July 6, 1862

July 6, 1862:  Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Confederate Army, with over 1,000 mounted men, sets off from Tupelo, Mississippi on a raid into central Tennessee, in order to threaten Halleck’s and Buell’s supply lines.  Buell’s Army of the Ohio is moving gradually east towards Chattanooga.

---Josiah Marshall Favill, a captain in the 57^th New York Infantry Regiment, writes in his diary, puzzling over the Army of the Potomac’s recent defeats in the Seven Days Battles---a remarkably clear although implicit criticism of McClellan in the observations of such a young officer of the entire Peninsula Campaign:

July 6th. I was present at an interesting conversation between General French and Zook, regarding the campaign just closed. Both of them admitted it had been a complete failure, in spite of the gallant and meritorious conduct of the troops. From the time the army first started for Manassas, until the second day of July, its movements, except in retreat, have been timid, vacillating, and indecisive. In no instance has it initiated the fighting, although organized for that purpose. When attacked, it has shown itself capable of great deeds, and has invariably succeeded in defeating its opponent, but never was allowed to take advantage of the fact. Upon landing before Yorktown, that stronghold could, as is well known now, have been captured by a coup-de-main, with almost no loss, the enemy being in small force, and wholly unprepared for defence. That plan, however, never seems to have occurred to the general commanding, his brain being filled with the idea of a great siege, like Sebastopol, in the Crimea. Having decided on the siege, everything else was neglected and the slow, laborious operation of digging entrenchments, and erecting batteries went along just as in the sieges of the Middle Ages, every one taking his time, and only careful to do things regularly. When the enemy evacuated the place, through lack of alertness on our part, they were able to move everything of value, and make an orderly and secure retreat, not a single wagon being abandoned. The advance and operations at Williamsburg were of the most perfunctory order, ill advised, indifferently carried out, and wholly without result. While the general commanding ostensibly undertook to cut off part of the enemy’s force at West Point, or near there, the movements of the Army of the Potomac were so sluggish that the enemy easily got out of the way. Our army met with no resistance on the advance to West Point, and yet was nearly ten days in getting there. The advance from the White House to the Chickahominy was extraordinarily slow and hesitating, the troops not averaging more than five miles a day. Arriving at the Chickahominy, the grave military error of isolating a part of the army by a treacherous and difficult stream, was inexcusable, and has lost us much prestige. On the first of June everything was propitious, the army concentrated, the men anxious for a trial of their strength, and all abundantly supplied. At the very outset we forgot our plans; our theory, and our duty, and instead of taking the initiative with the combined army, and attacking the enemy, we awaited his attack and contented ourselves throughout the entire day with simply repulsing his efforts and holding our ground. Was there ever so great a miscarriage before? That a general attack would have resulted in success, and possibly an overwhelming victory, was the opinion of almost every officer in the field with whom I talked. But the general commanding seemed to be satisfied with holding his ground. Why we should have remained at Fair Oaks passes understanding. If we could not advance and attack advantageously, on the first of June, how could we do so subsequently, when the enemy had fortified himself? Fortifying ourselves on the southern, or right bank of the Chickahominy, we remained constantly under fire, powerless and inactive. How long this state of things would have lasted, had not the enemy renewed the fighting, is hard to guess. Gaines’ Mills afforded one more capital chance for carrying out our plans. The enemy concentrated his army, and made a powerful attack on our right, a formidable position, which might have been held had troops enough been sent to support Porter’s command, but in arranging for their attack, the enemy withdrew nearly all his troops in front of Sumner, Franklin, and Heintzleman’s splendid corps, which lay inactive behind impregnable earthworks. As we knew, at least in front of our corps negroes were marched about their lines, beating drums, and making a noise, to deceive us with the belief that the troops were still there. Zook ascertained they were not there, and begged for permission to attack. If late in the afternoon, when Lee was concentrating all his forces, and pushing the fighting against Porter’s corps, Sumner had made a dash for the works in front, they would certainly have been carried, and our advance moved to within shelling distance of Richmond, which would have been a position worth obtaining. In any case, we should inevitably have drawn off the force attacking Porter, and probably had the chance to fight them in rear of their own works. Admitting the retreat was conducted superbly, the general’s Fourth of July address to the contrary, there was an immense amount of all kinds of material destroyed. At Savage Station, while we lay there, a heavy train loaded with stores, was set on fire and sent under full headway over the burning bridge across the Chickahominy, to plunge headlong into the stream, where all was absolutely destroyed. The fight at Malvern Hill was entirely favorable to our side, the enemy lost enormously, while we suffered very little, and at the close of the fight, the rebel troops were dispirited and thoroughly exhausted; our corps, and the troops on the right were mostly fresh, excepting two brigades of our division. If a grand attack in force, of the entire army, well led, had been ordered immediately after the repulse of the enemy’s last attack, who can doubt the result? But the same timid methods continued and the army was withdrawn, exactly as though it had sustained an overwhelming defeat. With such a commander, we can’t hope for success, at least in anything more than a defensive warfare. Such certainly is the opinion of a great many of our brightest officers.

