452

TARDINESS OF RE-ENFORCEMENTS.

his papers, burned a few wagons, and carried off about two hundred prisoners, taken from the hospitals. The disgrace inflicted, it was thought, was more serious than the damage.' Stuart recrossed the Rappahannock at Warrenton Springs, after a little skirmishing.

3

The National capital was now in imminent danger, and slowly the Army of the Potomac was coming up to its relief.' Still it was coming, and Pope was made to believe that almost immediately he would be re-enforced by forty thousand or fifty thousand fresh troops, who had been resting for more than a month. His own force had become much weakened by fighting and marching, and at this time its effective men did not exceed forty thousand in number.1 But with the hope of immediate support, he massed his army in the neighborhood of Rappahannock Station," for the purpose August 23, of falling upon the portion of the Confederates that had crossed the river above him, and was then supposed to be stretched between Waterloo Bridge, the Sulphur Springs, and Warrenton. He looked to the swollen river as a sufficient barrier to any attempt of the Confederates on its right bank to get between himself and Fredericksburg.

1862.

Sigel was directed to march his whole corps upon Sulphur Springs, supported by Banks and Reno, and McDowell (joined by the Pennsylvania Reserves, under Reynolds) was ordered, at the same time, to march directly upon Warrenton, that he might join with Sigel in pushing the Confederates back to Waterloo Bridge. General Halleck was requested to send Franklin's corps (which had arrived at Alexandria from the Peninsula) to Gainsville, on the Manassas Gap railway, eight miles west of the Junction. Sturgis, at Alexandria, had been ordered' to post strong guards along & August 22. the railway between Manassas Junction and Catlett Station; and directions had been given to the commander at Manassas Junction, for

1 Pope in his report says, the raid was "attended with but little damage," but "was most disgraceful to the force which had been left in charge of the trains."

* General Halleck had repeatedly urged General McClellan to hasten the departure of his army from the Peninsula. On the 9th, he informed him of the perils with which Pope's army and the capital were threatened, and said, “Considering the amount of transportation (an immense number of vessels in the James and at Hamp ton Roads) at your disposal, your delay is not satisfactory. You must move with all celerity." On the following day Halleck informed McClellan of the battle between Pope and Jackson, at Cedar Mountain, and said, "There must be no further delay in your movements; that which has already occurred was entirely unexpected, and must be satisfactorily explained." To these electrographs McClellan replied, that a lack of transportation was the cause of delay; and he assured the General-in-Chief that he was doing all in his power to carry out his orders. See McClellan's Report, pages 159–160.

3 After the first few days succeeding the retreat to Harrison's Landing, Lee's army having fallen back to Richmond, with the exception of a brigade of cavalry left to watch the movements of the Army of the Potomac, there was very little service, excepting camp duty, for that army to perform. Immediately on its arrival upon the little peninsula formed by the James and Herring Creek, between Harrison's Point and Westover, the approaches to it were strongly fortified. It soon became evident that troops were gathering on the south side of the James, in the neighborhood of Petersburg. On the 30th of July, McClellan was informed from Washington that they were moving, when Hooker was ordered to advance with his division and Pleasanton's cavalry, and seize Malvern Hills as a menace of Richmond. He drove the Confederates from the Hills captured 100 of them, and pushed cavalry under Averill as far as White Oak Swamp Bridge, w* tured 28 men and horses of the Tenth Virginia cavalry. Hooker was satisfied that if he ha follow up this movement with any considerable number of troops, Richmond might have be McClellan had received a peremptory order to transfer his army to Acquia Creek, and it co Meanwhile General French, with a considerable Confederate force and 43 guns, had gone day of the James to assail McClellan's camp. He appeared suddenly at Coggin's Point, bef morning of the first of August, and opened fire on the camp and vessels. So soon, në brought to bear on him, he ceased firing and withdrew. McClellan sent a force across Confederates back to Petersburg, and strongly fortified Coggin's Point.

4 Sigel's corps had become reduced to about 9,000 effectives; Banks's to Reynolds's division that had come from the Peninsula, was only 15,000; Iten greatly reduced in its equipment of horses and arms, did not exceed 4,003,

POSITION OF THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA.

453 the first division of re-enforcements that should arrive to halt and take part in the works there, pushing forward its cavalry to Thoroughfare Gap. Sigel with his supporters (Banks and Reno), moved slowly up the left side of the Rappahannock, and drove the Confederates from Great Run." After re-building the bridge the latter had destroyed, he pushed forward, and, under the fire of artillery from the opposite side of the Rappahannock, took possession of Sulphur Springs the next morning, and went on toward Waterloo Bridge. The latter point was occupied by Buford's cavalry at noon, and Sigel's advance under Milroy

arrived there late in the afternoon.

a Aug. 23.

1862.

Aug. 24.

Pope's army now faced westward, with Sigel's corps and Buford's cavalry near the Rappahannock, at

Waterloo Bridge, and Banks just

behind them.

Reno was near Sulphur Springs; McDowell, with the divisions of Ricketts and King, was at Warrenton; and Heintzelman,' who had just arrived from the Peninsula, was at Warrenton Junction. Porter had been reported as near Bealton Station, and it was expected that he would press forward and join Reno; while Franklin was expected to take post on Heintzelman's right. Sturgis and Cox were hourly expected at Warrenton Junction.

