There was something weird and
lugubrious in such a struggle. It was not a conflict of men, matched
against each other in civilized warfare. Two wild animals were
prowling, and hunting each other in the jungle. When they heard each
others' steps, they sprang and grappled. One fell, the other fell upon
him. Then the conqueror rose up and went in pursuit of other game--the
dead was lost from all eyes.
In this mournful and desolate country of the Spottsylvania Wilderness,
did the bloody campaign of 1864 begin. Here, where the very landscape
seemed dolorous; here, in blind wrestle, as at midnight, did 200,000
men, in blue and gray, clutch each other--bloodiest and weirdest of
encounters.
War had had nothing like it. Destruction of life had become a science,
and was done by the compass.
The Genius of Blood, apparently tired of the old common-place mode of
killing, had invented the "Unseen Death," in the depths of the jungle.
On the morning of May 6th, Lee and Grant had grappled, and the battle
became general along the entire line of the two armies. In these rapid
memoirs I need only outline this bitter struggle--the histories will
describe it.
Lee was aiming to get around the enemy's left, and huddle him up in the
thicket--but in this he failed.
Just as Longstreet, who had arrived and taken part in the action, was
advancing to turn the Federal flank on the Brock road, he was wounded
by one of his own men; and the movement was arrested in mid career.
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