34 The immense amounts of provisions, | Station, which was held by Slocum's munitions, and supplies of all kinds division. This position they were to that could not be removed, were con- hold until dark, so as to cover the signed to destruction; while 2,500 withdrawal of the trains, and then wounded, who were unable to walk, fall back on the roads leading through and for whom no ambulances could the Swamp. be afforded, were left in hospital, with surgeons and attendants, to fall into the hands of the enemy. Our line of movement-that is, of retreat-being now fully comprehended by the enemy, Lee ordered Longstreet and A. P. Hill to recross the Chickahominy at New Bridge and pursue and attack our rear; but between them and the Chickahominy; while Magruder and Huger, advancing from before Richmond on the Williamsburg and Charles City roads respectively, were to strike us in flank. Lee was evidently puzzled with regard to McClellan's intentions, not believing that he could abandon his position and the siege without a bat-Jackson moving down on their left, tle. He sent Ewell's infantry, as well as some cavalry, down the left bank of the Chickahominy, to watch the roads leading down the Peninsula; but, receiving no advices from Huger and Magruder, still between our army and Richmond, of any movement of our trains or forces toward the James, did not divine that movement till late in the afternoon." No serious attack or forward movement was made by the enemy during that day; though in the morning, perceiving that Gen. Franklin's corps were being withdrawn from their front at Golding's farm, opposite Woodbury's Bridge, the Rebels opened on them from Garrett's and Gaines's Hill, and soon advanced two Georgia regiments to assault our works; but they were easily repulsed by the 23d New York and 49th Pennsylvania, with a section of Mott's battery. Magruder, on the Williamsburg road, came in sight of our rear, near Savage's Station, about noon; but, finding the business serious, halted and sent to Huger for rëenforcements. Meantime, an attack in light force had been made, at 9 A. M.," on Gen. Sumner's front; but it was easily repulsed; and Gen. Slocum, pursuant to order, had fallen back from Savage's Station, and was crossing White Oak Swamp. At 4 P. M., Magruder attacked in full force; and, though Gen. Heintzelman, under a misapprehension of orders, had posted his corps so far in the rear as to leave a gap of threefourths of a mile between Sumner and Franklin, Magruder's attack was gallantly repelled by Gen. Burns's brigade, supported by those of Brooks and Hancock, rëenforced by two lines of reserves, and finally by the 69th New York; Hazzard's, Pettit's, Osborn's, and Bramhall's batteries playing a most effective BATTLE OF WHITE OAK SWAMP. 36 161 part in this struggle. By 9 P. M., the | ade, by which all his efforts to cross enemy had recoiled, without having during the day and evening were gained the least advantage; and our repelled and baffled. A heavy fire soldiers fell back, by order, upon of artillery, directed by Capt. Ayres, White Oak Swamp: Gen. French's was maintained throughout that day brigade, forming our rear-guard, be- and evening; Capt. Hazzard's bating in motion by midnight; crossing tery being badly cut up and its comand destroying White Oak Swamp mander mortally wounded; but, Bridge at 5 A. M. next morning. though the enemy replied with equal Jackson, who had been delayed by spirit, and inflicted as well as suffered the necessity of rebuilding the Grape- much loss, our position was too vine Bridge over the Chickahominy, strong to be carried by assault; and reached Savage's Station early this every attempt of the Rebels to cross morning, and was ordered, with the marsh and creek-the bridge Longstreet and A. P. Hill, to follow having been destroyed-was worsted. immediately on the track of our During the night, our troops retired army, while Huger, supported by by order, leaving 350 sick and Magruder, pushed down on our wounded, and some disabled guns, to right. fall an easy prey to the enemy, as he advanced unopposed next morning. But the main conflict of the day occurred at the crossing of the creek some two miles farther up, or to the right of Jackson, where Lee in person, with Jefferson Davis, accompanied Longstreet's advance, at the head of his own and A. P. Hill's divisions; encountering no resistance until noon, when their advance descried our rear-guard, strongly posted upon the road leading from New Market to Long Bridge, and having a small branch of the White Oak Swamp creek in their front. Seeing that we were in force, Longstreet waited till 3 P. M. for the coming up of Huger, who was some 3 or 4 miles distant, on his right, or Jackson, who was still nearer, on