routed foe, with the bayonet, as far as Fair Oaks station. terminated the conflict.*

Here night

The battle had raged over a wide-spread field. No one knew of the result, save what his own eyes had beheld. Patriots and rebels, utterly exhausted, threw themselves upon the ground wherever they chanced to be, among the dead and the dying. Blood, woe, death, made tacit truce for the night. General Johnston, by throwing his whole force upon the National divisions which had crossed the Chickahominy, intended to crush them before they could receive assistance. The heroic defence of General Casey, and the furious onslaught of General Sumner, thwarted this plan.t

The dying and the dead covered the ground for miles. The groans of the wounded ascended dismally through the night air. Both parties, now slumbering upon the wet sod, or groping their way for commanding positions, were preparing for the renewal of the strife with the first dawn of the Sabbath morning. The Prince de Joinville thus comments upon this important battle :

"Some persons thought then, and think still, that if, instead of Sumner alone, all the divisions of the right wing had been ordered to cross the river, the order could have been executed. It is easy to see what must have happened if, instead of fifteen thousand, fifty thousand men had been thrown upon Johnston's flank. Sumner's bridge, no doubt, would not have sufficed for the passage of such a force. But several other bridges were ready to be thrown across at other points. Not a moment should have been lost in fixing them. No regard should have been paid to the efforts of the enemy to prevent this. Johnston had paraded a brigade, ostentatiously, as a sort of scarecrow, at the points which were most fitting for this enterprise.

* "But exactly at this moment, six o'clock P. M., new actors come upon the stage. Sumner, who has at last passed the river with Sedgwick's division, on the bridge built by his troops, and who, with a soldier's instinct, has marched straight to the cannon, through the woods, suddenly appears upon the flank of the hostile column, which is trying to cut off Heintzelman and Keyes. He plants in a clearing a battery which he has succeeded in bringing up. His guns are not rifled guns, the rage of the hour, fit only to be fired in cool blood, and at long range, in an open country; they are real fighting guns, old twelve-pound howitzers, carrying either a round projectile which ricochets and rolls, or a good dose of grape. The simple and rapid fire of these pieces makes a terrible havoc in the hostile ranks. In vain Johnston sends up his best troops against this battery, the flower of South Carolina, including the Hampton Legion; in vain does he come upon the field in person. Nothing can shake the Federal ranks. When night falls, it was the Federals who, bayonet in hand, and gallantly led by Sumner himself, charged furiously upon the foe, and drove him before them with fearful slaughter as far as Fair Oaks station.”— Army of the Potomac, by the Prince de Joinville, p. 74.

rear.

† “A few days before the battle of Seven Pines, contrary to the advice of General Keyes and General Casey, the division (of General Casey) was ordered three-quarters of a mile to the front, within six miles of Richmond, his pickets extending within five miles. They had no support on their right or their left, the remainder of the corps to which they belonged (Keyes's) being in their About eleven o'clock on the morning of the 21st, the pickets reported the enemy approaching, and an aide of General Johnston was captured, with important papers upon him. General Casey, with this aide and his general officer of the day, went to General Keyes and reported the circumstances to him. General Keyes testifies that for some days before the attack he sent to General McClellan reports of his condition, the threatening attitude of the enemy, and urged that Sumner be sent across to his support. This was not done, however, until after the attack commenced."-Report of the Congressional Committee on the Operations of the Army of the Potomac.

But the stake was so vast, the result to be sought after so important, the occasion so unexpected, and so favorable for striking a decisive blow, that, in our judgment, nothing should have prevented the army from attempting this operation at every risk. Here again it paid the penalty of that American tardiness, which is more marked in the character of the army than in that of its leader. It was not till seven in the evening that the resolution was taken of throwing over all the bridges, and passing the whole army over by daybreak, to the right bank. It was too late. Four hours had been lost, and the opportunity, that moment which is ever more fugitive in war than in any other occupation of life, had taken wing."*

About midnight the Union troops heard distinctly the words of command of the rebel officers, as they were arranging their forces for the attack of the next day. At the same time hundreds of axes were heard, felling trees to protect the front of the rebels from the advance of the patriots. Just at daybreak, a mounted rebel orderly rode out of the woods, and, mistaking a National for a rebel brigade, asked a colonel for General Ander"Here he is," was the reply; "what do you want with him?" "I have a dispatch for him from General Pryor." Much to his consternation, he was informed that he was in the National lines, and that he was a pris

son.

oner.

