While this bloody episode was enacting by the Mississippi Brigade, in the woods to our right, an almost exactly similar scene was going on, in the woods to our left. A portion of Kershaw's South Carolina Brigade was unwittingly stumbled upon by "Griffin's" Division in the pines. Another complete ambuscade! The South Carolinians suddenly sprang up before the Federals, let them have it, broke and routed them, and killed, and wounded eighty-seven of them. Our loss was one man. Things were so sudden, so close here, that one of Kershaw's men killed a Federal soldier, and wounded another with an axe he happened to have in his hand.
These first efforts of "Warren's" Corps that had gotten up near the Spottsylvania line, "just in time to be too late," are thus described by Swinton, the admirable historian of the "Army of the Potomac." (Swinton's "Army of the Potomac," p. 443):
"Finally," he says, "the column (Warren's) emerged from the woods into a clearing, two miles north of Spottsylvania Court House. Forming in line, Robinson's Division advanced over the plain. Thus far, only Stuart's dismounted troops had been encountered, and no other opposition was anticipated; but when half way across the field, and on the point of rising the crest, the troops were met by a savage musketry fire from infantry. Owing to their severe experience in the Wilderness, and the night march, without rest, the men were in an excited, and almost frightened, condition, and the tendency to _stampede_ was so great that General Warren had been compelled to go in front of the leading Brigade. When, therefore, they received a fire in front, from the redoubtable foe they had left in the Wilderness, the line wavered, and fell back in some confusion. General Robinson was at the same time severely wounded, which left the troops without their commander at a critical moment, and they were with some difficulty rallied and reformed in the woods back of the open plain. Griffin's Division, which advanced on the right of Robinson, soon afterward received the same fire with a like result."
It seems then, that it was Robinson's Division that the little Mississippi Brigade sent to the right about, and it was Griffin's Division, who scared themselves nearly into fits, by flushing Kershaw's "rice-birds," in the pines. It was a little hard on these "excited and almost frightened" men of Warren's. The memory of the fearful shaking up they had got, day before yesterday, was so fresh in their minds that "General Warren himself, the _Corps Commander_, had to go in front of the leading Brigade" to quiet their nerves, even when they thought they were advancing upon a few dismounted troops. They thought,--a little comfort in this,--that, at least, all those terrible fellows of the Army of Northern Virginia were far behind them. And--to meet them _here_, still, in front! It must be confessed it was hard! It was a very sad surprise.