July 5, 1862

July 5, 1862:  AbbyHowland Woolsey, a Northern woman, writes to her sister Eliza on this date:

It may be God’s will to destroy this nation by inches. It is certainly the devil’s will to put dissension into the hearts of our leaders, and blundering darkness into their minds. God overrules all evil, even this, I suppose, to his own glory. I have no question that this and all other defeats are intended to drive us, as a nation, to a higher moral ground in the conduct and purpose of this war. As things stand, the South is fighting to maintain slavery, and the North is trying to fight so as not to put it down. When this policy ceases, perhaps we shall begin to have victory, if we haven’t already sinned away our day of grace. . . . Hatty and Carry went with the Bucks to Bedloe’s Island, with a tug load of ice cream and cake, and flowers, and flags, and a chest of tea, forty quarts of milk, and butter, and handkerchiefs, papers and books, to set out a long table and give a treat to two hundred in hospital there.

July 4, 1862 - Independence Day

July 4, 1862:  Naval action on the James River:  Lieutenant T.H. Stevens, commander of the U.S.S. Maratanza, sorties up the James River and encounters the C.S.S. Teaser, a gunboat armed with a 32-pounder gun, in addition to a 57-pounder rifled gun, and a 12-pounder gun.  After the exchange of several shots, the Yankee vessel fired a shell that pierced the Teaser’s boiler, after which its crew abandons it in haste.  Stevens captures the Teaser, as well as an observation balloon. 

The deck of the captured CSS Teaser shown damaged by shell fire

---John Hunt Morgan, a Kentuckian in the Confederate Cavalry, had been building a reputation as a bold and innovative commander.  Having raised a regiment of troops at his own expense, he became colonel in command of the 2^nd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment in the Confederate army.  More recently, his reputation drew a large battalion of Georgia mounted partisan rangers, and two troops of Texan riders, to join him, forming a light brigade.  He trained his men in cavalry tactics that were unconventional, eschewing sabers in favor of rifles.  Most of his recruits have trained in the infantry, and Morgan uses them as mounted infantry.  In time, Basil Duke is made commander of the 2^nd Kentucky as Morgan assumed the duties of brigade commander.  He also acquires two light 12-pounder howitzers.  On this date, Morgan and his 876 men and two guns start out from Knoxville, embarking on his first major raid.  Their goal is the populated and fertile central bluegrass country of central Kentucky, especially Lexington.

Morgan's Lexington Rifles in camp

---Private Oliver Willcox Norton of the Union army writes home with a detailed account of his experience in the Battle of Gaines Mill, showing the tendency of his rifle to be more prone to getting wounded than his body:

The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line, but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore up bravely. . . . Those in the rear of us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled them out and snatched a gun from Ames in Company H as he fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle. Then came the retreat across the river; rebels on three sides of us left no choice but to run or be killed or be taken prisoners. We left our all in the hollow by the creek and crossed the river to Smith’s division. The bridge was torn up and when I came to the river I threw my cartridge box on my shoulder and waded through. It was a little more than waist deep. I stayed that night with some Sherman boys in Elder Drake’s company in the Forty-ninth New York.

