The indications assured us all that the day and hour of the beginning of the spring campaign was near at hand. The increasing signs of activity inside the enemy's lines filled the air and caused it to vibrate with the buz and hum of reinforcements, and the great addition to their drum corps and trumpeters, whose morning reveille shut out even the sound of fire-arms, gave ample evidence of it. Clouds of dust away in their rear clearly showed that troops were moving. Each night the Confederates unfolded their blankets and unloosed their shoe-strings in uncertainty. A day or two previous to the decisive 2nd, the cannonading on the extreme right grew fiercer and more continuous, and we all thought that the strategy of Grant was being uncovered. Every available man from the Confederate left and centre was hurried to the right. Pickett's entire division was sent thither to the assistance of Bushrod Johnson, who occupied A. P. Hill's right, and Longstreet put in command. On the 30th of March, the left brigade of Hill's corps, (McGowan's,) whose left rested on Silver run, was moved to the right, leaving only artillerists in the trenches, and the picket in front. Cox's brigade, of Grimes' division, held the right of Gordon's corps and extended to the left bank of the run. On the 1st of March and 1st of April, the battle seemed hotter on the right, and the heavy water-batteries on the left boomed incessantly. It appeared as if our corps, (Gordon's,) which had become powder-blackened and sulphur-fumed with the baptism of battle for the several weeks previous, were to escape the assaulting might and vengeance of the Federals, and many an old soldier, while listening to the distant roar, congratulated himself and his command that they were to escape _this time_. But they reckoned without their host. The battle opened on Gordon's front at 3-1/2 o'clock on the morning of the 2d, and the conflict then seemed general along the whole line. The earth shook under the jar and sound. The air was thick with death-dealing missiles, and the whole atmosphere lit up luridly from the firing of cannon, the bursting of shell and the flash of the rifle. In the darkness it seemed as if the hand of Deity had let loose its hold upon the world, its attraction was gone, and, amid thunder and lightning and tempest, the chaotic masses of earth and sky were commingling together in grand confusion.