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to the left, the whole army wheeling on
Longstreet's extreme left as a pivot.
And now began some of the mischances of a foggy night in an enchanted wood filled with ten thousand camp-fires and fifty thousand exhausted sleepers, with no guides and no landmarks.
It was easier to order an attack for daybreak than to bring it about.
The battle did not begin at dawn.
Many annoying miscarriages prevented it, the wearied staff riding all night in vain in bewildering circles; but the delay gave a breakfast to many of the troops who had been without food for twenty-four hours. Cold comfort, but some there was, I hope, for those ragged heroes in the unsavory bread and meat served out on that foggy September morning after one day of bloody battle and on the perilous edge of another!
A pot of coffee might have cheered their hearts a little; but the taste of that had long been forgotten by the
Confederate soldier.
The necessary preparations being at length completed, Breckinridge, of Hill's corps, at half-past 9 advanced rapidly to the attack, and within seven hundred yards his left regiments found themselves confronted by the enemy's breastworks.
The Lafayette road indicatedthe general direction of the Federal line,1 their left being on the east of it near Kelly's, and their right crossing it and bending back to the southwest.
Before the works which the Federals had hastily thrown up occurred a sanguinary fight in which was again illustrated the natural
