“J.H.  Van Alen,

“Brigadier-General and Aide-de-Camp.

“(Copy from Butterfield, at Falmouth, to Sedgwick, 5.50 P.M.).”

At 4 o’clock, therefore, the moment Jackson’s vanguard reached the old turnpike near Luckett’s Farm, Hooker believed that all danger of a flank attack had passed away.  His left wing was under orders to advance, as soon as a swamp to the front could be “corduroyed,” and strike Lee in flank; while to reinforce Sickles, “among the enemy’s trains,” Williams’ division of the Twelfth Corps was sent forward from the centre, Howard’s reserve brigade (Barlow’s) from the right, and Pleasonton’s cavalry brigade from Hazel Grove.

The officers in charge of the Federal right appear to have been as unsuspicious as their commander.  During the morning some slight preparations were made to defend the turnpike from the westward; a shallow line of rifle-pits, with a few epaulements for artillery, had been constructed on a low ridge, commanding open fields, which runs north from Dowdall’s Tavern, and the wood beyond had been partially entangled.  But this was all, and even when the only reserve of the Eleventh Army Corps, Barlow’s brigade, was sent to Sickles, it was not considered necessary to make any change in the disposition of the troops.  The belief that Lee and Jackson were retreating had taken firm hold of every mind.  The pickets on the flank had indeed reported, from time to time, that infantry was massing in the thickets; and the Confederate cavalry, keeping just outside effective range, occupied every road and every clearing.  Yet no attempt was made, by a strong reconnaissance in force, to ascertain what was actually going on within the forest; and the reports of the scouts were held to be exaggerated.

The neglect was the more marked in that the position of the Eleventh Army Corps was very weak.  Howard had with him twenty regiments of infantry and six batteries; but his force was completely isolated.  His extreme right, consisting of four German regiments, was posted in the forest, with two guns facing westward on the pike, and a line of intrenchments facing south.  On the low hill eastward, where Talley’s Farm, a small wooden cottage, stood in the midst of a wide clearing, were two more German regiments and two American.  Then, near the junction of the roads, intervened a patch of forest, which was occupied by four regiments, with a brigade upon their left; and beyond, nearly a mile wide from north to south, and five or six hundred yards in breadth, were the open fields round the little Wilderness Church, dipping at first to a shallow brook, and then rising gradually to a house called Dowdall’s Tavern.  In these fields, south of the turnpike, were the breastworks held by the second division of the Eleventh Army Corps; and here were six regiments, with several batteries in close support.  The 60th New York and 26th Wisconsin, near the Hawkins House at the north end of the fields, faced to the west;