Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/282

272 The men of Anderson's and Hill's corps were now pouring into the Confederate works, division after division, battery after battery, and when night fell, those two grim adversaries, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, again confronted each other in array of battle, while General Grant had learned that Petersburg, as Napoleon said of Valencia,

In these four days of assault, from Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, the enemy confess to a loss of more than 10,000 men —a fact which attests with appalling eloquence the vigor of the defence.

Sunday morning, June 19th, dawned with soft and dewy brightness, and the Sabbath's stillness remained unbroken, save when at distant intervals a single gun boomed out from the great salients, or the rattling fire of the pickets on the river front fretted for a few brief moments the peaceful air. But it was no day of rest to the contending armies, for the Confederates were actively strengthening their crude position, while the enemy plied pick, and spade, and axe with such silent vigor, that, this comparative quiet reigning for two successive days, there arose, as if by touch of a magician's wand, a vast cordon of redoubts of powerful profile connected by heavy infantry parapets, stretching from the Appomattox to the extreme Federal left—a line of prodigious strength, and constructed with amazing skill, destined long to remain, to the military student at least, an enduring monument of the ability of the engineers of the Army of the Potomac.

This done, General Grant was now free to begin that series of attempts against Lee's communications, which, despite repeated disaster, he continued, with slight intermission, to the end.

On Tuesday, the 21st, the Second and Sixth corps were put in motion to extend the Federal left—the Second, to take position west of the Jerusalem Plank Road, its right connecting with Warren's left, which rested at that point; the Sixth, to extend to the left of the Second, and, if possible, effect a lodgment on the Weldon railroad. On the same day Wilson, with about 6,000 sabres,