BATTLE IN WHITE OAK SWAMP.

429

in the movement by a rear-guard under Franklin, and very soon the van reached the vicinity of the river at Turkey Bend. The supply trains were pushed forward to Hax

all's plantation, and the artillery parks were on Malvern Hills.

This position had not been gained without a severe struggle. Franklin had been left with a rear-guard' to hold the passage of White Oak Swamp Bridge, and cover the withdrawal of the trains from that point. The pursuit was in two

columns: one, composed of the corps of Longstreet and A. P. Hill, which was joined by Jackson's command, followed directly on the track of the fugitive army; the other, under Magruder and Huger, pushed along the Charles City road to the right of the retreating troops. Jackson had been ordered on the morning of the 30th to sweep around toward the Chickahominy, so as to gain their left and rear, but was checked by the destruction of a bridge; and when, at noon, he sought to cross the White Oak Swamp Bridge, he found it destroyed, and was there met by Smith, Richardson, and Naglee, and the batteries of Ayres and Hazard, who kept him at bay during the day and evening. Hazard was mortally wounded, and his force was so cut up that his battery was withdrawn. Ayres kept up a cannonade with great spirit all the afternoon. The Nationals retired during the night, leaving three hundred and fifty sick and wounded behind, and some disabled guns, as spoils for the Confederates next morning.

While this contest for the passage of the bridge was in progress, a very severe

1 Composed of his own corps, the division of General Richardson, and Naglee's brigade. Slocum's division was on the right of the Charles City road,

This was the appearance of the building and its surroundings when the writer sketched it, at the close of May, 1866. It is a few rods from the scene of the hottest of the battle of Glendale or Frazier's Farm, in a beautiful grove, where the tents of a burial-party were pitched: It was founded by "Father Willis" of the Methodist Church, and was built just before the war.

that of Reynolds (who was a prisoner), under Colonel S. G. Simmons, of the Fifth Pennsylvania, in reserve. The artillery was all in front of this line. Randall's regular battery was on the right, Cooper and Kerns's opposite the center, and Dietrich's and Kennerheim's (20-pounder Parrotts) on the left. Sumner was some distance to the left, with Sedgwick's division; Hooker was at Sumner's left, and Kearney was at the right of McCall.

1562.

Longstreet and Hill had hurried forward to gain this point before McClel lan's army could pass it, hoping there to cut that army in two and destroy it. But they were a little too late. When Longstreet (who was accompanied by Lee and Jefferson Davis) found himself confronted there, he waited for Magruder to come up, and it was not until between three and four o'clock in the afternoon that he began an attack. He fell heavily upon McCall, a June 30. whose force (Pennsylvania Reserves), when he reached the Pamunkey, was ten thousand, but had been reduced by sickness, fatigue, and fighting, to six thousand. The Confederates attempted by the weight of their first blow to crush his left, but were repulsed by a charge of the Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves, led by Colonel Simmons, who captured two hundred of them and drove the remainder back to the woods. Then the fugitives turned, and by a murderous fire made the pursuers recoil, and flee to the forest in the rear of their first position. In that encounter the slaughter was dreadful. Simmons was mortally wounded, and the dead or maimed bodies of hundreds of his comrades strewed the field.

This first struggle was quickly followed by others. Backward and forward the contending lines were swayed by charges and counter-charges, for two hours. To break the National line and to capture its batteries seemed to be the chief object of the assailants. Cooper's battery, in the center, was taken, and then retaken, together with the standard of an Alabama regiment; and this was followed by the appearance of General Meagher, with his Irish brigade, who made a desperate charge across an open field, and drove the Confederates to the woods. By a gallant charge of a brigade (Fifty-fifth and Sixtieth Virginia), Randall's battery on the right was also captured, and the greater portion of its supporting regiment was driven back, when McCall and Meade rallied their infantry for its recapture. A terrible handto-hand fight ensued, and the reserves were repulsed, but they carried back with them their recovered guns. In this encounter, just at dark, Meade was severely wounded, and McCall, who had lost all of his brigadiers and was reconnoitering, was captured. Then the command devolved upon Seymour. The noise of battle had brought some of the troops of Hooker and Kearney to the field of action just at dark, and soon afterward the sound of cheering from the First New Jersey brigade (General Taylor) startled the wearied and broken Confederates, and they fell back to the woods. These fresh troops recovered a part of the ground lost by the Reserves. So ended THE BATTLE OF GLENDALE.'

