What a contrast between the two armies assembled on the night of May 4, 1864! General Grant’s army numbered about one hundred and seventeen thousand, and it was the best equipped and best provisioned army ever marshaled in the United States. On the other hand, General Lee had only about fifty-five thousand ill clad and poorly fed men, but they were veterans who had previously held at bay such generals as McClellan, Meade, Hooker, and Burnside. Many of the men were nearly barefooted; and some were just from the hospital, with their wounds not yet healed. The morning of May 5, 1864, found us forming on the old plank road, my regiment extending across it. There were two roads extending from Orange Courthouse to Fredericksburg, thirty-two miles distant. One was called the plank road and the other the dirt road. Both led out of Orange Courthouse together, but diverged soon after. At our line they were three miles apart, and it was sixteen miles by each road to Orange Courthouse or Fredericksburg. The plank road was nearest the Rapidan River, and our left rested not far from the river (our line extended three miles), the right resting on the dirt road near Parker’s store. Running from the Rapidan River and crossing the plank road and dirt road was the Brock road, extending from the Rapidan River to Spottsylvania Courthouse, eighteen miles from the Rapidan River. General Lee made no resistance to the passage of General Grant across the Rapidan; in fact, all our pickets had been withdrawn when General Grant first reached and obtained possession of the Brock road. He thought that General Lee was retiring toward Richmond, but we were hid in the Wilderness for the time being. His scouts reported our whereabouts after nightfall of May 4. On the morning of May 5 we were forming our lines; and as General Grant’s numbers outflanked us, we had to stretch out the thin gray line, and on my part of the line we did not have a rear rank, and the front rank files were so far apart that they could not touch elbows. My line of battle was in a pine thicket on the edge of Palmer’s field, a clearing of some two hundred feet in width and some five hundred feet in length. On General Grant’s side of the field the pine and underbrush were as thick as on our side. Just in the rear of our line, and running parallel with us, was a newly cut road on which wagons had recently been hauling out timber. Into this road we ran a battery of nine pieces charged with grape and canister. This was our position when, about 3 P.M., the picket lines commenced firing, and our pickets, who were across the old field, ran to and joined our ranks. Soon a line of blue appeared on the opposite side of the thicket and opened a brisk fire, and continued to advance on us; and the battle of the Wilderness had begun. The One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York Zouaves were in our immediate front, and their commander was Major Gilbert. They were as fine-looking a body of men as I ever saw.