Swamp; the remaining three corps of the army were on the north bank, stretching from Mechanicsville to Grapevine Bridge, the latter point being somewhat more than four miles by the road from Bottom's Bridge and about three and a quarter miles from the railroad bridge, which was then about completed.

The isolation of that portion of the Army of the Potomac on the right bank of the Chickahominy and the wide separation of its component parts afforded General Johnston the tempting opportunity for which he had been waiting. General Keyes, the commander of the Fourth Corps, clearly perceived the danger of his extremely isolated position, and although he strongly protested against it he endeavored by increased vigilance to lessen the hazard. Casey's division, though occupying the most important and vulnerable position of the whole army, was, in fact, composed of the most unreliable troops. He himself says: "On leaving Washington, eight of the regiments were composed of raw troops. It has been the misfortune of the division in marching through the Peninsula to be subjected to an ordeal which would have severely tried veteran troops. Furnished with scanty transportation, occupying sickly positions, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, at times without tents or blankets, and illy supplied with rations and medical stores, the loss from sickness has been great, especially with the officers." This division, so lacking in health and preparation for the defense of the important position to which it had been assigned, he was obliged still further to weaken by the detail of large parties for guard, picket, and intrenching duty, so that when attacked by Hill's division on the 31st he could not bring into action more than forty-two hundred and fifty-three men in his entire command. Surely the responsibility of the disaster of that day should rest. upon the shoulders of those in authority, who appeared to have been deaf to proper soldierly remonstrances and blind to the inevitable consequences of this violation of the simplest principles of the art of war.

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While Casey was engaged in constructing the works of defense indicated by the engineers during the two days that elapsed before he was so vigorously attacked, and at the same time withstanding the efforts of Garland's brigade to reconnoiter his position, Johnston had decided in his own mind that the Union advance had come near enough to be struck a decisive blow. Garland had reported to him by noon of the 30th the position of the Union forces in his front, and Rodes, whose brigade was in observation on the Charles City road, had found no evidences of an advance in that direction. His original plan, which was considerably modified in execution through some misunderstanding of Longstreet, commanding the right wing of the Confederate army, involved the concentration of twenty-three of the twenty-seven brigades of his army upon the field of battle by the Charles City, Williamsburg, and Nine-mile roads, so as entirely to overwhelm Keyes's corps, drive it back upon Heintzelman's, and capture or destroy that portion of the Army of the Potomac then on the right bank of the Chickahominy. The movement was to begin early on the 31st, and a glance at the disposition of the component parts of his army on the evening of the 30th will exhibit the entire feasibility of his project.

Huger's division of three brigades was southeast of Richmond on the bank of Gillis's Creek; Rodes's brigade of Hill's division was three and a half miles out in observation on the Charles City road, the remaining three brigades of this division being about the same distance out on the Williamsburg road; of Longstreet's division of six brigades, three were some three miles out on the Nine-mile road, and the other three were posted near where this road leaves Richmond; these three divisions constituted the right wing of the Confederate army under the command of General Longstreet. The left wing, commanded by General G. W. Smith, comprised Whiting's division of five brigades, which had received orders about midnight of the 30th to take position early in the morning in sup