July 1, 1862

July 1, 1862:

Eastern Theater, Peninsula Campaign

Seven Days’ Battles - Day 7

Battle of Malvern Hill:  This battle is almost universally labeled as Robert E. Lee’s worst mistake of the war.  McClellan is absent, but the senior officer on the spot, Gen. FitzJohn Porter, has had the timber cleared from the northward-facing slopes of the hill, and McClellans’ chief of artillery, Col. Henry J. Hunt, has placed 250 cannon, some nearly hub-to-hub, across the slopes.  Most of the infantry of the Army of the Potomac are deployed.  Lee lines up the divisions of Jackson, Whiting, D.H. Hill, and Ewell to make the assault,, with Magruder to follow up on the right.  Hill and other officers oppose the attack, but Lee is confident that one more push will topple McClellan’s army.  Muddy roads and poor maps hamper the Confederate approach.  Magruder’s staff officers send Jackson on the wrong road, and he finds himself angling away from the battlefield, out of position to attack.  Lee improvises a new line, putting in Huger to support D.H. Hill in the middle, and Jackson finally re-positioned on the C.S. left.

Because of the terrain, the Rebels are unable to deploy on the Union flanks at all.  Lee intends to open an artillery barrage on the Federal positions, but Hunt beats him to it: a well-deployed force of cannon, with overlapping fields of fire, lays down an hour or more of fire that puts most of the Rebel artillery out of action; most of the Southern batteries that are still operational are now unable to fire, lacking support from other batteries in their exposed positions 1,200 yards from the Union guns.  As the Rebel infantry advance at 3:30 PM, the Northern guns rip wide gaps in the lines.  Armistead’s brigade in Huger’s division makes some progress against the Union left and drives the Union sharpshooters back, but as Magruder moves up to exploit the advantage, he does not have enough strength to make any inroads.  Hill marches straight down the Quaker Road, deploys his brigades, only to see them shredded and turned back before they even get within 200 yards of the Federal lines.  As Ewell’s troops (Trimble) are about to go forward, Jackson prevents them from doing so.  Gen. Lafayette McLaws led two brigades forward at the end, and suffered heavy losses.  Gen. D.H. Hill says that the  assault was “not ward – it was murder.”  Southern losses are appalling: over 5,600, and most of those in the space of less than an hour.  Union Victory.

Losses:                  Killed             Wounded          Captured-Missing     Total

Union                      314                   1,875                    818

Confederate          869                  4,241                    540                               5,650

Characteristically, after such a stupendous success, McClellan inexplicably orders the army to withdraw to Harrison’s Landing.

Battle of Malvern Hill

---Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman, of the Union army, gives his description of the Battle of Malvern Hill, which he witnessed:

After a march of about two miles, we halted on the slope of a hill which concealed us from an immense open plain stretching out in our front to Malvern Hills. Here was progressing a battle which will be famed in history, so long as battles are fought on earth. I doubt whether one so bloody, in proportion to numbers, or so obstinately contested, has been fought since the invention of gunpowder. . . . Our Division was drawn up in line on the slope of the hill referred to, just so as to be concealed by its brow from the plain in front, yet so near as to perceive the advance of an enemy approaching over it, and here we lay all day in reserve, expecting our main body to be driven back on us, . . .

   6 P. M.—The battle of Malvern Hill still rages, and what carnage. Hand to hand the fight goes on. The dead and the dying lie heaped together. Charge after charge is made on our artillery, with a demoniac will to take it, if it costs them half their army. Down it mows their charging ranks, till they lie in heaps and rows, from behind which our men fight as securely as if in rifle pits. . . . The slaughter is terrible, and to add to the carnage, our gun boats are throwing their murderous missiles with furious effect into the ranks of our enemy. By their shots huge trees are uprooted or torn into shreds, which whip the combatants to death.

---Col. William Averell of the 3^rd Pennsylvania Cavalry offers this singular image and impression of the battle:

Over 5000 dead and wounded men were to be seen on the ground. They were in every attitude of distress. Curled up or sprawling singly and in heaps and rows. A third of them dead and dying, but enough living and moving to give the field a crawling appearance.

---Capt. Edward M Hardy, Co. G of the 6^th Virginia Infantry, writes a letter to Rev. Aristides Spyker Smith with the news that his son Johnnie was killed in the assault on Malvern Hill:

Rev.d A. S. Smith
Petersburg Va.

Dr. Sir,

It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your son John. R. Smith, a member of my company. He died like a patriot & a gentleman, while charging a Yankee Battery. It is needless to say to you that the loss of our beloved comrade is deeply regretted by the whole company. I sent you the last remains by Mr. Lewellen Southgate.

I am with much sympathy and respect,

Yr. obt. svt.

EM Hardy
Captain Co. “G” 6th Regt. V.V.

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Robert E. Lee, the man of the hour

Assessment of the Seven Days' Battles: Lee risked the survival of the Confederacy by conducting such audacious attacks against an army much larger than his---indeed, Lee's critics have argued that the 20,000 men he recklesly lost in those 7 days were irreplacable, and crippled the Confederacy's abilkity to cever ome close to matching the Federal numbers in the field. Others argue that Lee's attacks, although tactically costly, gave Richmond the breathing space it needed, and pushed McClellan back and away from Richmond, where maintaining the status quo could only have guaranteed a Federal victory. Lee's victories electrified the South, and gave morale a permanent boost.  It could be valid to argue that Lee incurred losses that he could not afford for a victory that he could not do without.