434

RETREAT TO HARRISON'S LANDING.

tered columns were re-formed in the dark pine-forest, not more than half a mile in front of the National line, and at about six o'clock in the evening he opened a general artillery fire upon Couch and Porter, and his infantry rushed from their covering at the double-quick, over the open undulating fields, to storm the batteries and carry the hill. They were met by a most withering fire of musketry and great guns; but as one brigade recoiled, another was pushed forward, with a culpable recklessness of human life, under the circumstances. Finally, at about seven o'clock, when a heavy mass of fresh troops, under the direction of Jackson, were charging Couch and Porter, and pressing them sorely, Sickles's brigade of Hooker's division, and Meagher's Irish brigade of Richardson's division, were ordered up to their support, and fought most gallantly. At the same time, the gun-boats in the river were hurling heavy shot and shell among the Confederates, with terrible effect, their range being directed by officers of the Signal corps stationed upon a small house a short distance from McClellan's quarters. The conflict was furious and destructive, and did not cease until almost nine o'clock in the evening, when the Confederates were driven to the shelter of ravines, and woods, and swamps, utterly broken and despairing.1

So ended THE BATTLE OF MALVERN HILLS. The victory for the Nationals was decisive, and it was clear to every officer in the Army of the Potomac, that a vigorous movement toward Richmond in the morning (only about a day's march off) would not only lead to its immediate possession by that army, but the dispersion or capture of Lee's entire force. But other counsels prevailed. McClellan had been nearly all day on the Galena, and at times made somewhat anxious by the roar of battle. He was sent for toward evening, and reached the right of the army while the battle was raging furiously on the left, at the time of the final struggle just recorded. Immediately after the repulse of the assailants, he issued an order for the victorious army to "fall back still farther" to Harrison's Landing, a point

1 According to the testimony of some of Lee's officers (see Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia. volume I.), the whole Confederate army was in the greatest disorder on the morning after the battle- thousands of straggling men asking every passer-by for their regiment; ambulances, wagons, and artillery obstructed every road."

2 Reports of General McClellan and his subordinate officers; also of General Lee and his subordinates: published narratives of eye-witnesses and participants in the battles, and oral and written statements to the author by officers and soldiers of the Potomac army.

The aggregate loss during the seven days' contest before Richmond, or from the battle at Mechanicsville until the posting of the army at Harrison's Bar, was reported by McClellan at 1.552 killed. 7,709 wounded, and 5,958 missing, making a total of 15,249. Lee's losses were never reported. He declared that he captured 10,000 prisoners, and took 52 pieces of cannon and 85,000 small arms.

says

3 Dr. R. E. Van Grieson, Surgeon of the Galena, kept a diary of events at that time, in which he recorded that General McClellan went on board of that vessel at nine o'clock in the morning, and retired to the cabin" for a little sleep." They arrived at Harrison's Bar at noon, when Generals McClellan and Franklin went ashore and remained about an hour. On their return, the Galena started up the river. "As we pass up," the diary, we can hear heavy firing. After passing Carter's Landing, it increases to a perfect roar. McClellan, though quietly smoking a cigar on the quarter-deck, seems a little anxious, and looks now and then inquiringly at the signal officer, who is receiving a message from shore. After a while the signal officer reports, Heavy firing near Porter's division; next came a message de:nanding his presence on shore. A boat is manned, and McClellan left." That message, according to Dr. Marks, was from Heintzelman, who sent him word that the troops "noticed his absence, and it was exerting a depressing influence over them. and he could not be answerable for the consequences if he longer held himself aloof from the scene of action and danger."-The Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, page 299. When asked by the **Committee on the Conduct of the War" (Report, 1. 436) whether he was on board a gun-boat during any part of that day, McClellan replied: "I do not remember; it is possible I may have been, as my camp was directly on the

river."

4 General McClellan's. Report, page 140.

POSITION OF THE ARMY ON THE JAMES.

435

This

on the James a few miles below, and then returned to the Galena.' order produced consternation and the greatest dissatisfaction, for it seemed like snatching the palm of victory from the hand just opened to receive it.' However, it was obeyed, and by the evening of the 3d of July,"

a 1862.

the Army of the Potomac was resting on the James; and on the 8th, what was left of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was behind the defenses at Richmond. McClellan made his head-quarters in the mansion at Berkeley, the seat of the Harrison

family, near Harrison's Landing, and began calling loudly for re-enforcements, to enable him "to accomplish the great task of capturing Richmond and putting an end to the rebellion." Thus ended the campaign against Richmond.

