CLOSE OF THE BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG.

383

re-occupied by. Confederates, and a force moving on his front, and pressing forward with the war-cry of "Bull Run! Bull Run!" he retired beyond the crest of a ridge, not far from the dam, disputing the ground as he fell back, and there formed a line of battle and awaited Early's approach. When that force was within thirty paces of his line he ordered a general bayonet-charge. This was executed with the most determined spirit. The Confederates broke and fled with precipitation, with a loss of over five hundred men. Hancock held his position until Smith sent re-enforcements, by order of McClellan, who had arrived near the field of action, and soon afterward the contest ceased all along the line. So ended the BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG. That post was

already won, for Hancock held the key of the position. McClellan reported the entire National loss in this battle at two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight, of whom four hundred and fifty-six were killed and fourteen hundred wounded. That of the Confederates was, according to careful estimates, about one thousand.

This battle, in which so much of the precious blood of the young men of the country was shed,' appears to have been fought without any controlling mind in charge of the movement, or much previous knowledge of the locality and the Confederate works. The Commander-in-Chief was twelve

1 In this plan, a and b indicate the two redoubts on the extreme left of the Confederates, taken by Hancock, and e the point to which Stoneman fell back to wait for re-enforcements.

2 McClellan's report to the Secretary of War, August 4, 1863; reports of his division and brigade commanders engaged in the battle; reports of General Johnston and his subordinate officers, and oral and written statements to the author by actors in the struggle.

No army in the world had ever exhibited an equal proportionate number of so many educated and highly respectable young men as this; and never did greater coolness or valor appear. Among the scores of young men who perished carly in this campaign, and who were good examples of the best materials of that army, were Captain Henry Brooks O'Reilly, of the First Regiment, New York Excelsior Brigade, and Lieutenant William De Wolf, of Chicago, of the regular army, who had performed gallant service in the battles of Belmont and Fort Donelson. The former fell at the head of his company, while his regiment was maintaining the terrible contest in front of Fort Magruder, in the afternoon of the 5th of May. He had just given the words for an assault, "Boys, follow me! Forward, march!" when he fell, and soon expired. Lieutenant De Wolf was in charge of a battery of Gibson's Flying Artillery in the advance toward Williamsburg on the 4th, and in the encounter in which Stoneman and his followers were engaged with the Confederate cavalry on the day before the battle, and while valiantly doing his duty, he was severely wounded. Typhoid fever supervened, and he died a month later at Washington city. It would be a delightful task to record the names of all the brave who thus perished for their country, but we may only speak of one or two now and then as examples of true patriots and representatives of the Army of Liberty.

384

THE FRUITS OF VICTORY LOST BY DELAY.

miles distant during most of the battle, and did not arrive near the field until near its close. A sudden change of commanders conducting the pursuit seems to have produced some confusion and misapprehension. When Kearney arrived on the field he ranked Hooker; and all day long there was uncertainty as to who was in command, each general appearing to fight as he considered best.' In consequence of this there was great confusion in the advance. The troops of different commands became mixed, and much delay ensued. So much was a head needed, and so tardy were re-enforcements, that while Hooker was heavily engaged, at noon, Governor Sprague and the Prince de Joinville rode in great haste to Yorktown, to urge McClellan to go immediately to the front. "I suppose those in front can attend to that little matter," was his short reply; but he was finally induced to mount his horse at two o'clock, and at five, when Kearney and Hancock were about giving the blow that won the victory, he approached the battle-field, ascertained that more than "a skirmish with the rebel rear-guard" was in progress, and gave some orders. The fighting soon afterward ceased, and he countermanded his order on leaving Yorktown for the divisions of Sedgwick and Richardson to advance, and directed them to accompany Franklin to West Point.

At ten o'clock that night, when Longstreet had commenced his flight from Williamsburg with such haste as to leave nearly eight hundred of his wounded men to become prisoners, and was following the more advanced of Johnston's army, in a rapid march toward the Chickahominy, McClellan telegraphed to the War Department, from "Bivouac in front of Williamsburg," that the Confederates were before him in force, probably greater than his own, and strongly intrenched. He assured the Secretary, however, that he should run the risk of holding them in check there." Experts on both sides (among them several of McClellan's Generals) declared their belief that, had the fugitives been promptly and vigorously pursued the next morning, the National army might easily have followed them right into Richmond;3 but the Commanding General, in his report, made fifteen months afterward, declared that the mud was too adhesive to allow him to follow the retreating forces along the roads which the latter traveled with such celerity. They were safely encamped under the shelter of the fortifications around Richmond before he was ready to move forward from Williamsburg.

