Richmond.  The dense Wilderness seemed providential for the movement upon which Lee had now determined to stake the fate of his army and the fortunes of the Confederacy.  Its heavy, thick undergrowth entirely obstructed the view and hid the movements to be made.  Jackson, with Rhodes, Colston’s, and A.P.  Hill’s Divisions, were to make a detour around the enemy’s right, march by dull roads and bridle paths through the tangled forest, and fall upon the enemy’s rear, while McLaws, Anderson’s, and Early’s Divisions were to hold him in check in front.  Pickett’s Division had, before this time, been sent to Wilmington, N.C., while Ransom’s Division, with Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade, of McLaws’ Division, were to keep watch of the enemy at Fredericksburg.  The Federal General, Stoneman, with his cavalry, was then on his famous but disastrous raid to Richmond.  Jackson commenced his march early in the morning, and kept it up all day, turning back towards the rear of the enemy when sufficiently distant that his movement could not be detected.  By marching eighteen or twenty miles he was then within three miles of his starting point.  But Hooker’s Army stood between him and Lee.  Near night Jackson struck the enemy a terrific blow, near the plank road, just opposite to where we lay, and the cannonading was simply deafening.  The shots fired from some of the rifled guns of Jackson passed far overhead of the enemy and fell in our rear.  Hooker, bewildered and lost in the meshes of the Wilderness, had formed his divisions in line of battle in echelon, and moved out from the river.  Great gaps would intervene between the division in front and the one in rear.  Little did he think an enemy was marching rapidly for his rear, another watching every movement in front, and those enemies, Jackson and Lee, unknown to Hooker, his flank stood exposed and the distance between the columns gave an ordinary enemy an advantage seldom offered by an astute General, but to such an enemy as Jackson it was more than he had hoped or even dared to expect.  As he sat watching the broken columns of the enemy struggling through the dense undergrowth, the favorable moment came.  Seizing it with promptness and daring, so characteristic of the man, he, like Napoleon at Austerlitz, when he saw the Russians passing by his front with their flanks exposed, rushed upon them like a wild beast upon its prey, turning the exposed column back upon its rear.  Colston, commanding Jackson’s old Division, led the attack, followed by A.P.  Hill.  Rhodes then fell like an avalanche upon the unexpectant and now thoroughly disorganized divisions of the retreating enemy.  Volley after volley was poured into the seething mass of advancing and receding columns.  Not much use could be made of artillery at close range, so that arm of the service was mainly occupied in shelling their trains and the woods in rear.  Until late in the night did the battle rage in all its fury.  Darkness only added to its intensity, and the fire was kept up until a shot through mistake lay the great Chieftain, Stonewall Jackson, low.  General A.P.  Hill now took command of the corps, and every preparation was made for the desperate onslaught of to-morrow.  By some strange intuition peculiar to the soldier, and his ability to gather news, the word that Jackson had fallen burst through the camp like an explosion, and cast a gloom of sorrow over all.