Sunday night we lay in a cornfield in the rain, without tent or blanket. Monday we went down on the James river, lying behind batteries to support them. Tuesday the same—six days exposed to a constant fire of shot and shell, till almost night, when we went to the front and engaged in another fierce conflict with the enemy. Going on to the field, I picked up a tent and slung it across my shoulder. The folds of that stopped a ball that would have passed through me. I picked it out, put it in my pocket, and, after firing sixty rounds of my own and a number of a wounded comrade’s cartridges, I came off the field unhurt, and ready, but not anxious, for another fight.

*Across the nation, Americans on both sides consider the meanings of the war on this, the Birthday of the United States:

---A Seneca County, New York newspaper, on this occasion of the nation’s founding, publishes this editorial with a decided Copperhead slant:

The recurrence of the birthday of our National Independence has heretofore been the occasion for universal congratulation and rejoicing. How different the scene in 1862! Instead of Peace, Union, and Prosperity, we have Civil War, Disunion and all their concomitant evils. Instead of National rejoicing, the land is filled with mourning. Upon every breeze is borne the the sad, silent messenger of death. Hearts are bleeding all over the land at the loss of loved ones, stricken down in this most cruel and unnatural, war. What a day for rejoicing! And for what can we rejoice? Our common interests are gone, sacrificed for the sake of our jealousies and passions. Fanaticism and madness rule the hour, and our beloved country seems to be fast drifting toward anarchy and ruin.

. . . We are a guilty nation, proud, wicked, and vain-glorious. If we have not sought war, we are at least guilty of hastening it upon our fellow-countrymen. To avoid all of its horrors we should acknowledge our wrongs and retrace our steps. Our common history must be read and studied anew, and we must again dwell on the glorious deeds of a common ancestry, while a thick and oblivious veil must be drawn over the awful and tragic events of our recent history. The blessings and glories of the past must be rehearsed. . . . One hope – one heart – one future – one magnificent destiny! Inspired by these feelings and actuated by these sentiments only, can Peace be restored and our People again made happy and prosperous. Until then all national rejoicing is mere mockery.

---Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, Charles Francis Adam, Sr., writes to his brother Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army, expressing the anxieties they feel for the cause of the Union from the London point of view:

The truth is we are suffering now under one of those periodical returns of anxiety and despondency that I have often written of. . . . but meanwhile we are haunted by stories about McClellan and by the strange want of life that seems justly or not to characterize our military and naval motions. You at Charleston seem to be an exception to the rule of stagnation which leaves us everywhere on the defensive even when attacking. A little dash does so much to raise one’s spirits, and now our poor men only sicken in marshes. I think of it all as little as I can.

He adds observations about how the cotton shortage is affecting the working class in England---without saying how such a situation may turn British sympathies toward the South:

The suffering among the operatives in Lancashire is very great and is increasing in a scale that makes people very uncomfortable though as yet they keep quiet about it. Cotton is going up to extraordinary prices; in a few days only it advanced three cents a pound and is still rising. Prices for cotton goods are merely nominal and vary according to the opinions of the holders, so that the whole trade is now pure speculation. Mills are closing in every direction.

 

---His father, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes also to Charles, Jr.:

This detestable war is not of our own choosing, and out of it must grow consequences important to the welfare of coming generations, . . . I had hoped that the progress of General McClellan would have spared us much of this trouble. But it is plain that he has much of the Fabian policy in his composition which threatens to draw the war into greater length. Of course we must be content to take a great deal on trust. Thus far the results have been all that we had a reasonable right to expect. Let us hope that the delay is not without its great purposes. My belief is unshaken that the end of this conflict is to topple down the edifice of slavery. Perhaps we are not yet ready to come up to that work, and the madness of the resistance is the instrument in the hands of Divine Providence to drive us to it. It may be so. I must hold my soul in patience, and pray for courage and resignation.

This is the 4th of July. Eighty-six years ago our ancestors staked themselves in a contest of a far more dangerous and desperate character. The only fault they committed was in omitting to make it more general and complete. . . . I am not a friend of the violent policy of the ultras who seem to me to have no guide but their own theories. This great movement must be left in a degree to develope itself, and human power must be applied solely to shape the consequences so far as possible to the best uses.

