Fighting on the greatest scale and of the most determined
kind yet known in the American, or perhaps any other war, was in progress between the 6th and 17th May, the latest date of intel- ligence from the field. Our intelligence of last week left the engagement just beginning, General Grant, with his head-quarters at Wilderness, endeavouring to cut off the Confederates under General Lee from the road to Richmond, which runs by Spotsyl- vttnia Court House. The first great engagement was on Friday, the 6th of May, the Federals (facing westwards) opposing them- selves to the attempt of General Lee to win, by a south-eastward march from his winter camp in Mine Run, the Richmond road. The battle raged all day, and at night Lee seems to have shouldered off the Federals so far as to be able to gain the Spotsylvania road to Richmond, along which he retreated during the night, and took up a strong position before Spotsylvania Court House (some 50 miles north of Richmond), where he waited on the banks of the Po (or Mattapony River) the advance of Grant. On this day alone the killed and wounded of the Federal army were 8,000 men. Grant pushed his men rapidly southwards in pursuit of the Confederates, and on the 8'th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, there appears to have been a continuous and most bloody struggle for Lee's position, which was still undetermined even on the 17th. On the 11th, after five days of continuous fighting and marching, General Hancock was moved from the right to the left of the Federal army, with which Grant has all along done the chief fighting, and took by a surprise before the enemy were under arms an important position, but the assault on the right and centre was unsuccessful. On the 13th Gen. Meade reported to the army that the Federals had captured some eighteen cannon, twenty-two colours, and taken 8,000 prisoners, but that their work was not yet over, and the rumours of low in !tilled and wounded are so heavy—amounting even to 40,000 men—that Grant's operations were probably delayed not only by the tremen- dous rains but the need of reinforcements Lee defeated on his right still held Spotsylvania Court House with his centre and left on the 17th May. No contest was ever more desperate.
