five o'clock
Again Lee had placed his guns and infantry in a fiery crescent on the hills arranged to catch both flanks and front of an advancing army . Grant 's soldiers knew that grim work had been cut out for them on that fatal morning the third day of June . As John Vaughan walked along the lines the night before he saw thousands of silent men busy with their needle and thread sewing their names on their underclothing . The hot , close weather of the preceding days had ended in a grateful rain at five o'clock , which continued through the night and brought the tired , suffering men gracious relief . Grant decided to assault the whole Confederate front and gave his orders for the attack at the first streak of dawn at four-thirty . The charging blue hosts literally walked into the crater of a volcano flaming in their faces and pouring tons of steel and lead into their stricken flanks . Nothing like it had ever before been seen in the history of war .