his left; but, as neither arrived, he at length ordered his batteries to open and his infantry to charge, under cover of a shower of shells. McClellan, with perhaps a third of our army, had already emerged from the Swamp, upon the high, open ground near MALVERN HILL; while Gen. Holmes, who had just brought part of a Rebel division across from the south side of James river to Richmond, moved down upon the river road, rëenforced by Gen. Wise, with part of his brigade. Coming in sight of our advance near Malvern, he was about to open with his artillery, when he found that we were far too strong for him, and recoiled, awaiting the advance of Magruder to his aid. Jackson was to have deflected toward the Chickahominy, so as to gain our right flank and rear; but his advance was checked by the destruction of the bridge in his front; and on reaching, at noon, White Oak Swamp Bridge, he was confronted by Gen. Franklin, with Smith's division of his own corps, and Richard- McCall, with his Pennsylvania son's, of Sumner's, and Naglee's brig- Reserves, which hard fighting had VOL. II.-11 6 June 30. reduced from 10,000 to 6,000 strong, | flanks of the baffled column, hurling it back in confusion to the sheltering forest. Thus, for two hours, the desperate conflict raged; until Kerns's battery, having fired its last charge, was, by McCall's order, withdrawn from the field, and Col. Roberts's infantry, having just repulsed a Rebel charge, was charged again on its left flank and driven from the field by a fresh force, which, rushing furiously on Cooper's battery, drove off the gunners and captured the guns. A counter-charge was instantly made by the 9th, with parts of other regiments; and, after a desperate but brief struggle, the battery was recovered, and the standard of the 10th Alabama taken. The Reserves still held the field, and not one of their guns had been lost, when, between sunset and dark, Meagher's Irish brigade, of Hooker's division, came up on our left, and, charging desperately across the open field, drove the Rebels back again into the woods. was immediately in their front, and his men for a time held their ground gallantly; but days of fighting, succeeded by nights of marching-always, alas in the wrong direction had told upon the spirits as well as the numbers of these green troops, so suddenly transformed into veterans; while the flushed and confident enemy who assailed them were twice if not thrice their number. An attempt to crush their left by the Rebels was met by a charge of the 5th, 8th, 9th, and 10th regiments, led by Col. Simmons, of the 5th, which hurled the enemy back to the woods in their rear, leaving about 200 prisoners in our hands, who were triumphantly marched off the field. But here Simmons fell, mortally wounded; while hundreds of his soldiers strewed the field; and the charging column, broken as it entered the woods, was unable to reform under the murderous fire of the enemy's infantry and artillery, and fell back in disorder to the woods behind its original position, which they held until night put an end to the contest. A succession of desperate struggles ensued: the Rebels rushing forward in charge after charge to capture our guns, which poured volleys of grape and canister, at short range, into their close masses, sweeping them down by hundreds and forcing them to recoil in dismay; when our supporting regiments would pour a leaden hail of musketry upon the McCall's right, under Gen. Meade, had been likewise engaged with overwhelming numbers, by whom a final charge was made, just at dark, for the possession of Randall's battery; which was carried at the point of the bayonet, though at a fearful cost. Gens. McCall and Meade instantly rallied their infantry for its recapture, and a hand-to-hand struggle of unsurpassed ferocity ensued, wherein the Reserves were overpowered and driven back, though the Rebels had suffered "7 too severely to pursue 37 ade on my right had been repulsed, and that my command were exposed to a destructive fire on the flank as well as in front. Nevertheless, they stood their ground, and sustained the unequal combat until rëenforced by the brigade of Gen. Gregg. We did not return to our original position until the enemy had abandoned the field and surrendered his artillery into our possession. CLOSE OF THE GLENDALE FIGHT. them. Even the guns, so severely | contested, were not held by them; the cheers of a New Jersey brigade, advancing in the dusk to the relief of McCall, impelling them to fall back in haste to the woods. In this closing struggle, Gen. Meade was severely wounded in the arm and hip; Gen. McCall, who had lost all his brigadiers, riding forward a short distance to reconnoiter the apparently deserted field, was suddenly confronted by the leveled muskets of Rebel infantry, and compelled to yield himself a prisoner; and when Gen. Seymour, who had succeeded to the command, withdrew by order, at 11 P. M., to share in or cover the general retreat, the batteries of the division, their horses long since killed, their men worn out with desperate fighting, were left on the hard-fought field, where nearly onefourth of the division had been killed or wounded. 