---William C. Horton, of the U.S. Navy, assigned to the U.S.S. Hartford under Flag Officer Farragut on the Mississippi, tells of the fleet’s run past the guns of Vicksburg, and how they celebrated the Fourth of July:

During the night the mortars were moved up to easy range, and on the 28th, before daylight, the mortars opened in earnest. The whole fleet now moved up to the attack. Our ships were before the city, while the shells from the mortars were being hurled right over our heads, and, as battery after battery was unmasked from every conceivable position, the ridge of the bluff was one sheet of fire. The big ships sent in their broadsides, the mortars scores of shell, and all combined to make up a grand display and terrible conflict. After nearly two hours of hard fighting, our ships had nearly all passed the city, out of range, and the firing ceased.

On looking around I found the Hartford riddled from stem to stern; first a hole through her bow, then two through the side, one below water, then another through the bulwarks, another through the stern and cabin, and another through the smoke-pipe, &c., &c., the main topsail-yard cut in twain, and the rigging terribly cut fore and aft.

Our casualties in killed and wounded were light. . . . The afternoon was devoted to burying the dead and communicating with the ram fleet belonging .to Commodore Davis’s division. From our anchorage we’ could see across the point of land to General Williams’s camp and the transports below, and we immediately established communication with them. Here we spent the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by the booming of cannon from both fleets, and a volley of shells to the rebels. . . .

---Young Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge writes of her feelings about the future of the nation---sure of her Confederate loyalties and yet uncertain about the vicious nature of the division between North and South:

For a few days before his arrival here, we saw a leading article in the leading Union paper of New Orleans, threatening us with the arming of the slaves for our extermination if England interfered, in the same language almost as Butler used when here; three days ago the same paper ridiculed the idea, and said such a brutal, inhuman thing was never for a moment thought of, it was too absurd. And so the world goes! We all turn somersaults occasionally.

And yet, I would rather we would achieve our independence alone, if possible. It would be so much more glorious. And then I would hate to see England conquer the North, even if for our sake; my love for the old Union is still too great to be willing to see it so humiliated. If England would just make Lincoln come to his senses, and put an end to all this confiscation which is sweeping over everything, make him agree to let us alone and behave himself, that will be quite enough. But what a task! . . .

July 3, 1862

July 3, 1862:  McClellan further asks for reinforcements, doubling the number he needs to 100,000.  He tells Washington that he has currently no more than 50,000 men under arms, whereas the real number is more like 90,000.  His dispatch to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton reflects the tone of insubordination that marks his career, in addition to his defensive attitude:

A simple summary is, that this army has fought every day for a week against superior numbers, holding its own at least, often repulsing the enemy by day, then retiring at night. Our light and heavy guns are saved, with the exception of one. All the wagons are now within the line of pickets, and I hope will all be saved. The army is thoroughly worn-out, and requires rest and very heavy re-enforcements.
    Our losses have been very great, for the fighting has been desperate, and officers and men have behaved heroically.
     I am in hopes that the enemy is as completely worn-out as we are. He was certainly very severely punished in the last battle. The roads are now very bad. For these reasons I hope that we shall have enough breathing space to reorganize and rest the men and get them into position before the enemy can attack again. I have ordered Burnside to bring up all his available force, and leave to your judgment the question of evacuating New Berne and its dependencies, so as to bring any available men to re-enforce this army. It is of course impossible to estimate as yet our losses, but I doubt whether there are to-day more than 50,000 men with their colors.
    To accomplish the great task of capturing Richmond and putting an end to this rebellion re-enforcements should be sent to me rather much over than much less than 100,000 men.
    I beg that you will be fully impressed by the magnitude of the crisis in which we are placed. . . .

---In northern Virginia, Gen. John Pope takes command of the troops that used to be commanded by Fremont, Banks, and McDowell, all combined into the new Army of Virginia (US).  Fremont’s Mountain Department (nee Army of Western Virginia) became Pope’s I Corps, Banks’ Army of the Shenandoah became the II Corps, and Irwin McDowell’s Army of the Rappahannock, which had lately been McClellan’s I Corps, now is the III Corps of the Army of Virginia.  Pope is openly scornful of McClellan’s conduct of the campaign on the James Peninsula, arguing that retreating to the James River now puts the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia between Pope and McClellan, and allows Lee to attack either of the Federal armies in turn, as he chooses.  However, Fremont considers Pope’s promotion to be a de facto demotion of himself, and therefore offers his resignation in high dudgeon.  To his dismay, it is accepted betimes, and the German hero Franz Sigel is put in command of Fremont’s corps.

