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to the junction of the New Bridge road and the Nine Mile road, to be in readiness either to fall on Keyes' right flank, or to cover Longstreet's left.

The next day hour after hour passed, while Gen. Longstreet in vain waited for Huger's division. At two o'clock in the afternoon he resolved to make the attack without these troops, and moved upon the enemy with his own and D. H. Hill's division, the latter in advance.

Hill's brave troops, admirably commanded and most gallantly led, forced their way through the abattis which formed the enemy's external defences, and stormed their intrenchments by a determined and irresistible rush. Such was the manner in which the enemy's first line was carried. The operation was repeated with the same gallantry and success as our troops pursued their victorious career through the enemy's successive camps and intrenchments. At each new position they encountered fresh troops belonging to it, and reinforcements brought on from the rear. Thus they had to repel repeated efforts to retake works which they had carried. their advance was never successfully resisted. Their onward movement was only stayed by the coming of night. By nightfall they had forced their way to the "Seven Pines," having driven the enemy back more than two miles, through their own camps, and from, a series of intrenchments, and repelled every attempt to recapture them with great slaughter.

But

The attack on the enemy's right was not so fortunate. The strength of his position enabled him to hold it until dark, and the intervention of night alone saved him from rout. On this part of the field Gen. Johnston was severely wounded by the fragment of a shell.

In his official report of the operations of the day, General Johnston says: "Had Major-gen. Huger's division been in position and ready for action when those of Smith, Longstreet, and Hill moved, I am satisfied that Keyes' corps would have been destroyed instead of being merely defeated." The slow and impotent movements of Gen. Huger were excused by himself on account of the necessity of building a bridge to cross the swollen stream in his front, and other accidental causes of delay.

But notwithstanding the serious diminution of the fortunes

of the day by Huger's mishaps, they were yet conspicuous. We had taken ten pieces of artillery and six thousand muskets, besides other spoils. Our total loss was more than four thousand. That of the enemy is stated in their own newspapers to have exceeded ten thousand-an estimate which is no doubt short of the truth.

On the morning of the first of June, the enemy made a weak demonstration of attack on our lines. The 9th and 14th Virginia regiments were ordered to feel for the enemy, and while thus engaged suddenly came upon a body of fifteen thousand Yankees intrenched in the woods. Under the murderous fire poured into their ranks, our troops were forced to fall back, but were rallied by the self-devoted gallantry of their officers. Col. Godwin, the dashing and intrepid commander of the 9th, received a Minnié ball in the leg, and a moment later had his hip crushed by the fall of his horse, which was shot under him. He was thirty paces in advance of his regiment when the attack was made, encouraging his men. At last, reinforcements oming up, the attack of the enemy was vigorously repulsed. This was the last demonstration of the enemy, who proceeded to strengthen those lines of intrenchments from which he had not yet been driven.

THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY.

Upon taking command of the Confederate army in the field, after Gen. Johnston had been wounded in the battle of Seven Pines, Gen. Lee did not hesitate to adopt the spirit of that commander, which had already been displayed in attacking the enemy, and which indicated the determination on his part that the operations before Richmond should not degenerate into a siege.

The course of the Chickahominy around Richmond affords an idea of the enemy's position at the commencement of the action. This stream meanders through the Tide-water district of Virginia-its course approaching that of the arc of a circle in the neighborhood of Richmond-until it reaches the lower end of Charles City county, where it abruptly turns to the south and empties into the James. A portion of the enemy's forces had crossed to the south side of the Chickahominy, and

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