Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.–“What a tremendous relief it was to get out of the infernal Wilderness…”–Diary of Josiah Marshall Favill.

May 9th. Remained at Todd’s tavern till noon, when ascertaining that the enemy had left our front, we marched down the Spottsylvania road about a mile, then took a wood road to the right, which brought us into fine open ground, commanding the river Po. Here we found the bulk of the army, Warren holding the right, covering the Brock and other roads converging here, Sedgwick next, and Burnside on the extreme left; our corps formed in line of division, in rear of Warren, stacked arms, and prepared for dinner. What a tremendous relief it was to get out of the infernal Wilderness, where for three days we had been fighting for the most part an invisible foe. About ten o’clock our attention was attracted to the opposite side of the river, where a long train of army wagons was passing in full view along the Block House road to Spottsylvania. One of our batteries opened fire on them, which drove them into the woods for shelter. Soon afterwards our division was ordered to cross the river. Brooke took the advance, driving in the few rebel pickets that held the ford, and forming line of battle advanced across the open ground to the edge of the wood from half to three-quarters of a mile in front. Frank’s brigade followed, and then Miles’s. On the left, Brooke advanced and occupied the block house road, over which the rebel wagon train had so recently passed. Birney’s division crossed above us, Gibbon’s below. As soon as our division got over it was advanced to the Shady Grove road, with the intention of crossing the Po again at the block house, and establishing ourselves on Lee’s left flank, but it was dark by the time we got up, and the rebels held the crossing in front, so we bivouacked for the night where we lay. During the night the engineer corps built two or three bridges directly in rear of our position, so that in case of an emergency we could get across, without going back by the route we advanced over.