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Buckland and Hildebrand anxiously visited their picket-lines and observed the parties of hostile cavalry hovering in the woods beyond. Some of the men on picket claimed they had seen infantry. Captain Mason of the Seventy-seventh Ohio, on picket, observed at daylight, Saturday morning, numbers of rabbits and squirrels scudding from the woods to and across his picket-line.

Some works to the right and left were also carried with the guns in them six in number and a few more prisoners. Birney's troops to the right captured the enemy's intrenched picket-lines, but were unsuccessful in their efforts upon the main line. Our troops fortified their new position, bringing Fort Harrison into the new line and extending it to the river.

In the dark nights he went out beyond the picket-lines and examined the hills and ravines, while the bullets of the Rebel sharpshooters were flying about his ears, and in the daytime he was riding along the lines while the great guns were bellowing, to see if they were in the best position, and were doing their proper work.

I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia; but as far as your proposal may affect the Confederate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at ten A.M. to-morrow on the old stage-road to Richmond, between the picket-lines of the two armies. "R. E. LEE, General.

Toward the left of this point, the abrupt rise disappeared; but in general, the rebel works crowned elevated ground beyond, and the entrenched picket-lines of the two armies were in the open ground between the railroad and the rebel entrenchments. On the right, as you would go down from our trenches to the road, a kind of ravine extended toward the rebel works, and was commanded by their rifles.

In the meantime Ord and Humphreys, in obedience to the instructions they had received, had succeeded by daylight, or very early in the morning, in capturing the intrenched picket-lines in their front; and before Wright got up to that point, Ord had also succeeded in getting inside of the enemy's intrenchments.

We gathered spruce-gum and sent it to our sweethearts in letters. We ascended every hill within our picket-lines and called it a "peak." It has not got into history, but it had a real objective existence although by a felicitous afterthought called by us who were defeated a "reconnaissance in force."

It was no easy matter to handle them on the picket-lines, and to provide for feeding and watering; and the efforts to shoe and ride them were at first productive of much vigorous excitement. Of course, those that were wild from the range had to be thrown and tied down before they could be shod.

Some works to the right and left were also carried with the guns in them six in number and a few more prisoners. Birney's troops to the right captured the enemy's intrenched picket-lines, but were unsuccessful in their efforts upon the main line. Our troops fortified their new position, bringing Fort Harrison into the new line and extending it to the river.

Our only safety from this source of trouble would be to drive out of our lines all Rebel families, thus preventing the means of communicating the news to the outer world. Another simple statement will explain the chances of the enemy and the causes of many of our casualties. Our picket-lines are too much extended, covering too wide a territory to make them as strong as they should be.