The Confederates call it the Battle of Frazier's Farm, it having been fought on a part of Frazier's and a part of Nelson's farms. The battle was fought desperately by both sides; on the part of the Nationals, in accordance with the judgment and discretion of the corps commanders, for the General-in-Chief was entirely ignorant of what was going on until very late at night," as he said in his Report (page 135), when his aids returned to give him "the results of the day's fighting along the whole line, and the true position of affairs.” He had been a part of the day on board of a gun-boat in the James River, according to his report, and another

THE NATIONAL TROOPS ON MALVERN HILLS.

431

a July 1, 1862.

While the Confederates were waiting for the dawn to renew the battle, the National troops were all silently withdrawn; and early the next day the Army of the Potomac, united for the first time. since the Chickahominy first divided it, was in a strong position on Malvern Hill, and its communication with a new base of supplies on the James assured. Terrible had been the experience of that army during the preceding seven days-terrible indeed had been its losses, and other afflictions. The high and dry land of Malvern Hills, and the sight of the James River, inspired the worn and wearied soldiers with gladness and hope; for they believed that they might now change front, repel their pursuers, rest a little, and then be called upon to march victoriously upon Richmond.

1862.

The troops were posted, under the direction of General Barnard, in a strong position, on the 1st of July. Porter had reached Malvern Hills the day before, and placed his troops so as to command all the approaches to it from Richmond and the Swamp. The last of the trains and reserve of artillery arrived at about four o'clock in the afternoon, and at about that hour General Holmes, who had been summoned to Richmond from the south side of the James, and had marched down the river road with his brigade and a part of Wise's, appeared on the left of Porter (he having changed front, with his face toward Richmond), and opened fire upon him with artillery. Holmes soon found himself overmatched, for Por

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ter had ample artillery at command, and withdrew so hastily that he left two of his guns behind. When the army had all arrived the next day, it was posted with its left and center resting on Malvern Hills, while the right curved backward through a wooded country, toward a point below Haxall's, on the James.

Malvern Hills form a high plateau, sloping toward Richmond from bold

part of the day at his quarters, only two or three miles from the scene of strife, the din of which, it would seem was calculated to draw every interested soul into the vortex of the struggle, for it was a decisive point. The subordinate commanders well knew that if the army should be beaten there it would be ruined, and so they fought desperately for victory and won it, and then made arrangements, without the knowledge of the commanding General, to save it, by silently withdrawing during the night. All this had been accomplished before McClellan's aids (as he said) had informed him of the true position of affairs." General Barnard, McClellan's Engineer-in-Chief, says, in speaking of this fact given in the General's Report: It may well be doubted whether, in all recorded reports or dispatches of military commanders, a parallel to this extraordinary avowal can be found. We suppose it the especial business of a general to know at each moment the true position of affairs, and to have some agency in ruling it."

432

THE CONTENDING ARMIES.

banks toward the river, and bounded by deep ravines, making an excellent defensive position. Yet it was not considered a safe one for the army to halt, for it was too far separated from supplies. So, on the morning of the first, McClellan again went on board the Galena, to accompany Captain Rodgers, to "select the final location for the army and its depots." This

THE GALENA.

was fixed at Harrison's Bar, a short distance down the river. While he was there a heavy cannonade was commenced on Malvern Hills.