May 6, 1862.

On the morning after the battle the National troops took possession of Williamsburg, and General McClellan, from the house of Mr. Vest, Johnston's late head-quarters, telegraphed to the Secretary of War a brief.account of the events of the previous day, and concluded with the prediction that was so terribly fulfilled-"We have other

1 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, i. 20.

2 According to the Confederate official reports, the entire body of troops under Johnston, then below the Chickahominy, did not exceed 30,000 in number, while McClellan's "present and fit for duty" (within adistance of twelve miles of the battle-field) was about 100,000. The commanding General seems to have been singularly uninformed or misinformed concerning the country before him, during this campaign. He refused to receive information from the loyal negroes, preferring to take the testimony of Confederate prisoners. He officially declared that information concerning the forces and position of the enemy "was vague and untrustworthy," and when he commenced his march up the Peninsula, he did not know, he says, whether “so-called Mulberry Island was a real island," or which was the true course of the Warwick River across the Peninsula,” or that the Confederates had fortifications along that stream. See McClellan's Report, page 74.

2 See Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, i. 20.

NATIONAL TROOPS ON THE PAMUNKEY.

385

battles to fight before reaching Richmond." At Williamsburg the pursuit really ended, and Johnston was permitted to place the Chickahominy and its malarious borders between himself and his tardy opponent.

The flank movement up the York was not commenced in time to perform its intended service as such. Franklin's long waiting division was not dispatched for that purpose until the

two rivers, and the National flag was unfurled over that little village, from which every white person had fled. In the mean time General Dana had arrived with a part of Sedgwick's division, but remained on the transports. The divisions of Richardson and Porter soon followed.

No signs of Confederate troops appeared at first, but that night one of Franklin's vedettes was shot near the woods that bordered the edge of the plain. On the following morning a considerable force of Confederates was seen, when Dana landed, and the Sixteenth, Thirty-first, and Thirtysecond New York, and the Ninety-fifth and Ninety-sixth Pennsylvania, were ordered to drive from the woods what was supposed to be a body of scouts lurking there in front of a few Confederate regiments. They pushed into the forest and were met by Whiting's division and other troops, forming the rear-guard of Johnston's retreating forces, when a spirited engagement began, chiefly by Hood's Texas brigade and Hampton's (South Carolina) Legion, on the part of the Confederates. The contest was continued for three or four hours, when the cannon on the gun-boats, and batteries that were speedily landed, drove the foe from their shelter in the woods, and kept them at bay. In this encounter the Nationals lost one hundred and ninety-four men, mostly of the Thirty-first and Thirty-Second New York. The loss of the Confederates was small. The National force now at the head of York was sufficient to hold it firmly, as a secure base of supplies for the Army of the Potomac.

As we have observed, McClellan's pursuit of Johnston nearly ended at Williamsburg, where his sick and wounded were placed in the buildings

1 These are the Pamunkey and the Mattapony. Strictly speaking, these streams do not form the York River, for it is really a long estuary of Chesapeake Bay, and the two rivers are only its chief affluents.

2 This was a large brick house, on the main street in Williamsburg, belonging to William M. Vest, and was used by the commanders of both armies. Its appearance in June, 1866, when the writer visited Williamsburg, is given in the above sketch.

VOL. II.-63

386

HEAD-QUARTERS NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE.

of the venerable William and Mary College, and in portions of the Asylum for the Insane. While these were thus provided for, the men fit for duty were allowed to rest more than two days, until the main body of the army moving up from the direction of Yorktown should arrive. Then, on the 8th, General Stoneman was sent forward with the advance to open a May, 1862. a communication with Franklin, at the head of York, followed by Smith's division, on the most direct road to Richmond, by way of New Kent Court-House. The roads were left in a wretched condition by the fugitive Confederate Army, and the General-in-Chief, with the advance portion of his force, did not reach the vicinity of the White House,' at the head of the navigation of the Pamunkey, and about eighteen miles from Richmond, until the

hominy, at the crossing of the New Kent road, two days before. The Confederates had destroyed the bridge, but left the point uncovered. Casey's division of Keyes's corps was thrown across, and occupied the heights on the Richmond side of the stream, supported by