---In the aftermath of the fighting on the Peninsula, the New York Times offers a sober and realistic editorial:

We have at last full reports of recent movements in front of Richmond. We are sorry to say that they do not fully sustain the encouraging interpretation which the public sought to put upon the brief announcement, that our right wing had been attacked and had withdrawn to the other side of the Chickahominy. We have now no room to doubt that our army has met with a very serious reverse, and that it is in a condition of peril, which, if not imminent, at least calls for the instant and energetic efforts of the Government and the country. . . .

Our whole army, therefore, now lies upon the James River, at a point called Turkey Bend, within reach, and under cover of our gunboats. Supplies will speedily reach it from Fortress Monroe, and it seems, indeed, to have withdrawn its stores in good order and without serious loss.

Beyond all question, this intelligence will fall with heavy weight upon the public heart. It is entirely unexpected, and shatters the high hope which the whole country has of late indulged, that, with the fall of Richmond, the end of the rebellion was close at hand. But this depressing effect will be temporary. A day’s reflection will rouse the whole country to the necessity of another effort to crush the rebellion. . . .

The Government will meet this crisis with an intrepid spirit and a determined purpose, — and it must be met by the country in the same temper and with equal courage. The President, as if in anticipation of such a contingency, has already called for 300,000 additional volunteers. Every man of them ought to be enrolled within a fortnight. We shall have, we hope, no wranglings in the Press or elsewhere over the past, — no criminations or hostile criticisms, — no attempts to screen demerit or exaggerate defeat. The country needs the best service of all her sons. Let the only contest be for precedence in the race for her rescue!

---Mary Boykin Chestnut writes in her diary with soberness of the Seven Days’ Battles, and their effect on her circle of neighbors and the Confederacy at large:

July 3d. - Mem says she feels like sitting down, as an Irishwoman does at a wake, and howling night and day. Why did Huger let McClellan slip through his fingers? Arrived at Mrs. McMahan's at the wrong moment. Mrs. Bartow was reading to the stricken mother an account of the death of her son. The letter was written by a man who was standing by him when he was shot through the head. "My God!" he said; that was all, and he fell dead. James Taylor was color-bearer. He was shot three times before he gave in. Then he said, as he handed the colors to the man next him, "You see I can't stand it any longer," and dropped stone dead. He was only seventeen years old.

If anything can reconcile me to the idea of a horrid failure after all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees, it is Lincoln's proclamation freeing the negroes. Especially yours, Messieurs, who write insults to your Governor and Council, dated from Clarendon. Three hundred of Mr. Walter Blake's negroes have gone to the Yankees. Remember, that recalcitrant patriot's property on two legs may walk off without an order from the Council to work on fortifications. . . . If it were not for this horrid war, how nice it would be here. We might lead such a pleasant life. This is the most perfectly appointed establishment - such beautiful grounds, flowers, and fruits; indeed, all that heart could wish; such delightful dinners, such pleasant drives, such jolly talks, such charming people; but this horrid war poisons everything.

July 2, 1862

July 2, 1862:  In Gen.. McClellan’s report to Lincoln on the Seven Days’ Battles, he downplays his losses.  He frankly tells the President that he lost only one wagon, when in fact 500 wagons were captured or destroyed.  In his own defense, McClellan avers, “I have not yielded an inch of ground unnecessarily, but have retired to prevent the superior force of the enemy from cutting me off and to take a different base of operations.”

---On this date, President Lincoln performs these tasks:

            --Signs bills prohibiting polygamy in Utah and the Pacific Railroad Act.

