“This one will. You take the letter and the little bit of package. I am going to be killed to-morrow, about noon.” And he was killed. Night grew old. The flare of the cities sank away; tattoo beat, then, after a little, taps. The Wilderness lay awake. She communed with her own heart. But the men whom she harboured slept. Night passed, the stars paled, pure and cool and fresh came on the dawn—wild roses in the east, in a field of forget-me-not blue. Shrill and sweet, near and remote, a thousand bugles blew reveille in the Wilderness. Ewell and A.P. Hill moved westward, deeper into the Wilderness. Longstreet, marching from the south side of the James, was not yet up, though known to be approaching. About breakfast time an artillery officer came upon a small fire, and bending over it, stiffly, being wooden-legged, General Ewell, a first-rate cook and proud of it. He insisted on giving the other a cup of coffee. “Is there any objection, sir,” said the officer, after drinking, “to our knowing what are orders?” “No, sir,—none at all,—just the orders I like! To go right down the Plank Road and strike the enemy wherever I find him!” He found him, in the person of the Fifth Corps, near Locust Grove, at the noon hour. The battle of the Wilderness began,—a vast infantry battle, fought in thick woods, woods so thick that in those coverts of dwarf pine and oak artillery could not be used, so thick that an officer could not see his whole line, so thick that the approach of troops was often known only by the noise of their movement through the scrub, or, as night came down, by the light from the mouths of the muskets. This was the battle of the first day, and it was long and sanguinary and indecisive. Corps of Ewell and Hill—corps of Hancock and Warren and Sedgwick fought it. Ewell gained and held an advantage, but Wilcox and Heth of Hill’s had a desperate, exhausting struggle with Hancock’s men. Poague’s battalion of artillery strove to help, but artillery in the Wilderness could do little. Six divisions charged Heth and Wilcox. They held their own, but they barely held it. When darkness fell and the thunders were stilled there came a promise that during the night they should be relieved. Resting upon it, they built a rude breastwork, and then, worn out, dropped upon the earth and slept. Lee sent a courier on a swift horse to meet Longstreet and order a night march. At one o’clock of a starlit night the latter took the road, and at daylight of the sixth he came to Parker’s Store, on the edge of the Wilderness, three miles behind Hill’s line of battle, and as he came he heard the roar of battle upon this front.