166 BATTLE OF SAVAGE'S STATION. [1862. White House, loaded all they could upon transports, and destroyed the remainder. Trains of cars filled with supplies were put under full speed and run off the tracks into the river. Hundreds of tons of ammunition, and millions of rations, were burned or otherwise destroyed. At the last moment Casey embarked his men, and with what he had been able to save steamed down the Pamunkey and York rivers and up the James to the new base. At the close of a long despatch to the Secretary of War on the 28th, General McClellan said: "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." When Gen. John B. Magruder, who had been left in the defences of Richmond, found that the National army was retreating to the James, he moved out to attack it, and struck the rear guard at Allen's farm. His men made three assaults, and were three times repelled. Magruder complained that he lost a victory here because Lee had left him but thirteen thousand men. The National troops fell back to Savage's Station, where later in the day Magruder attacked them again. He had a rifled cannon mounted on a platform car, with which he expected to do great execution. But there was an ample force to oppose him, and it stood unmoved by his successive charges. About sunset he advanced his whole line with a desperate rush in the face of a continuous fire of cannon and musketry; but it was of no 1862.] BATTLE OF CHARLES CITY CROSS-ROADS. 167 avail, and half an hour later his own line was broken by a counter charge that closed the battle. He admitted a loss of four thousand men. Sumner and Franklin, at a cost of three thousand, had thus maintained the approach to the single road through White Oak Swamp, by which they were to follow the body of the army that had already passed. But it was found necessary to burn another immense quantity of food and clothing that could not be removed, and to leave behind two thousand five hundred sick and wounded men. Jackson, after spending a day in building bridges, crossed the Chickahominy, and attempted to follow McClellan's rear guard through White Oak Swamp; but when he got to the other side he found a necessary bridge destroyed and National batteries commanding its site, so that it was impossible for his forces to emerge from the swamp. But meanwhile Hill and Longstreet had crossed the river farther up stream, marched around the swamp, and struck the retreating army near Charles City Cross-Roads on the 30th. There was terrific fighting all the afternoon. There were brave charges and bloody repulses, masses of men moving up steadily in the face of batteries that tore great gaps through them at every discharge, crossed bayonets, and clubbed muskets. Only on that part of the line held by McCall did the Confederates, with all their daring, succeed in breaking through. McCall, in his report, describes the successful charge: "A most determined charge was made on Randol's battery by a full brigade, ad 168 BATTLE OF CHARLES CITY CROSS-ROADS. [1862. vancing in wedge shape, without order, but in perfect recklessness. Somewhat similar charges had been previously made on Cooper's and Kern's batteries by single regiments, without success, they having recoiled before the storm of canister hurled against them. A like result was anticipated by Randol's battery, and the 4th Regiment was requested not to fire until the battery had done with them. Its gallant commander did not doubt his ability to repel the attack, and his guns did indeed mow down the advancing host; but still the gaps were closed, and the enemy came in upon a run to the very muzzles of his guns. It was a perfect torrent of men, and they were in his battery before the guns could be removed." General McCall himself, endeavoring to rally his men at this point, was captured and carried off to Richmond. In Kearny's front a similar charge was made three times; but every time a steady musketry fire drove back the enemy that had closed up its gaps made by the artillery. Darkness put an end to the fighting, and that night McClellan's army continued its retreat to Malvern Hill, where his advance guard had taken up the strongest position he had yet occupied. The battle just described has several Glendale, Frazier's Farm, Charles City Cross-Roads, Newmarket, Nelson's Farm. McClellan here lost ten guns. The losses in men can not be known exactly, as the reports group the losses of several days together. Longstreet and the two Hills reported a loss of 12,458 in the fighting from the 27th to the 30th. names 169 1862.1 BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. The last stand made by McClellan for delivering battle was at Malvern Hill. This is a plateau near Turkey Bend of James River, having an elevation of sixty feet, and an extent of about a mile and a half in one direction and a mile in the other. It is so bordered by streams and swamps as to leave no practicable approach except by the narrow northwest face. Here McClellan had his entire army in position when his pursuers came up. It was disposed in the form of a semicircle, with the right wing re TURKEY MALVERN RIVER JAM 00 HAXALL TROOPS. PARTILY longed to Haxall's Landing, on the James. His position was peculiarly favorable for the use of artillery, and his whole front bristled with it. There were no intrenchments to speak of, but the natural inequalities of the ground afforded considerable shelter for the men and the guns. It was as complete a trap as could be set for an army, and Lee walked straight into it. Under ordinary circum 170 BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. [1862. stances, both commander and men would properly hesitate to attack an enemy so posted. But to the confidence with which the Southerners began the war was now added the peculiar elation produced by a week's pursuit of a retreating army; and apparently it did not occur to them that they were all mortal. In the first contact seven thousand Confederates, with six guns, struck the left of the position. They boldly advanced their artillery to within eight hundred yards of the cliff; but before they could get at work a fire of twenty or thirty guns was concentrated upon their battery, which knocked it to pieces in a few minutes; and at the same time some huge shells from a gunboat fell among a small detachment of cavalry, threw it into confusion, and turned it back upon the infantry, breaking up the whole attack. army Lee was not ready to assault with his whole till the afternoon of July 1st. An artillery duel was kept up during the forenoon; but the Confederate commander did not succeed in destroying the National batteries as he hoped to; on the contrary, he saw his own disabled, one after another. The signal for the infantry attack was to be the usual yell, raised by Armistead's division on the right and taken up by the successive divisions along the line. But the Confederate line was separated by thick woods, there was long waiting for the signal, some of the generals thought they heard it, and some advanced without hearing it. The consequence was a series of separate attacks, |