Such was the position of Pope's army, now about sixty thousand

Aug 26.

strong, on the 25th of August, the day on which Jackson, who led Lee's forces engaged in the great flank movement, crossed the Rappahannock at Hinson's Mill, four miles above Waterloo Bridge, passed through Orleans, bivouacked at Salem, and, moving with his accustomed celerity, the next day crossed the Bull's Run Mountains at Thoroughfare Gap to Gainesville, where he was joined by Stuart with two cavalry brigades, and at twilight reached Bristow Station, on the Orange and Alexandria railway, in Pope's rear, and between him and Washington and Alexandria. ment had been so thoroughly masked that Pope was completely deceived, and on the previous evening, when Jackson was reposing at Salem, between Thoroughfare and Manassas Gaps, he sent word to McDowell at Warrenton, that he believed "the whole force of the enemy had marched for the lley, by of Luray and Front Royal." From information

This move

e signal corps, at noon that day, Banks was of was Jackson expected at the rear of the army up to Bristow Station, and were captured by

of position, and the necessity for quick

He had been sent forward by railway, without four rounds of ammunition to each man.

forty rounds of cartridges to each man.

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.

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 Appomattox toward Petersburg. The two birds on the right denote the position of the gun-boats in the James that took part in the battle.

FAIR OAKS AND SAVAGE'S STATION.

439

Crew, Dr. Turner, John W. West, E. H. Poindexter, James W. Binford, and L. H. Kemp. Crew's, near which the artillery of Porter and Couch was planted, had been a fine mansion, with pleasant grounds around it; but both mansion and grounds told the sad story of the desolation which had been brought to all that region by the scourge of war. Only two very aged women inhabited the shattered building, the garden was a waste, the shadetrees had disappeared, and only a single field was in preparation for culture. Late in the afternoon we left Malvern Hills, and returned to Richmond by the New Market or River road.

On the morning of the first of June, we rode out to the battle-grounds of the Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, and of Savage's Station. Our journey was on the Williamsburg road, as far as its junction with the Nine Mile road, when we followed the latter to Fair Oaks Station, seven miles from Richmond. There were no buildings visible there. We rode on to the site of the Seven Pines Tavern, where a burial party were filling a National cemetery with the remains of the Union dead; and crossing open fields beyond, we reached Savage's Station, about four miles from Fair Oaks, at noon. It was a warm, sunny day, and the shade of the grove there (see picture on page 426) was very grateful. There we lunched, and had a brief interview with Mr. Savage, who was living in a small house a few yards from the site of his mansion, which was destroyed by accident after the battle there. He was courteous, but outspoken concerning his hostility to his Government and his contempt for the Yankees, preferring to live in poverty in the midst. of his eight hundred desolated acres, to allowing one of the despised "Northerners" to become his neighbor by a sale of a rood of his surplus land to him. We admired his pluck and pitied his folly. He was a fair example of that social dead-weight of pride and stupidity that denies activity and prosperity to Virginia.

We returned to Richmond before sunset, and early the following morning went down the river by steamer to visit Williamsburg and Yorktown. The weather was de

lightful, and the banks

of the James were clad
in richest verdure, hid-
ing in a degree the
deserted fortifications
that line them all the
way from Richmond to
City Point. Water was
flowing gently through
the Dutch Gap Canal;
and City Point, where
before a hun-

a year
dred vessels might be

seen at one time, now presented but a solitary schooner at its desolated wharf. At about noon we passed James Island, with its interesting tower of the ancient church in which the first settlers in Virginia worshiped, and near which we saw the battery erected and armed in the interest of the conspirators, at the expense of a wealthy planter named Allen,

440

WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN.

whose vast domain was in that vicinity. Soon afterward we debarked at Grover's Landing, eight miles from Williamsburg, rode to that ancient capital of Virginia in an old ambulance, and during the afternoon visited Fort Magruder and its dependencies, and other localities connected with the battle there. We spent the evening pleasantly and profitably with the eminent Professor B. S. Ewell (brother of General R. S. Ewell), the President of William and Mary College, who was the Adjutant-General of Joseph E. Johnston until he was superseded in command by Hood, at Atlanta.

On the following morning we rode to Yorktown, twelve miles down the Peninsula, and spent the remainder of the day in visiting objects of interest in the vicinity. The old British line of circumvallation had been covered by the modern works; and the famous cave in the river-bank in which Cornwallis had his head-quarters, after he was driven out of the Nelson House, had been enlarged and converted into a magazine. The town appeared desolate indeed, the only house in it that seems not to have felt the ravages of war being that of Mrs. Anderson, of Williamsburg, in which McClellan and all of the Union commanders at Yorktown had their quarters. It was still used for the same purpose, there being a small military force there.

We observed that the names of the few streets in Yorktown had been changed, and bore those of "McClellan," "Keyes," "Ellsworth," and others. The old "Swan Tavern," at which the writer was lodged in 1848, and the adjoining buildings, had been blown into fragments by the explosion of gunpowder during the war.

On the morning of the 4th, we left Yorktown for Grover's

a June, 1866.

Landing, passing on the way the house of Mr. Eagle, a mile from the town, where General Johnston had his quarters and telegraph station just before the evacuation. We were again on the bosom of the James in a steamer at nine o'clock, and arrived at Richmond toward evening. Remaining there one day, we departed for the North, to visit the fields of strife between the South Anna and the Rappahannock.