the field at a full run. Instantly, from the line of the enemy's breastworks, a murderous storm of grape and canister was hurled into their ranks, with the most terrible effect. Officers and men went down by hundreds; but yet, undaunted and unwavering, our line dashed on, until two-thirds of the distance across the field was accomplished. Here the carnage from the withering fire of the enemy's combined artillery and musketry was dreadful. Our line wavered a moment, and fell back to the cover of the woods. Twice again the effort to carry the position was renewed, but each time with the same result.

The hill was bathed with flames. Towards sunset the earth quivered with the terrific concussion of artillery and huge explosions. Shells raced athwart the horizon, exploding into deadly iron hail. The forms of smoke-masked men; the gleam of muskets on the plains, where soldiers were disengaged; the artistic order of battle; the wild career of wilder horsemen plunging to and fro across the field, formed a scene of exciting grandeur. In the forest, where eyes did not penetrate, there was nothing but the exhilarating and exhausting spasm of battle.

As the night fell the battle slackened. We had not carried the enemy's position, but we occupied the field, and during the night posted our pickets within one hundred yards of his guns. The brigades of Mahone and Wright slept on the battle-field in the advanced positions they had won, and Armistead's brigade and a portion of Ransom's also occupied the battle-field.

The battle of Tuesday, properly known as that of Malvern Hill, was perhaps the most sanguinary of the series of bloody conflicts which had taken place on the lines about Richmond. Although not a defeat, it broke the chain of our victories. It was made memorable by its melancholy monument of carnage, which was probably greater than Gen. Magruder's estimate, which states that our loss fell short of three thousand. But it had given the enemy no advantage, except in the unfruitful sacrifice of the lives of our troops; and the line of his retreat was again.taken up, his forces toiling towards the river through mud, swamp, and forest.

The skill and spirit with which McClellan had managed to retreat was, indeed, remarkable, and afforded no mean proofs of his generalship. At every stage of his retreat he had con

fronted our forces with a strong rear-guard, and had encour tered us with well-organized lines of battle, and regular dispo sitions of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. His heavy rifled cannon had been used against us constantly on his retreat. A portion of his forces had now effected communication with the river at points below City Point. The plan of cutting off his communication with the river, which was to have been executed by a movement of Holmes' division between him and the river, was frustrated by the severe fire of the gunboats, and since then the situation of the enemy appeared to be that of a division or dispersion of his forces, one portion resting on the river, and the other, to some extent, involved by our lines.

It had been stated to the public of Richmond, with great precision of detail, that on the evening of Saturday, the 28th of June, we had brought the enemy to bay on the South side of the Chickahominy, and that it only remained to finish him in a single battle. Such, in fact, appeared to have been the situation then. The next morning, however, it was perceived that our supposed resources of generalship had given us too much confidence; that the enemy had managed to extricate himself from the critical position, and, having massed his forces, had succeeded, under cover of the night, in opening a way to the James river.*

Upon this untoward event, the operations of our army on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy were to follow the fugitive enemy through a country where he had admirable opportunities of concealment, and through the swamps and forests

* With reference to McClellan's escape from White Oak Swamp to the river, letters of Yankee officers, published in the Northern journals, stated that when McClellan, on Saturday evening, sent his scouts down the road to Turkey Island bridge, he was astonished and delighted to find that our forces had not occupied that road, and immediately started his wagon and artillery trains, which were quietly passing down that road all night to the James river, whilst our forces were quietly sleeping within four miles of the very road they should have occupied, and should have captured every one of the enemy's one thousand wagons and four hundred cannon. It is further stated in these letters, that if we had blocked up that only passage of escape, their entire army must have surrendered or been starved out in twenty-four hours. These are the Yankees' own accounts of how much they were indebted to blunders on our part for the success of McClellan's retreat-a kind of admission not popular with a vain and selfadulatory enemy.

of which he had retreated with the most remarkable judgment, dexterity, and spirit of fortitude.

The glory and fruits of our victory may have been seriously diminished by the grave mishap or fault by which the enemy was permitted to leave his camp on the south side of the Chickahominy, in an open country, and to plunge into the dense cover of wood and swamp, where the best portion of a whole week was consumed in hunting him, and finding out his new position only in time to attack him under the uncertainty and disadvantage of the darkness of night.

