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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

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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

WHITE'S TAVERN.

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 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 him 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.

1 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.

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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,'

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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 inarine 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 un the Appo mattox toward Petersburg. The two birds on the right denote the position of the gun-borts in the James that took part in the battle.

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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

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lightful, and the banks

of the James were clad

in richest verdure, hiding 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 a year before a hundred vessels might be

BATTERY AND CHURCH-TOWER ON JAMESTOWN ISLAND.

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,

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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.

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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.

CONDITION OF MOCLELLAN'S ARMY.

441

CHAPTER XVII.

POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.

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'ERY grievous was the disappointment of the loyal people when they knew that the Grand Army of the Potomac had been driven from the front of Richmond, had abandoned the siege, and had intrenched itself in a defensive position in the malarious region of the James River, beneath the scorching sun of midsummer, where home-sickness and camp-sickness in every form were fearfully wasting it. They were perplexed by enigmas which they could not solve, and the addresses of General McClellan and of the Chief Conspirator at Richmond made these enigmas more profound; each claiming to have achieved victory, and promising abundant success to his followers.' And most astounding to the Government was the assurance of the commander of that army on the third day after the battle of Malvern Hills, when the shattered but victorious host was lying between Berkeley and Westover, that he had not "over 50,000 men left with their colors!" What has become of the remainder of the one hundred and sixty thousand men who within a hundred days have gone to the Peninsula? was a problem very important for the Government to have solved, and the President went down to the head

1 On the 4th of July, General McClellan said, in a congratulatory address to his troops :-"SOLDIERS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC-Your achievements of the last ten days have illustrated the valor and endurance of the American soldier. Attacked by superior forces, and without hope of re-enforcements, you have succeeded in changing your base of operations by a flank movement, always regarded as the most hazardous of military expedients. You have saved all your material, all your trains, and all your guns except a few lost in battle, taking in return guns and colors from the enemy. Upon your march you have been assailed day after day with desperate fury, by men of the same race and nation, skillfully massed and led. Under every disadvantage of number, and necessarily of position also, you have in every conflict beaten back your foes with enormous slaughter. Your conduct ranks you among the celebrated armies of history. No one will now question that each of you may always with pride say, 'I belonged to the Army of the Potomac.' On this our Nation's birth-day, we declare to our foes, who are rebels against the best interests of mankind, that this army shall enter the capital of the so-called Confederacy; that our National Constitution shall prevail, and that the Union, which can alone insure internal peace and external security to each State, 'must and shall be preserved,' cost what it may in time, treasure, and blood."

*

On the following day (July 5), Jefferson Davis issued an address to his solliers, in which, after speaking of the "series of brilliant victories" they had won, he said: "Ten days ago an invading army, vastly superior to you in numbers and materials of war, closely beleaguered your capital, and vauntingly proclaimed its speedy conquest. With well-directed movements and death-daring valor you charged upon him from field to field, over a distance of more than thirty-five miles, and, spite of his re-enforcements, compelled him to seek shelter under cover of his gun-boats, where he now lies cowering before the army he so lately derided and threatened with entire subjugation. Well may it be said of you, that you have done enough for glory; but duty to a suffering country and to the cause of constitutional liberty claims for you yet further efforts. Let it be your pride to relax in nothing which can promote your own future efficiency, your own great object being to drive the invaders from your soil, carrying your standard beyond the outer boundaries of the Confederacy, to wring from an unscrupulous foe the recognition which is the birthright of every independent community."

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