The artillery massing in the meadow gives to this view the interest of an
impending tragedy. In the foreground the officers, servants, and orderlies
of the headquarters mess camp are waiting for the command to strike their
tents, pack the wagons, and move on. But at the very time this photograph
was taken they should have been miles away. Grant had issued orders the
day before that should have set these troops in motion. However, the
Confederate General Ewell had chosen the 18th to make an attack on the
right flank. It not only delayed the departure but forced a change in the
intended positions of the division as they had been contemplated by the
commander-in-chief. Beverly House is where General Warren pitched his
headquarters after Spotsylvania, and the spectator is looking toward the
battlefield that lies beyond the distant woods. After Ewell's attack,
Warren again found himself on the right flank, and at this very moment the
main body of the Federal army is passing in the rear of him. The costly
check at Spotsylvania, with its wonderful display of fighting on both
sides, had in its apparently fruitless results called for the display of
all Grant's gifts as a military leader. It takes but little imagination to
supply color to this photograph; it is full of it--full of the movement
and detail of war also. It is springtime; blossoms have just left the
trees and the whole country is green and smiling, but the earth is scarred
by thousands of trampling feet and hoof-prints. Ugly ditches cross the
landscape; the débris of an army marks its onsweep from one battlefield to
another.
[Illustration: THE ONES WHO NEVER CAME BACK