The writer, accompanied by his two Philadelphia friends already alluded to, visited the theater of events recorded in this chapter at the close of May, 1866. After a delightful railway-jour ney of about two days from Green

THE HARRISON MANSION.

ville, in East Tennessee, stopping one night at Lynchburg, we arrived at Richmond on the 26th. When the object of our journey was made known

1 Dr. Grieson's Diary, cited in Greeley's American Conflict, ii. 167.

2 Even Fitz-John Porter's devotion to his chief was temporarily shaken by this order, which elicited his most indignant protest."-Greeley's American Conflict, note 43, page 167. General Kearney said, in the presence of several officers" I, Philip Kearney, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for a retreat. We ought, instead of retreating. to follow up the enemy and take Richmond; and in full view of all the responsibilities of such a declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason."-Dr. Marks's Peninsula Campaign, page 294.

The picture above shows the appearance of the mansion at the time the writer was there, in the spring

of 1865, when it was a signal-station. It was the residence of Dr. Starke when the war broke out. It is about five miles below City Point, on the opposite side of the river. There President Harrison was born. The estate was called Berkeley. A short distance below it, on the same side of the river, is the old family mansion of the Westover estate, that belonged to the Byrds in colonial times. It was famous as the center of a refined social circle on the Virginia Peninsula, and became noted in connection with Benedict Arnold's movements in Virginia,

after he took up arms against his country. The annexed picture shows its appearance in the spring of 1865. It was then the property of John Seldon. Its landing, one of the best on the James, was made the chief depot of supplies while the Army of the Potomac lay between it and Berkeley, well sheltered by Herring Creek and a swamp.

On the morning of the battle of Malvern Hills, McClellan telegraphed to Washington for fresh troops, and saying he should fall back to the river, if possible. The President immediately replied, that if he had a million of men it would be impossible to get them to him in time for the emergency. He frankly informed McClellan that there were no men to send, and implored him to save his army, even if he should be compelled to fall back to Fortress Monroe, adding, with faith-" We still have strength enough in the country, and will bring it out." On the next day, McClellan telegraphed for fifty thousand fresh troops, when the President assured him that there were not at his disposal sufficient troops by 15,000 men to make the estimated sufficient

436

VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELDS NEAR RICHMOND.

to Major-general Alfred H. Terry, then in command at Richmond, he kindly furnished us with every facility for an exploration of the battle-grounds in that vicinity. He placed his carriage and four horses at our disposal for several days; and we had competent guides as well as most genial companions in Colonels Martin, Graves, and Sullivan, of General Terry's Staff, who had participated in the stirring military events between Old Point Comfort and Richmond.

Our first trip was made on a wet day, which gave us a realizing sense of that "altogether abnormal" state of the season of which the commander of the Army of the Potomac wrote, four years before, when waiting for fairer skies and drier earth to

permit him to take Richmond. We rode out to Mechanicsville, passing through the lines of heavy fortifications constructed by the Confederates along the brow of a declivity, on the verge of a plain that overlooked the Chickahominy. We passed that stream and the swamps that border

MECHANICSVILLE.

it (see picture on page 419) without difficulty, and were soon in Mechanicsville, a hamlet of a few houses, seated around a group of magnificent oak trees, which bear many scars of battle. At Mechanisville we turned in the direction of Cool Arbor, passing and sketching Ellison's Mill, and the battleground around it. A little farther on we came to a beautiful open wood, mostly of hickory trees, in which was the Walnut Grove Church, a neat wooden structure, painted white, wherein the wounded of both parties in the strifes in that vicinity had found shelter from sun and storm. Soon after passing the ruins of Gaines's Mills (see picture on page 424), a little farther eastward, we found the country nearly level, and almost denuded of the forests that covered a large portion of it before the war. Now it had the desolate appearance of a moorland. Not a fence was visible over a space of many miles. As we approached the site of the New Cool Arbor tavern, we came to the heavy works thrown up by the Confederates at a later period of the war, and saw between these and others, constructed by the Nationals, a mile farther on, in the scarred and broken

WALNUT GROVE CHURCH.

guard for the National Capital. He begged the General not to ask of him impossibilities, and told him that if he thought he was not strong enough to take Richmond, he did not ask him to do it then. Utterly unmindful of the kind and candid statements of the President, the General telegraphed on the 3d for 100,000 men, more rather than less," with which to "take Richmond and end the rebellion;" and on the 4th he

COOL ARBOR AND ITS VICINITY.

