have reached there since Burnside's departure. Some may also be brought from Wallace's department We want no more wagons nor artillery.
This dispatch tells the condition of things within Grant's lines and his view of the situation, on the morning of the 10th, in a way that needs no comment.
At noon of the day before, May 9th, C. A. Dana, assistant secretary of war, who had joined Grant to watch events, reported to Secretary Stanton various matters that he had heard about, among others:
General Wilson, with his division of cavalry, occupied Spottsylvania Court House yesterday morning for an hour; but as Warren's corps had not yet made its appearance, and as columns of rebel infantry were gaining position on both his right and left, he fell back to Alsop's. Prisoners were taken by Wilson, who reported that two divisions of Longstreet's corps had just come, they having marched all night. General Grant at once gave orders for attacking these troops with the whole of Warren's corps, to whose support Sedgwick was hurrying up, in order to destroy them before the rest of the rebel army could arrive. Warren, however, proceeded with exceeding caution, and when he finally did attack, sent a single division at a time and was constantly repulsed. The general attack, which Generals Grant and Meade directed, was never made, for reasons I have not yet been able to learn; but successive assaults were made upon this and that point in the rebel positions with no decisive results. The last assaults were made just before dark, when the fighting was very sharp. . . . General Grant's orders, last night, were not to renew the fighting to-day; but if, as now appears to be the case, Lee has left anything open in front of our right, by massing on our left, he may attack at this weakened point of their lines with a view of passing toward Richmond on that side.
Hancock found Early, at the "open place" Grant was seeking, the next morning. At 11 of the morning of the 10th, Grant began his massed attack on Lee's left, which was met by Field's division and driven back by a withering fire of musketry and artillery. At 3 in the afternoon, a second massed attack was made on the First corps, near Lee's center, on the line of the Brock road, through the piney woods of the Po-Ny watershed. This also met a bloody repulse, after which the Confederates sprang over their breastworks and collected the guns and ammunition the enemy had left behind, and distributed these so that each Confederate was doubly armed. For a third time, near the close of the day, Grant made assault, with Hancock and Warren, against Lee's weak left. This front line, under Hancock, was driven back by Field's division, but his second line rushed bravely forward and leaped over the breastworks of Gregg's Texans,
