midnight
One fell , the other fell upon him . Then the conqueror rose up and went in pursuit of other game -- the dead was lost from all eyes . In this mournful and desolate country of the Spottsylvania Wilderness , did the bloody campaign of 1864 begin . Here , where the very landscape seemed dolorous ; here , in blind wrestle , as at midnight , did 200,000 men , in blue and gray , clutch each other -- bloodiest and weirdest of encounters . War had had nothing like it . Destruction of life had become a science , and was done by the compass . The Genius of Blood , apparently tired of the old common-place mode of killing , had invented the `` Unseen Death , '' in the depths of the jungle .