The National line of battle was formed with Porter's corps on the left, near Crew's house (with Sykes's division on the left and Morell's on the right), where the artillery of the reserve, under Colonel

Hunt, was so disposed on high ground that a concentrated fire of sixty guns could be brought to bear on any point on his front or left; and on the highest point of the hill Colonel Tyler had ten siege-guns in position. Couch's division was placed on the right of Porter; next on the right were Kearney and Hooker; next Sedgwick and Richardson; next Smith and Slocum; then the remainder of Keyes's corps, extending in a curve nearly to the river. The Pennsylvania Reserves were in the rear of Porter and Couch, as a reserve. The left, where the weight of attack was expected, was very strong, and the right was strengthened by slashings,' and its flank covered. by gun-boats. The map on page 431 shows the positions.

Lee concentrated his troops near Glendale on the morning of the 1st; but owing to the nature of the country, and his lack of inforJuly, 1862. mation concerning it, he did not get his line of battle formed and ready for attack until late in the afternoon, but had kept up an artillery fire here and there, after ten o'clock. He formed his line with the divisions of Jackson, Ewell, Whiting, and D. H. Hill, on the left (a large portion of Ewell's in reserve), and those of Magruder and Huger on the right, while A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's were held in reserve on the left, and took no part in the engagement that followed.

Lee resolved to carry Malvern Hills by storm, and for that purpose massed his troops on his right. He posted his artillery so that by a concentrated fire he expected to silence those of the Nationals, when Armistead's brigade of Huger's division was to advance with a shout and carry the battery immediately before it. That shout was to be the signal for a general advance with fixed bayonets to "drive the invaders into the James." This

1 Trees cut so nearly off that they fall, but still adhere to the stump, and thus form a very strong kind of abatis.

BATTLE OF MALVERN HILLS.

433

movement was more easily planned than executed. Unforeseen contingencies arose; and when, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, a heavy fire of artillery was opened upon Couch and Kearney, and D. H. Hill, believing that he heard the proposed signal-shout for a general advance, pushed forward upon Couch's front, he found his troops almost unsupported. "Instead of ordering up one or two hundred pieces of artillery to play on the Yankees," he said, "a single battery (Moorman's) was ordered up and knocked to pieces in a few minutes; one or two others shared the same fate of being beat in detail." The Confederates were repulsed by cannon and musket, and driven back in confusion to the woods near the Quaker road. Then the National right, on the hills resting near Binford's, was advanced several hundred yards to a better position.

Meanwhile Magruder and Huger had made a furious attack on Porter at the left. The brigades of Kershaw and Semmes, of McLaw's division, charged through a dense wood nearly up to Porter's guns; and a similar dash was made by Wright, Mahone, and Anderson, farther to the right, and by Barksdale, nearer the center. But all were repulsed, and for a while fighting nearly ceased. It was only a lull in the storm. With a recklessness or desperation equaled only by his blunders in arrangements for the battle,

Lee ordered another assault on the "tier after tier of batteries grimly visible on the plateau, rising in the form of an amphitheater, one flank of the Yankees protected by Turkey Creek, and the other by gun-boats." His shat

1 Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia, i. 186.

2 There was much dissatisfaction felt in the Confederate Army with Lee's management of it, especially on the day of the battle of Malvern Hills. But Lee being a Virginian, with the prestige of an honorable family name and connections, and withal a special favorite of Jefferson Davis-whose will had now become law in the Confederacy, that commander's incompetency as the leader of a great army, which was apparent from time to time throughout the war, was hidden as much as possible, and no one was allowed to publicly find fault because of his military blunders, such as his invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania. But on the occasion we are now considering, the outspoken D. H. Hill, in his report to the Assistant Adjutant-General, ventured to say"Notwithstanding the tremendous odds against us, and the blundering arrangements of the battle, wo inflicted heavy loss upon the Yankees." The odds were indeed against the Confederates, for the Nationals doubtless had more troops, and certainly a better position than they.

3 This is a view from Crew's house, near which some of Porter's batteries were planted, overlooking the fields where the Confederates advanced to the charges on Porter and Couch. In the distance is seen the line of the dark pine-woods near Glendale, from which the assailing columns emerged. This was the appearance of the spot when the writer made the sketch, at the close of May, 1866.

4 D. H. Hill's Report.

VOL. II.-28