These coöperative movements having been all arranged, each commander of an army or department informed not only of the part which he was expected to perform himself, but what all were expected to do, the Army of the Potomac was ready to move. General Grant had established his head-quarters with that army.
At length the order for moving came. On the morning of the 4th of May, reveille was sounded at half-past two o'clock, and at half-past four the Sixth corps moved, taking the road to Germania Ford.
It was a lovely day, and all nature seemed rejoicing at the advent of spring. Flowers strewed the wayside, and the warble of the blue bird, and the lively song of the sparrow, were heard in the groves and hedges.
The distance from our camps to Germania Ford was sixteen miles. This distance we marched rapidly, and long before sunset we had crossed the ford on pontoon bridges and marched to a point three miles south of the river, where we bivouacked for the night.
The Second corps, at an earlier hour, had crossed at Ely's Ford, and had reached a position near the old Chancellorsville battle-field, and the Fifth corps had led the way across Germania Ford.
The infantry had been preceded by the cavalry divisions of Gregg and Wilson, under Sheridan. They had fallen in with a small picket force which, after exchanging a few shots, had beat a hasty retreat.
Before night the army and the greater part of our trains had effected a crossing without opposition; and, doubtless, much to the surprise and chagrin of General Lee, we were holding strong positions, from which it would hardly be possible to force us.
Except slight skirmishes in front of Hancock's Second corps, there was no fighting on the fourth of May. At seven o'clock on the morning of the fifth, the Sixth corps moved southward about two miles on the Wilderness plank road. Here the corps rested until eleven o'clock, while artillery and cavalry passed along the road in a continuous column. At eleven o'clock the corps faced to the front, and advanced into the woods which skirted the road.
The Sixth corps now occupied the extreme right of the line, General Warren's Fifth corps the center, and Hancock's Second corps was on the left, near Chancellorsville. Between Warren and Hancock was an unoccupied space--a point of vital importance to our line. Thither General Getty, with the First, Second and Fourth brigades of our Second division, was sent to hold the ground till Hancock, who was ordered to come up, should arrive. Our Third brigade being all that was left of the Second division, it was assigned to the First division. General Meade's head-quarters were just in rear of the Fifth corps. The wood through which our line was now moving was a thick growth of oak and walnut, densely filled with a smaller growth of pines and other brushwood; and in many places so thickly was this undergrowth interwoven among the large trees, that one could not see five yards in front of the line. Yet, as we pushed on, with as good a line as possible, the thick tangle in a measure disappeared, and the woods were more open. Still, in the most favorable places, the thicket was so close as to make it impossible to manage artillery or cavalry, and, indeed, infantry found great difficulty in advancing, and at length we were again in the midst of the thick undergrowth.