They fell back, but not to their original position: to a position far in advance of that from which they had moved forward, and but from thirty to seventy-five yards from the enemy, where, taking advantage of the ground, they covered themselves in an astonishingly short time.

Gibbon's advance was simultaneous with Barlow's; but in moving forward, he came upon one of the swamps of the Chickahominy, which widened as the line neared the enemy's intrenchments. This separated his command; but the troops, at a fearful sacrifice, advanced close up to the works. Some for a moment entered them. Colonel McMahon, with a part of his regiment, separated by the swamp from the rest of his brigade, reached the parapet, planted on it his colors, but fell covered with many wounds, and expired in the enemy's hands, losing his colors with honor. The gallant Colonels Porter, Morris, McKeen, and Haskell were killed, and General Tyler was wounded. Yet Gibbon's troops, too, clung tenaciously to the ground gained; and some remained so close to the hostile works, that the men could only be reached by covered ways. In less than an hour Hancock's loss was above three thousand.

The story of the advance of the Sixth Corps on the right of Hancock, and that of Smith on the right of the Sixth, is of a like tenor. Every assault was immediately repulsed most disastrously; and to retain possession of an advanced position, more or less close to the enemy's line, was the utmost that could be done.

To the right the Fifth Corps was strung out in a line so thin and extended, that beyond holding its own, it was hopeless for that corps to attempt to do more. The Ninth Corps made no attack at the hour ordered; but General Burnside got two of his divisions round in position to assail the enemy's left flank, and by noon had one brigade posted across the eastern end of the Shady Grove road. This force warmly engaged the enemy. The batteries of the corps worked sufficiently far round to the right to make the Confederate position at that point very difficult to hold; and by afternoor

General Burnside was prepared to assail the enemy's left. Long before that time, however, the action had been suspended.

The action was decided, as I have said, in an incredibly brief time in the morning's assault. But, rapidly as the result was reached, it was decisive; for the consciousness of every man pronounced further assault hopeless. The troops went forward as far as the example of their officers could carry them nor was it possible to urge them beyond; for there they knew lay only death, without even the chance of victory. The completeness with which this judgment had been reached by the whole army was strikingly illustrated by an incident that occurred during the forenoon. Some hours after the failure of the first assault, General Meade sent instructions to each corps-commander to renew the attack without reference to the troops on his right or left. The order was issued through these officers to their subordinate commanders, and from them descended through the wonted channels; but no man stirred, and the immobile lines pronounced a verdict, silent, yet emphatic, against further slaughter. The loss on the Union side in this sanguinary action was over thirteen thousand, while on the part of the Confederates, it is doubtful whether it reached that many hundreds.

In criticism of the action of Cold Harbor it must be said, that it is difficult to see how battles can be won on the principle here adopted. If to be superior to your adversary at the actual point of contact be a cardinal maxim of war, it is not easy to discover on what ground success can be hoped from such general assaults along a line of many miles, and consequently everywhere weak, made by corps-commanders independently of each other, and directed against positions which have not been reconnoitred, over most unequal conditions of

* This phrase, “as far as the example of their officers could carry them,” I take from the Report of General Hancock. It is true of the whole army, and to those who witnessed that terrible slaughter, will have an almost pathetic significance.

terrain, and at a uniform and precise moment fixed for all by the watch. If this rude and primitive array sufficed, one might forget all that experience has taught and genius devised of the means by which success is snatched on the field of battle-one might forget that there are key-points on every field-that it is the aim of the commander to determine this point on his actual front, and then by massing heavily against it, by concentrating his force into a focus of fiery energy, instead of dissipating it in indefinite space, to seize such master-ground as may give the opening for a decisive blow.

The bloody experiment at Cold Harbor, far from disproving this principle of action, signally confirmed it; for while the assault along the whole line everywhere failed, there was at least one tactical point on the field which, had dispositions suited to the occasion been made, might have been seized, and a path to success opened. This point was a bald height opposite the Union left, named Watt's Hill, dominating the whole ground, and covering the angle of the dispatch road. Along this ridge, on which Lee's right rested, the Confederate line formed a salient, and in front of it was the sunken road from which Hancock's left division dislodged the enemy, and then, by an impetuous rush, carried, and for a moment held the works beyond. But so little consideration had been given in advance to the dispositions of attack, that it was not till after its blood-bought victory had been snatched from that slender force, that the supreme importance of this position was appreciated. By this time the position had been re-enforced by the enemy, and the opportune moment was of course lost; but had a heavy force at first been massed against that point, it might not only have been held, but the entire hostile line would then have been taken in reverse.

After the failure of the first assault, renewal of the attack was seen to be so void of all show of success, that at half-past one o'clock in the afternoon, offensive operations were formally suspended, and the corps-commanders were ordered to

intrench their advanced positions. Next day siege operations were begun, with a view to carry the defences of the Chickahominy by regular approaches. But this work also, at the end of a few days, ceased, and General Grant determined to change his line of operations to the south side of the James River. The circumstances under which this determination was made, and the manner in which it was carried into execution, will be detailed in the succeeding campaign.

VII.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN.

The course of this narrative has already set forth the series of operations, remarkable in the history of warfare, by which, in one pregnant month, the Army of the Potomac fought its way to the Chickahominy.

The campaign indeed resembled less ordinary campaigns than a kind of running siege. From the Rapidan to the Chickahominy the face of the country was covered with the intrenched lines, within which these "points of mighty opposites," the Armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia, had waged a succession of deadly conflicts. At every advance, Lee was able to meet his adversary with a front of opposition, and within his improvised strongholds exact a heavy price in blood. And although the illustrious valor of the Army of the Potomac more than once plucked victory from the jaws of hell, and bayoneted an unyielding enemy in the very enceinte of his citadel, the Union commander was never able to crush his opponent, who, thrown again and again in the mighty wrestle, each time rose quickly to his feet. Foiled in the effort to force a direct issue, General Grant, at the end of each combat, initiated a movement to turn the hostile front; and these flanking operations were executed with much address-throwing the Confederates suc

cessively out of the positions at the Wilderness, before Spott sylvania, on the North Anna, and along the Pamunkey. Thus, by battles and marches, the army, in thirty days and thirty nights, reached the Chickahominy.

Now, it will be observed that each of these turning movements, up to the Chickahominy, brought the army nearer at each leap to the objective of all its efforts, Richmond. But, once before the Chickahominy, the series of flanking operations was exhausted; for any additional move by the left would throw the army not towards, but away from Richmond. If, therefore, it was designed to push the advance by the line on which the army was now acting, and on which General Grant had declared he would "fight it out, if it took all summer, ," it was absolutely necessary to force the passage of the Chickahominy. The result of the battle of Cold. Harbor, fought on the 3d of May, was to show that this line could not be carried by a coup de main.

But as the alternative was either to force a crossing of this stream or abandon that line of operations altogether, General Grant's first impulse after the disastrous upshot of the action at Cold Harbor, was to order the initiation of siege operations, with the view to carry the position by regular approaches. It was not long, however, before the unpromising aspect of the result that would follow even a successful issue on the Chickahominy gave pause to this purpose, and finally led to the adoption of an altogether new line of manœuvre.

In the discussion of the "overland route," with which the recital of this campaign opened, I have shown that any advance on that line ends in the siege of the uninvested fortifications of Richmond, within which the defending army, with all its lines of communication open, might remain indefinitely. It was no doubt from the perception of the altogether indecisive nature of this result that General Grant, after ten days passed along the Chickahominy, resolved to execute another

"I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer."-Dispatch of May 11, 1864.