought during the day. Lee ordered Longstreet to make a night march, which he began at 1 a. m., expecting to have him in position, on his right, by daylight of the 6th, to help in an aggressive fight which he proposed to make at the dawn of day, advancing his entire battle line against Grant's. Ewell opened this battle, at 5 in the morning, by attacking Warren and Sedgwick. The engagement quickly extended to Lee's right, against which Hancock made prompt advance, again assaulting Hill's weak line (that Lee had expected to replace with Longstreet, before daylight), but which he could not force from its position. Wadsworth moved against Hill's left flank, at the same time that Hancock developed a large force around his right. Thus flanked, Hill was forced from the field, stubbornly fighting as he fell back to just behind Poague's artillery, which defiantly held the broad highway, and checked Hancock with canister and grape at short range. Near these guns Lee watched his broken right, which had courageously endured an hour of unequal contention, saying, again and again, to his surrounding staff, "Why does not Longstreet come?"

One division of Burnside's corps crossed Germanna ford on the morning of the 5th, and another on the morning of the 6th. Grant ordered these fresh troops to make attack on Lee's center, while Warren and Sedgwick assaulted the right and Hancock the left. Ewell's men strengthened their line, during the night of the 5th, with breastworks, and planted batteries all along it, and so were able to drive back the Federal assaults with heavy losses. Poague's guns, on the plank road, were able to give check to Hancock's advance, until Longstreet's corps, in double column, and well closed up, came down the plank road at a double-quick. Field's division on the left and Kershaw's on the right. Lee caught sight of these long-expected reinforcements and rode to meet them. "What boys are these?" he asked, as he met the head of the column under Field. The word passed, as by electric flash, and the quick reply came, from the men of Hood, who had led many a brave assault, "Texas boys." When the voice of the great leader clearly rang out, "My Texas boys, you must