But the successes achieved in the series of engagements which had already occurred were not to be lightly esteemed, or to be depreciated, because of errors which, if they had not occurred, would have made our victory more glorious and more complete. The siege of Richmond had been raised; an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men had been pushed from their strongholds and fortifications, and put to flight; we had enjoyed the eclat of an almost daily succession of victories; we had gathered an immense spoil in stores, provisions, and artillery; and we had demoralized and dispersed, if we had not succeeded in annihilating, an army which had every resource that could be summoned to its assistance, every possible addition to numbers within the reach of the Yankee government, and every material condition of success to insure for it the great prize of the capital of the Confederacy, which was now, as far as human judgment could determine, irretrievably lost to them, and secure in the protection of a victorious army.

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The Northern papers claimed that the movements of McClellan from the Chickahominy river were purely strategic, and that he had obtained a position where he would establish a new base of operations against Richmond. Up to the first decisive stage in the series of engagements-Cold Harborthere were certainly plain strategic designs in his backward movement. His retirement from Mechanicsville was probably voluntary, and intended to concentrate his troops lower down, where he might fight with the advantages of numbers and his own selection of position. Continuing his retreat, he fixed the decisive field at Cold Harbor. Again having been pushed from his strongholds north of the Chickahominy, the enemy

made a strong attempt to retrieve his disasters by renewing a concentration of his troops at Frayser's farm.

From the time of these two principal battles, all pretensions of the enemy's retreat to strategy must cease. His retreat was now unmistakable; it was no longer a falling back to concentrate troops for action; it is, in fact, impossible to disguise that it was the retreat of an enemy who was discomfited and whipped, although not routed. He had abandoned the railroads; he had given up the strongholds which he had provided to secure him in case of a check; he had destroyed from eight to ten millions dollars' worth of stores; he had deserted his hospitals, his sick and wounded, and he had left in our hands thousands of prisoners and innumerable stragglers.

Regarding all that had been accomplished in these battles; the displays of the valor and devotion of our troops; the expenditure of blood; and the helpless and fugitive condition to which the enemy had at last been reduced, there was cause for the keenest regrets that an enemy in this condition was permitted to secure his retreat. It is undoubtedly true, that in failing to cut off McClellan's retreat to the river, we failed to accomplish the most important condition for the completion of our victory. But although the result of the conflict had fallen below public expectation, it was sufficiently fortunate to excite popular joy, and grave enough to engage the most serious speculation as to the future.

The mouth of the Yankee government was shut from any more promises of a speedy termination of the war; the powers of Europe saw that the Southern Confederacy was not yet crushed, or likely to be crushed, by its insolent foe; and the people of the South had again challenged the confidence of the world in the elasticity of their fortunes and the invincible destiny of their independence.

The fortune of events in other parts of the Confederacy, taking place about the time of the relief of Richmond, or closely following it, although less striking and dramatic, was not unpropitious. These events, a rapid survey of which takes us from the seacoast to the Mississippi frontier, added to the exultations which the victories of the Chickahominy had occasioned, and, although qualified by some disasters, enlarged and enlightened the prospects of the future.

A few days before the great battles had been joined around Richmond, a brilliant success over the Yankees had been obtained in an engagement on James Island in the neighborhood of Charleston. The battle of Secessionville, as it was called, occurred on the 16th of June. About four o'clock in the morning of that day, the enemy, taking advantage of the negligence of our pickets, drove them in, or captured them, some eight hundred yards in front of the battery at Secessionville, and, advancing rapidly upon this work in line of battle, arrived within a few hundred yards of it before we could open upon him. The men, however, were at their guns, which were at once well and rapidly served, while the infantry was moved promptly into position under the orders of Col. J. G. Lamar, the heroic commander of the post. It was not long after getting the infantry into position, that the enemy were driven back in confusion. They were soon, however, reinforced, and made another desperate charge, when they were again driven back; a third time they came, but only to meet with the most determined repulse. They then made a flank movement on our right, on the west of Secessionville, where they were gallantly met by the Charleston battalion, which was soon reinforced by the Louisiana battalion. Three times had the heroic band of Confederates repulsed (often at the point of the bayonet) a force thrice their strength, under the fire of three gunboats and four land batteries. About ten o'clock the enemy retreated in great confusion, leaving their dead and wounded on the field, a number lying in our trenches. The loss of the enemy was at least four hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Their dead in front of the Secessionville works numbered one hundred and sixty-eight. Our loss was forty killed, and about twice that number wounded.

In the situation in the West some important changes had transpired in the early months of the summer.

The evacuation of Corinth was determined upon by Gen. Beauregard, after having twice offered the enemy battle outside of his intrenched lines, and was accomplished on the 30th of May. The transparent object of the Yankee commander was to cut off our resources, by destroying the Mobile and Ohio and Memphis and Charleston railroads. This was substantially foiled by the evacuation and withdrawal of our forces along