The two lines were so near together at many points that pickets could not be thrown out even into the rifle pits which are customarily placed between works thus closely confronting each other. It was impossible to see for any distance in any direction, and at all hours of that terrible night there was a constant threat of sudden advance and surprise upon one point or another of the Confederate line. These threats were reported by word of mouth, as has been explained, from one soldier to another along the line. A message would come "Look out on the left," or "Look out on the right; enemy advancing." About two o'clock in the morning, after there had been a lull of half an hour in the tremendous downpour, the rain began again in bucketsfull and some wag in the Confederate lines started a message, "Get out of the wet." In spite of their discomforts, of their fatigue, of their exhaustion from sleeplessness, and of their momentary danger, the gallant fellows took it up and passed it from one to another, as they might have passed any order of General Lee's. This incident is related here merely by way of showing into what condition of cheerful endurance the men had been wrought by their soldierly experience. It is of value as showing what stuff these contesting armies were made of in the spring of 1864, when the issues of the war lay in their hands. The Confederate line at one point presented what is known in military parlance as a salient angle,--that is to say, a bend, the point of which projects toward the enemy, so that the enemy advancing toward it, and upon either side of it, has the advantage of shooting down along the lines of the men defending it on either side. This is called enfilading, and it especially endangers a position of the kind. Grant decided to begin the fighting on the twelfth by an early assault upon this Confederate salient. During the night he carefully disposed his forces with a view to this operation, hoping thus early in the morning to break through the Confederate line, cut it in two and assail each of its divisions in rear and at disadvantage. In this operation he was greatly favored by a dense fog, which rendered it impossible for his enemy to discover his movements, or even the presence of his moving columns at a greater distance than a few yards. Hancock had charge of this particular movement, and he succeeded before his movement was discovered in gaining a position very near to the exposed salient angle, and from that position his men rushed with a wild hurrah upon the works. The Confederates stood their ground as such veterans were at that time always expected to do.