* In reference to this charge "of that American tardiness, which is more marked in the character of the army than in that of its leader," the testimony given to the Congressional Committee in reference to the corps of General Sumner is in point:

During the battle General Sumner, whose corps was on the left banks of the Chickahominy, was ordered by General McClellan to hold his forces in readiness to cross. General Sumner not only did that, but at once called out his forces, and moved them until the heads of the columns were at the bridges ready to cross, thereby saving between one and two hours. When the order came to cross, he immediately moved his forces in the direction of the battle-field, came up with and engaged the enemy, and relieved the pressure of the troops engaged upon his left."-Report of Congressional Committee, p. 10.

CHAPTER VIII.

BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES.

(From June 1st to June 15th, 1862.)

RENEWAL OF THE BATTLE-FEARFUL CARNAGE.-BURIAL SCENES.-DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN GENERAL MCCLELLAN AND THE ADMINISTRATION.-GENERAL MCDOWELL'S CO-OPERATION.—— CONTINUED DELAY.-STUART'S RAID.-SINGULAR DUEL.

Ar length the Sabbath morning sun dawned upon the two armies prepared for the renewal of the strife. It was the first day of June. It is a memorable fact, so often observed as to attract the attention of the most sceptical, that rarely has any party, during this war, made the attack on the Sabbath without being defeated. The rebels, with the earliest light, came rushing on in vast masses, feeling sure of an easy victory. The patriots, conscious of their great inferiority in numbers, and almost despairing of reënforcements, attempted but little more than to beat back the rebels and maintain their ground. Silently, but with the fiercest determination, they maintained the unequal conflict. Whenever they were too hardly pressed by the foe, they charged with the bayonet.

About six o'clock in the morning, General Heintzelman, who commanded the National force on the left, prepared for a charge. Generals Hooker and Sickles were ready, each with the dashing courage of a Murat, to lead the assault. General Patterson's New Jersey Brigade was also conspicuous in this majestic onset. At the word of command, with fixed bayonets, and pouring forth incessant volleys of grape, canister, and musketry, they moved onward, driving the enemy in confusion before them. For nearly a mile they advanced in an unbroken tide of victory. At the same time, General Meagher attacked and drove back, in a demoralized mass, the rebels on the right. Soon the whole National line, with loud cheers, was advancing, pouring its deadly volleys into the retreating foe. The rebels were driven tumultuously through the patriot camp, which they had captured, and for a mile beyond Seven Pines, to Fair Oaks. There the pursuit was relinquished, and the Union troops again took possession of the ground from which they had been driven. General Heintzelman was now in the advance, on the Williamsburg road, and General Sumner on the railroad. In a state of inextricable confusion, the rebels fled through the immense forests. "What might not have happened," says the Prince de Joinville, "if, at this moment, the thirty-five thousand fresh troops on the other bank of the Chickahominy could have appeared upon the flank of this disordered army?" The characteristic story is told of General Heintzelman, that, in the midst of this tremendous conflict, a

New York colonel, whose name we regret not to know, who had been absent from his regiment on picket duty, came hurrying, with true heroism, to the General, with two companies, earnestly inquiring where he could find his brigade. "That, Colonel, I cannot tell," the general coolly replied; "but if it is fighting you want, just go in, Colonel; there is plenty of good fighting all along the lines."

The useless, fruitless battle was ended. A great victory was achieved, from which no results were obtained. "While it was raging this day," says the Congressional Report, "General McClellan was with the main part of the army, on the left bank of the Chickahominy. After the fighting was over, he came across to the right bank of the river." The officers engaged in the battle, who have been examined, testify, "that the army could have pushed right on to the city of Richmond, with little resistance." But General McClellan declined moving forward a distance of four miles, stating, as his reason, that the roads were bad, and the water in the river high.