            --Signs into law the Morrill Act, which provides for the funding of land-grant universities and schools

---Surgeon Alfred Castleman, of the Union army, records in his journal about the retreat of the Army of the Potomac from Malvern Hill through torrential rains:

And what was our astonishment, when daylight revealed to us the fact that we were now retracing the very road by which we had been trying to escape. On discovering this the men began to waver in their confidence. But soon we left this road and bore off “down the river,” and of the scene which now followed, neither Hogarth’s pencil nor Hall’s pen could render the faintest idea. The rain was pouring in such torrents as I never saw the clouds give down. The men at every step, sank nearly to their knees in mud. The officers, either sulky or excited, were driving them to a double-quick, which it was impossible for them to maintain for more than a few rods. They began to fall out, and, in half an hour, every field, and all the open country, as far as the eye could reach, presented the appearance of a moving, hurrying mob. I was here strongly reminded of my school boy imaginations of the Gulf Stream. This swaying, surging mass presenting the idea of the ocean lashed into irregular fury by driving storms, whilst a part of General Smith’s division, moving in unbroken column through the mass, could not but recall the picture of that little stream as from the beginning of time it has preserved its quiet course, in despite of all the convulsions and conflicts of the warring elements.

---Lincoln sends a telegram to Gen. McClellan:

When you ask for fifty thousand men to be promptly sent you, you surely labor under some gross mistake of fact. . . . All of Fremont in the valley, all of Banks, all of McDowell, not with you, and all in Washington, taken together do not exceed, if they reach sixty thousand. With Wool and Dix added to those mentioned, I have not, outside of your Army, seventyfive thousand men East of the mountains. Thus, the idea of sending you fifty thousand, or any other considerable force promptly, is simply absurd. If in your frequent mention of responsibility, you have the impression that I blame you for not doing more than you can, please be relieved of such impression. I only beg that in like manner, you will not ask impossibilities of me.”

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.

June 30, 1862

June 30, 1862:

Eastern Theater, Peninsula Campaign

Seven Days’ Battles - Day 6

 

Battles of Glendale (Frayser’s Farm):  McClellan having given Lee the slip and successfully escaped out of the crossroads at Savage’s Station with his wagon trains intact, Lee now assigns the pursuit of the Federals to Gen. Stonewall Jackson---who, although he has shown none of the alacrity of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, still possesses the confidence of the commanding general.  But as Jackson’s men pass through Savage’s Station, they slow down to browse the mountains of supplies left by the Federals, especially the food, since Jackson’s men had been notoriously under-rationed for nearly a month.  Jackson pushes onward, and finds the bridge across the creek at White Oak swamp, to the north of and directly to the rear of the Federal rear guard force, has been burned, and Yankee artillery and small arms fire prevent Jackson from sending in a force to re-build it.

Lee's planned attack

    Meanwhile, Lee’s plan calls for Huger’s division to move in from the northeast, and A.P. Hill and Longstreet from the west.  Holmes also prepares to strike from the southwest.  Lee’s design is to take control of the roads of retreat so as to isolate and destroy part of the retreating Union army: so far, possession of the Quaker Road, the Long Bridge Road, and the heights of Malvern Hill, which command the roads leading to Harrison’s Landing and the Navy, are in McClellan’s hands.  However, Huger advances with caution, and spends much of the day cutting a new road and, when finally within artillery range of the Union lines, decides to call off the attack.  Believing that Huger has engaged the bluecoats, Lee orders Longstreet to step off, and Longstreet’s artillery is soon pelting the Federal lines as his six brigades of infantry go forward against the divisions of McCall, Hooker, Sedgwick, and Kearney, with McCall bearing the brunt: two of his brigades, under Meade and Truman Seymour, are hit hardest.  The lack of a central command amongst the Union troops makes defense difficult: although Longstreet loses nearly a fourth of his division, he inflicts terrible losses on the Yankees as well.  In the lead are the brigades of Wilcox at the north, then Micah Jenkins and then James Kemper, whose Virginians are all new to battle.  Kemper pushes forward, captures some of the Federal guns, and pierces McCall’s line. 

Longstreet's Attack

 Jenkins aids him on his left, followed by Wilcox on Jenkins’ left.  The Union response, uncoordinated, is sluggish.  (Hand-to-hand fighting is vicious, and several Union commanders are wounded, including Meade and corps commander Sumner; McCall and Reynolds are captured.  On the Southern side, Pender, Featherston, and Anderson are wounded.)  Gen. Sumner sends Hooker in to strike the Confederate right flank, and Sedgwick’s brigades arrive in time to plug the holes.  Hill’s men are brought up to relieve Longstreet’s exhausted brigades, but his attacks are also ineffectual. 

