“I have left it in Culpeper, general.” “Liar!--give me the paper!” Swartz started to his feet. Mohun caught at his throat--the spy recoiled--when suddenly a quick firing was heard coming rapidly from the direction of Germanna Ford. “The enemy have crossed, Mohun!” I cried. Mohun started, and turned his head in the direction of the sound. “They are advancing!” I said, “but look out!--the spy!--” Mohun wheeled, drawing his pistol. Swartz had profited by the moment, when our attention was attracted by the firing, to pass through the door, gain his horse at a bound, and throw himself into the saddle, with an agility that was incredible in one so fat. At the same moment Mohun’s pistol-shot responded, but the bullet whistled harmlessly over the spy’s head. In an instant he had disappeared in the woods. Mohun rushed to his horse, I followed, and we were soon riding at full speed in the direction of the firing. As we advanced, however, it receded. We pushed on, and reached the bank of the Rapidan just as Mohun’s men had driven a party of the enemy over. It was only a small body, who, crossing at a private ford and surprising the sleepy picket, had raided into the thicket, to retire promptly when they were assailed. The affair was nothing. Unfortunately, however, it had enabled the Federal spy to elude us. Swartz had disappeared like a bird of the night; and all pursuit of him in such a wilderness was impossible. An hour afterward, I had rejoined Stuart. XXX. GRANT STRIKES HIS FIRST BLOW. Such were the singular scenes which I witnessed, amid the shadows of the Spottsylvania Wilderness, in the first days of May, 1864. The narrative has brought the reader now to an hour past midnight on the third of May. An hour before--that is to say, at midnight precisely--the Federal forces began to move: at six in the morning, they had massed on the north bank of the Rapidan; and as the sun rose above the Wilderness, the blue columns began to cross the river. General Grant, at the head of his army of 140,000 men, had set forth on his great advance toward Richmond--that advance so often tried, so often defeated, but which now seemed, from the very nature of things, to be destined to succeed. Any other hypothesis seemed absurd. What could 50,000 do against nearly thrice their number? What could arrest the immense machine rolling forward to crush the Confederacy? A glance at Grant’s splendid array was enough to make the stoutest heart sink. On this 4th day of May, 1864, he was crossing the Rapidan with what resembled a countless host. Heavy masses of blue infantry, with glittering bayonets--huge parks of rifled artillery, with their swarming cannoneers--long columns of horsemen, armed with sabre and repeating carbines, made the earth shake, and the woods echo with their heavy and continuous tramp, mingled with the roll of wheels.