curring are difficult to overcome; and these, not numbers, must
determine this battle.

During all the morning--and of the night, too--the skirmishers of the
enemy had been confronting those of the Eleventh, First and Twelfth
Corps. At the time of the fight of the First, he was seen in heavy force
North of the town--he was believed to be now in the same neighborhood,
in full force. But from the woody character of the country, and thereby
the careful concealment of troops, which the Rebel is always sure to
effect, during the early part of the morning almost nothing was
actually seen by us of the invaders of the North. About nine o'clock in
the morning, I should think, our glasses began to reveal them at the
West and North-west of the town, a mile and a half away from our lines.
They were moving towards our left, but the woods of Seminary Ridge so
concealed them that we could not make out much of their movements. About
this time some rifled guns in the Cemetery, at the left of the Eleventh
Corps, opened fire--almost the first shots of any kind this morning--and
when it was found they were firing at a Rebel line of skirmishers
merely, that were advancing upon the left of that, and the right of the
Second Corps, the officer in charge of the guns was ordered to cease
firing, and was rebuked for having fired at all. These skirmishers soon
engaged those at the right of the Second Corps, who stood their ground
and were reinforced to make the line entirely secure. The Rebel skirmish
line kept extending further and further to their right--toward our left.
They would dash up close upon ours and sometimes drive them back a short
distance, in turn to be repulsed themselves--and so they continued to
do until their right was opposite the extreme left of the Third Corps.
By these means they had ascertained the position and extent of our
lines--but their own masses were still out of view. From the time that
the firing commenced, as I have mentioned, it was kept up, among the
skirmishers, until quite noon, often briskly; but with no definite
results further than those mentioned, and with no considerable show of
infantry on the part of the enemy to support. There was a farm house and
outbuildings in front of the Third Division of the Second Corps, at
which the skirmishers of the enemy had made a dash, and dislodged ours
posted there, and from there their sharp shooters began to annoy our
line of skirmishers and even the main line, with the