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[788] with the Sixth corps, and marches to Fayetteville. The Second, Third, and Fifth corps, encamped between Auburn, Catlett's Station, and Warrenton Junction, will follow the line of the railroad. The First corps, stationed on the left of the army, will join the Second and the Third at Bealeton, and form with them a column which, being directed by Meade and commanded by French, will take toward the south the road to Kelly's Ford. The Fifth corps will join the Sixth to form the right, which Sedgwick will lead against the Rappahannock bridge. The two columns, although they have to travel a distance of sixteen miles, arrive about noon, as Meade has ordered, at the points designated. This long march, executed with so much precision at the outset of a campaign, shows that the Union army has effectively acquired the essential qualities of troops inured to war. The left column having first commenced the march, we will follow it. Rodes is guarding Kelly's Ford. Three and five miles higher up are Wheatley's and Norman's Fords, and a third, Stevens' Ford, is a little lower down, near the confluence of Mountain Run. These three crossings being very difficult, Rodes has entrusted the holding of them merely to outposts, and has disposed his division in mass a mile behind Kelly's Ford, on the Stevensburg road. The configuration of the ground does not permit him to defend the ford itself, which is in the centre of a curve described by the Rappahannock. The right bank, of a convex form, is uncovered and low; at a certain distance the ground gently rises, and does not afford any protection for the space of a mile, as far as a grove, beyond which is the village of Kellysville. On the opposite bank rugged and woody declivities form a semicircle of heights which completely command it. Above the ford, in the rapids, determined men could find a crossing without losing their feet. The Second North Carolina, of Ramseur's brigade, a regiment of not more than three hundred and fifty men, guards all the fords entrusted to Rodes' keeping. The main body, encamped near Kelly's Ford, is at the first signal to occupy the trous de loap dug alongside the bank. The Thirteenth North Carolina, whose effective force is something over five hundred men, is placed as a reserve, with
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1883.
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