6 May 20. Heintzelman.

b

1 The White House," as it was called, was the property of Mary Custis Lee, a great-granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, daughter of George W. P. Custis, the adopted son of Washington, and wife of the Confederate Commander, Robert E. Lee. It stood on or near the site of the dwelling known as "The White House," in which the widow Custis lived, and where the nuptial ceremonies of her marriage with Colonel George Washington were performed. That ancient house, then so honored, had been destroyed about thirty years before, and the one standing there in 1862 was only a modern structure bearing the ancient title. It was occupied, when the war broke out, by a son of Robert E. Lee. The wife and some of the family of Lee, who were there, fled from it on the approach of the National army, at the time we are considering. The first officer who entered the house found, on a piece of paper attached to the wall of the main passage, the following note:

"Northern soldiers, who profess to revere Washington, forbear to desecrate the home of his first married life-the property of his wife-now owned by her descendant.

(Signed) "A GRANDDAUGHTER OF MRS. WASHINGTON."

See The Siege of Richmond, by Joel Cook, page 169.

This misrepresentation, made to save from injury property that was not in existence until more than thirty years after Washington's death, had the effect, for a while, to have it guarded, by order of the Commanding General, with as much care as if it had been the Tomb of the Father of his Country Members of the Second regiment of cavalry, of which Robert E. Lee was Lieutenant-colonel when he abandoned his flag. were detailed to guard the house; and so sacred was it held to be, that the suffering sick soldiers, who greatly needed the shelter of its roof, were not allowed even to rest upon the dry ground around it. The false story of its history was soon exposed, and it was left to the fate that overtook the property of other rebellious Virginians.

2 Cool Arbor derived its name from a tavern, at a delightful place of summer resort in the woods for the Richmond people, even so early as the time of the Revolution. The derivation of the name determines its orthography. It has been erroneously spelled Coal Harbor and Cold Harbor. The picture on the next page is a view of the house known as New Cool Arbor, not far from the site of the old one. It was yet standing when the writer visited the spot in June, 1866. It was on a level plain, and near it was a National cemetery into which the remains of the slain Union soldiers buried in the surrounding fields were then being collected and reinterred.

PREPARATIONS TO ATTACK NORFOLK.

387

In the mean time a most important movement had been made in McClellan's rear by the Confederates at Norfolk, and by General Wool at Fortress Monroe. Wool, who saw the eminent advantage of the James River as a highway for the supplies of an army on the Peninsula, had, ever since McClellan decided to take that route to Richmond, urged the Government to allow him to attempt the capture of Norfolk, and thus make the breaking up of the blockade of the James an easy matter. But it was not until after the evacuation of Yorktown, when President Lincoln and Secretaries Chase and Stanton visited Fortress Monroe, that his suggestions were favorably considered. He then renewed his recommendations; and when, on the 8th, he received positive information that Huger (who, with Burnside in his rear and McClellan on his flank, saw that his position was untenable) was preparing to evacuate that post, orders were given for an immediate attempt to seize Sewell's Point, and march on Norfolk.

Arrangements were

made with Commodore Goldsborough to co-operate; and a large number of troops were embarked on transports then lying in Hampton Roads. Goldsborough attacked the Confederate batteries on the point, which replied with spirit. The Merrimack came out to assist

a May, 1862.

them, when the National vessels withdrew, and the troops were disembarked. The enterprise was abandoned for the time; but information that reached head-quarters a few hours later revived it.

On the following day General Wool, with Colonel T. J. Cram (his Inspector-general, and an accomplished topographical engineer) and Secretary Chase, made a reconnoissance toward Willoughby's Point, and along the coast toward the sea, when it was decided to land five thousand troops at a summer watering-place called Ocean View, by which the works on Sewell's Point could be taken in reverse, and a direct route to Norfolk be opened. The troops were again embarked, and a bombardment was opened on Sewell's Point from Fort Wool, in the Rip Raps,' to deceive the Confederates with the appearance of a design to renew the attempt to land there.

At a little past midnight, the troops, artillery, infantry, and cavalry,' under the immediate command of Brigadier-general Max Weber, were in readiness for debarkation at Ocean View, and early in the morn

1 An unfinished fortification that commanded the entrance to Hampton Roads, in front of Fortress Monroe, It was at first called Fort Calhoun. Its name was changed to Wool, in honor of the veteran General.

2 The troops composing the expedition consisted of the Tenth, Twentieth, and Ninety-ninth New York; Sixteenth Massachusetts; First Delaware; Fifty-eighth Pennsylvania; one hundred mounted riflemen; Follet's battery of light artillery, and Howard's battery.