The second and third lines are ordered to re-enforce the first as
occasion requires.
Two pieces of Stuart's horse-artillery accompany the first line on the
pike.
The regiments in the centre of the line appear to have been formed in
columns with intervals, each brigade advancing in line of columns by
regiment. The troops are not preceded by any skirmishers. The line on
the wings is probably not so much massed. It is subsequently testified
by many in the Eleventh Corps, that the centre of the line appears to
advance en echiquier, the front companies of each line of columns firing
while the rear columns are advancing through the intervals.
The march through the woods up to Dowdall's clearing has not disturbed
the lines so materially as to prevent the general execution of such a
manoeuvre.
But the Confederate reports show that the regiments were all in line and
not in column. The appearance of columns was due to the fact that the
second and third lines, under Colston and A. P. Hill, were already
pressing up close in the rear of the first under Rodes, thus making a
mass nine deep. The intervals between regiments were accidental,
occasioned by the swaying of the line to and fro as it forced its way
through the underbrush.
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