were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks.  Wharton, now in command of Breckenridge’s division—­its late commander having gone to southwest Virginia—­held the right of this line, with Gordon next him; Pegram, commanding Ramseur’s old division, joined Gordon.  Ramseur with Rodes’s division, was on Pegram’s left, while Lomax’s cavalry, now serving as foot-troops, extended the line to the Back road.  Fitzhugh Lee being wounded, his cavalry, under General Wickham, was sent to Milford to prevent Fisher’s Hill from being turned through the Luray Valley.

In consequence of the enemy’s being so well protected from a direct assault, I resolved on the night of the 20th to use again a turning-column against his left, as had been done on the 19th at the Opequon.  To this end I resolved to move Crook, unperceived if possible, over to the eastern face of Little North Mountain, whence he could strike the left and rear of the Confederate line, and as he broke it up, I could support him by a left half-wheel of my whole line of battle.  The execution of this plan would require perfect secrecy, however, for the enemy from his signal-station on Three Top could plainly see every movement of our troops in daylight.  Hence, to escape such observation, I marched Crook during the night of the 20th into some heavy timber north of Cedar Creek, where he lay concealed all day the 21st.  This same day Wright and Emory were moved up closer to the Confederate works, and the Sixth Corps, after a severe fight, in which Ricketts’s and Getty were engaged, took up some high ground on the right of the Manassas Gap railroad in plain view of the Confederate works, and confronting a commanding point where much of Early’s artillery was massed.  Soon after General Wright had established this line I rode with him along it to the westward, and finding that the enemy was still holding an elevated position further to our right, on the north side of Tumbling Run, I directed this also to be occupied.  Wright soon carried the point, which gave us an unobstructed view of the enemy’s works and offered good ground for our artillery.  It also enabled me to move the whole of the Sixth Corps to the front till its line was within about seven hundred yards of the enemy’s works; the Nineteenth Corps, on the morning of the 22d, covering the ground vacated by the Sixth by moving to the front and extending to the right, but still keeping its reserves on the railroad.

In the darkness of the night of the gist, Crook was brought across Cedar Creek and hidden in a clump of timber behind Hupp’s Hill till daylight of the 22d, when, under cover of the intervening woods and ravines, he was marched beyond the right of the Sixth Corps and again concealed not far from the Back road.  After Crook had got into this last position, Ricketts’s division was pushed out until it confronted the left of the enemy’s infantry, the rest of the Sixth Corps extending from Ricketts’s left to the Manassas Gap railroad, while the Nineteenth Corps filled in the space between the left of the Sixth and the North Fork of the Shenandoah.