Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/123

Rh On the 8th day of May our brigade having crossed the Rapidan about nightfall, moved by Stevensburg, and, passing through the deserted camps of Grant's great army, still replete with large stores of army material and numerous tents unstruck, reached Ely's Ford by daylight. Some stragglers were caught, and a charge very handsomely made by the Thirteenth Regiment resulted in the capture of some prisoners. Our march was now directed towards the Rapidan, and, crossing that river, we took the road leading up its southern bank, and then bearing to the left, reached the Plank road near the old Wilderness Tavern. Near this were two Federal field hospitals, filled with wounded men, and among them some Confederates. These pleaded earnestly to be taken along, and as many as our ambulances could bear were taken. The road-sides near the hospitals were thickly strewn with cast-off arms in piles. Some poor fellows who had died under the amputation of their limbs still lay stretched on the surgeons' tables.

Our line of march led over the ground where the writer had witnessed the Yankee charge. The open land as far as we could see was thickly dotted with the dead, who lay as they had fallen under a burning sun, many of them with their faces to the sky, and quite black from incipient decay.

One of our squadrons, under Captain Robinson, which was on detail duty when we left camp the evening before, had followed us, and upon reaching the plank road, discovered a Federal regiment close behind them. We were ordered out, but found they were not for fight, and, agreeing that they should not be molested in removing the hospitals, we rejoined the brigade, and marched towards Spottsylvania Courthouse.

On the following day our brigade was formed for action several times on the march, but very few of us got in sight of any enemy. Passing our reserve ordnance trains near the site of the Old Courthouse, and then a line of earthworks occupied by infantry, we bivouacked on the road leading