John D. Billings, The history of the Tenth Massachusetts battery of light artillery in the war of the rebellion

[217] course, however, we pursue only a short distance before bearing to the left, on what is known as the Brock Road. But before following the Corps further in this direction it will be interesting to make pause for a moment to note briefly the state of affairs calling for this retrograde:

My advance [says Gen. Hancock] was about two miles beyond Todd's tavern, when, at 9 A. M., I received a despatch from the Major-General commanding the Army of the Potomac to halt at the tavern as the enemy had been discovered on the Wilderness Pike. Two hours later I was directed to move my command up the Brock Road to its intersection with the Orange Plank Road.

It happened that while we bivouacked at Chancellorsville the evening of the day previous, Warren's corps, in advance of the right wing, had camped at Wilderness Tavern, situated at the junction of the Stevensburg Plank Road with the Orange, or, as we have just seen it termed, the Wilderness Pike. Ewell's corps, that part of Lee's army nearest the Rapidan, and his advance wing, was marching over the same pike to meet our army, and halted that night not above three miles from Warren's position, at Robertson's Tavern, already mentioned in the chapter on Mine Run. Each commander was ignorant of the vicinage of the other, partly due to the fact that our cavalry, which had been in advance during most of the afternoon, had been withdrawn and sent across to Parker's store, on the Plank Road. When Warren, therefore, attempted to resume his march, early Thursday morning, he found the enemy confronting him. Grant and Meade, both believing it to be the rear guard of Lee, who, they thought, must have retreated and left a divison merely to cover the movement, gave