437

trees, the evidences of the fierceness of the battle there between Grant and Lee, to be described hereafter. Over the plain between New and Old Cool Arbor (see map on page 423), where the deadly strife occurred, a National cemetery was laid out, and a burial party was there, gathering from the fields and forests around the remains of the Union soldiers, and interring them in this consecrated ground. The graves of fifteen hundred were already there. After thoroughly exploring the battle-ground, and sketching the remains of a general's head-quarters in a wood near Old Cool Arbor,' we turned our faces toward

That day's experience will be conrecord of events on the south side

River and drove down to Drewry's Bluff. sidered hereafter, when we come to the of the James, at a later period of the war. On the morning of the 31st we started for Malvern Hills, about fifteen miles distant. We went out on the Charles City road, stopping to sketch

the small but now famous White's tavern, then kept by an Englishman and his wife. We crossed the borders of the White Oak Swamp, and near the junction of the Charles City, Long Bridge, and Quaker roads, followed a little miry by-way that brought us out to the field of the sanguinary battle of Glendale. In the woods, where the slain were laid in shallow graves, we saw the whitened bones of many of them; and on Frazier's Farm, where a portion of the battle in the open fields was fought, we observed another National cemetery, in which were scores of mounds already. The burial

WHITE'S TAVERN.

repeated that call. To these demands, which began to seem like studied annoyances, the patient President calmly replied as before, and told him that the governors of loyal States had offered hin 300,000 men for the field; when McClellan, as if to give those annoyances more force, actually wrote a letter to Mr. Lincoln, advising him how he should conduct his administration, especially in regard to the matter of slavery, in which the conspirators and their friends were so deeply interested. After telling Mr. Lincoln what his duty was in regard to confiscations, military arrests, &c., he said that the military power should not be allowed to interfere with slavery, and gave it as his opinion, that, unless the principles of the Government on that point should be made known and approved, the effort to obtain requisite force to sustain the war would be almost hopeless. "A declaration of radical views," he said, "especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies." Not agreeing with the General in this view, and believing it to be the duty of the latter to attend to the management of the army under his command rather than to that of the National Government, the President declined to discuss the matter.

This was a delightful place for head-quarters. In an open wood a canopy of boughs was formed, under which the tents were pitched, and rude seats were constructed among them. Every thing but the tents remained. These have been inserted to give more reality to the picture, and to exhibit the usual forms of the tents.

party at work there had their tents pitched in the grove about Willis's Church (delineated on page 429).

We passed down the Quaker road through an almost level country, broken by ravines and water-courses for a mile or two, in the track of the fugitive Army of the Potomac, and at about one o'clock reached the beautiful open fields of Malvern Hills, where we had a pleasant reception at the old mansion-the head-quarters of McClellan (see picture on page 429)-by the family of Mr. Wyatt, the occupant. In a deep shaded ravine, on the southeastern slope of the hill, where a copious stream of pure spring water flows out of a bank composed of a mass of perfect sea-shells and coral,'

beneath the roots of huge trees, we lunched; and at the small house, not far off, where Major Myer had his signal-station during the battle, we were furnished with rich buttermilk by a fat old colored woman, who said she was "skeered a' most to death" by the roar of the storm of battle. After sketching the charming view southward from the grove in front of the mansion, we proceeded to explore the battle-ground on which the hottest of the fight occurred. The theater of that conflict was on the farms of Cornelius

1 There were immense escalop and ordinary sized oyster-shells closely imbedded, with small ammonites and clam shells. The coral was white, and in perfect preservation. This layer of marine shells and the spring are more than a hundred feet above the James River. Such layers occur throughout the region between Richmond and the sea, sometimes near the surface, and often many feet below it. On the battle-ground of the Seven Pines we saw many pieces of coral that had lain so near the surface that the plow had turned them up.

2 This is one of the most extensive and charming views in all that region. The sketch comprehends the scenery around Turkey Bend, on the James River, looking southward from Malvern Hills mansion. From that position City Point (its place denoted by the three birds on the left) was visible, and the country up the Appo mattox toward Petersburg. The two birds on the right denote the position of the gun-boats in the James that took part in the battle.