Battle of Glendale, showing Longstreet's Attack, and Hill (in dark red) who later came to support Longstreet

Holmes attacks on the Union left, but is beaten back with losses.  But, following a Federal pattern of tactical battlefield victory followed by retreat, the Union forces withdraw, and are able to finish their retreat on the protected roads.  They begin forming a defensive line on the slopes of Malvern Hill during the night, in order to guard the approaches to the new Union base at Harrison’s Landing on the James River.  The Yankee retreat is good for the Confederates---unfortunately, it convinces Lee that the Yankees are demoralized, and he feels that a swift blow struck the next day could finish them. 

What began as a rear-guard action devolves into one of the bloodiest fights of the war, considering its brevity and number of casualties.  Although Lee fails to smash the Union Army, the Yankees fail to keep the fruits of victory.  Confederate Victory (marginal).

Losses:                 Killed           Wounded         Captured or Missing        Total

Union:                    297               1,696                 1,804                                   3,797

Confederate:        638               2,814                    221                                    3,673

McClellan is not present at the battle, nor in direct contact with his commanders (none of whom are ordered by him to take command in his absence), since he spends the day aboard the USS Galena dining with its captain and observing the Navy shelling of part of Holmes’ force.  He sends messages to Washington, asking for 50,000 reinforcements, with which he promises to re-coup his losses.  Many thinkers on both sides consider this battle to have been Lee’s best chance to destroy McClellan and to have won the war.

Map of Glendale and White Oak Swamp, showing the threat Jackson was to the Union rear, if he could have carried out his crossing of the White Oak Swamp river

---Battle of White Oak Swamp:  In what becomes a separate action, Jackson probes the crossings in White Oak Swamp, where Gen. Franklin of the Union army has his corps deployed.  After finding that he is unable to advance troops to re-build the bridge, Gen. Wade Hampton finds another crossing farther to the left, and Jackson instructs Hampton to have his men construct a bridge.  Hampton completes the project, and reports to Jackson, volunteering to lead the attack across the rickety bridge.  Jackson says nothing, but only walks away to a tree, lies down under it, and falls asleep.  His men fail to be any kind of factor in the attack at Glendale.  Meanwhile, Sedgwick brings his federal brigades to aid in the repulse of Jackson’s uncoordinated attack, and afterward swings them to the west to assist in the Union defense of Glendale. 

---Judith White McGuire, of Richmond, writes in her journal passionately of the dire possibilities at stake in the fighting roaring a few miles away at Glendale:

June 30.—McClellan certainly retreating. We begin to breathe more freely; but he fights as he goes. Oh, that he may be surrounded before he gets to his gun-boats! Rumours are flying about that he is surrounded; but we do not believe it—only hope that he may be before he reaches the river. The city is sad, because of the dead and dying, but our hearts are filled with gratitude and love. The end is not yet—oh that it were!

---The Richmond Daily Dispatch, on this date, publishes a grandiloquent, yet vague, assessment of the Savage’s Station battle yesterday:

Suffice it to say that from the opening of the grand ball on Thursday afternoon down to the hour which witnessed the enemy in full retreat, the efforts of our forces were attended with unbroken success, and at no time did the brave men upon whom hung the hopes and the confidence of the country, falter or waver in their determination to make the victory decisive. Battery after battery was stormed with the most daring disregard of human life, and the apparently impregnable positions of the enemy were carried at the point of the bayonet with the most impetuous ardor. Never did men fight more bravely, and never was valor more surely and signally rewarded.

Our loss is heavy, both in officers and men. The soil of Virginia, the grand old mother of States is enriched with the best blood of her suffering Southern sisters, and from every State of the Confederacy the martyrs of liberty have united in pouring out the crimson tide as a rich and imperishable libation upon the altar of the one great common cause. . . .

---The Wilmington Daily Journal, a North Carolina newspaper, reports hopefully albeit erroneously “that McClellan is reported mortally wounded.  His army is fighting for existence.  It is at bay and desperate.”  This typifies the optimistic tenor of much of the Southern journalistic response to the intense fighting around Richmond.

Federal troops on the firing line at Glendale, in a skethc by Alfred Waud