Upon a field scarcely a mile square, between seven and eight thousand dead and wounded men were lying. Many had been mutilated by the trampling of charging squadrons for twenty-four hours. Multitudes, wounded early in the battle, had perished for want of attention. Others had crawled away from the surgings of the fight, leaving a trail of blood behind them, to seek such shelter beneath the trees or in the swamps as could be reached. Their groans attracted the fatigue parties searching for them, who bore them back on stretchers or in ambulances to Savage's Station, in the rear. Rebels and patriots, placed on an equality by wounds. and death, were treated with like humanity by the victors.

"Ah, I wish,” says the Prince de Joinville, “that all those who, careless of the past, and urged on by I know not what selfish calculations, who have encouraged this fatal slaveholders' rebellion, could have looked in person upon this fratricidal strife. I could ask, as a just punishment, that they should be condemned to gaze upon that fearful battle-field, where the dead and dying were piled up by thousands. What varieties of misery! The houses were too few to contain even a small minority of the wounded. They were necessarily heaped up around the field. Though they uttered no complaints, their exposure, under the burning mid-day sun of June, soon became intolerable. Then they were to be seen gathering up what little strength was left to them, and crawling about in search of a little shade. I shall never forget a rose-bush in full bloom, the perfumed flowers of which I was admiring while I talked with a friend, when he pointed out to me, under the foliage, one of these poor creatures, who had just drawn his last breath. We looked at one another in silence, our hearts filled with the most painful emotions. Sad scenes! from which the pen of the writer, like the eye of the spectator, hastens to turn away."*

The sadness of these burial scenes cannot be imagined. During night and day they were continued, for nearly a week, as parties explored the

* "I cannot refrain from mentioning here a most characteristic incident. Newspaper venders were crying the latest New York papers on the battle-field, during the battle, and they found buyers."-Prince de Joinville.

battle-field, gathering the remains, which had already become loathsome through corruption. Upon one place, not forty feet square, fifty-seven dead rebels were found. The wounded in the vicinity begged piteously that the dead might be removed, as the sight and stench were intolerable. The wounded were so numerous, that, in many cases, forty-eight hours elapsed before they could be attended to. When they all were collected, they covered nearly three acres of open lawn. How awful the scene in the hospital tent! Ghastly wounds were probed, and bullets cut from quivering nerves, and mutilated, inflamed limbs amputated, while stout men shrieked in irrepressible agony beneath the keen cutting blade. The loss was heavy on both sides. The North, it is estimated, lost about six thousand, and the South at least ten thousand men. Both parties gained a victory. Both parties suffered a defeat. The rebels, however, met with the final repulse, and were entirely thwarted in the plan which they had attempted to carry into execution.

It is a truth not to be concealed, that in our army there were many surgeons who were merely brutal wretches. It is to be hoped, for the sake of humanity, that the soldiers will remember them, and hold them up to the execration of the world. They ought not to escape without the punishment of universal scorn and contempt. But there were others who were like ministering angels of mercy. They avoided no peril and no fatigue, that they might relieve the misery around them. Among those who, after the battle of Fair Oaks, rendered themselves conspicuous for their humanity, may be mentioned Doctors Page and Hall, of Boston, Doctor Bliss, of Michigan, and Doctor Swinburne, of Albany. There were, doubtless, others equally entitled to honorable mention, and whose unrecorded good deeds God will remember and reward.

After the battle of Seven Pines, the troops remained for several days without any essential change in the positions they occupied. General McClellan's army still remained astride the Chickahominy. Four corps were on the Richmond side of the river, and one on the other side. To guard against another such surprise as that at Fair Oaks, large masses of National troops were kept together, supported by strong intrenchments. It seems that General McClellan, after the signal repulse of the foe, contemplated an immediate movement upon Richmond. The day after the battle, on the 2d of June, he wrote to Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War:

"The enemy attacked, with force and with great spirit, yesterday morning, but were everywhere most signally repulsed with great loss. Our troops charged frequently on both days, and uniformly broke the enemy. The result is, that our left is within four miles of Richmond. I only wait for the river to fall, to cross with the rest of the force, and make a general attack. Should I find them holding firm in a very strong position, I may wait for what troops I can bring up from Fortress Monroe. But the morale of my troops is now such, that I can venture much. I do not fear for odds against me. The victory is complete, and all credit is due to our officers and men.'

Still General McClellan continued to implore that reënforcements might be sent him. In response to these importunities, on the 2d of