163 menced; and, after a furious contest, lasting Heintzelman, who was present after the battle, also very mistakenly reports that McCall was not attacked till 5 P. M., and that in less than an hour his division gave way; adding: "General Hooker, being on his left, by moving to his right, repulsed the Rebels in the handsomest manner, with great Gen. Sedgwick in McCall's rear, also greatly slaughter. Gen. Sumner, who was with aided with his artillery and infantry in driving back the enemy. They now renewed their attack with vigor on Gen. Kearny's left, and were again repulsed with heavy loss." Lee, more plausibly though not quite fairly, says: "The superiority of numbers and advantage of position were on the side of the enemy. The battle raged furiously until 9 P. M. By that time, the enemy had been driven with great slaughter from every position but one, which he maintained until he was enabled to withdraw under cover of darkness. At the close of the struggle, nearly the entire field remained in our possession, covered with the enemy's dead and wounded. Many prisoners, including a General of division, were captured; and several batteries, with some thousands of small arms, taken. Could the other commands have have proved most disastrous to the enemy. After the engagement, Magruder was recalled to relieve the troops of Longstreet and Hill. His men, much fatigued by their long, hot march, arrived during the night." The noise of this vehement struggle had brought Hooker, from our left, and Burns's brigade, and Tay-cooperated in the action, the result would lor's 1st New Jersey brigade, from Slocum's division, to the aid of McCall; so that we were doubtless in force to have won the battle just after we had lost it, had any daylight remained. Gen. Sumner, speaking from hear-say, thus mistakenly reports it: "The battle of Glendale was the most Fitz-John Porter, having been misled as well as delayed in his passage through the Swamp, had only reached MALVERN HILL at 9 A. M., 38 severe action since the battle of Fair Oaks. when he proceeded to post his troops, as they arrived, so as to command About three o'clock P. M., the action com In this engagement, my loss was uncommonly heavy in officers as well as men. The 14th Alabama, bearing the brunt of the struggle, was nearly annihilated. I crossed the Chickahominy on the 26th, with 1,400 men. In the fights that followed, I suffered a loss of 849 killed and wounded, and 11 missing." Col. J. B. Strange, commanding 3d brigade, 2d division of Longstreet's corps, in his report of this fight, says: "The brigade carried into action 723 muskets; and of this small number the loss was 228, including 4 officers killed and 13 wounded.” Gen. C. M. Wilcox reports the loss of his Alabama brigade in this battle at 471. Among the Rebel wounded were Brig.-Gens. Anderson and Featherston. It is probable that the respective losses here were about equal. 38 June 30. this retreat an ordeal for our men long to be remembered.40 Gen. McClellan had reached Malvern the preceding day. Early this morning, leaving Gen. Barnard with directions for posting the troops as they arrived, he had gone down the river on the gunboat Galena from Haxall's, to select a position whereon his retreat should definitively terminate. all the approaches, but especially and assailed at every turn, rendered those from Richmond and the Swamp. The last of our trains and our reserve artillery reached him about 4 P. M. of this day; about the time that Holmes's force, moving down the James, appeared on our left flank (our army having here faced about), and opened a fire of artillery on Warren's brigade, on our extreme left. He was at once astonished by a concentrated fire from 30 guns, and recoiled in haste, abandoning two of his cannon. "Huddled among the wagons were 10,000 stragglers-for the credit of the nation be it said that four-fifths of them were wounded, sick, or utterly exhausted, and could not have stirred but for dread of the tobacco warehouses of the South. The confusion of this herd of men and mules, wagons and wounded, men on horses, men on foot, men by the road-side, men perched on wagons, men searching for water, men famishing for food, men lame and bleeding, men with ghostly eyes, looking out between bloody bandages, that hid the face-turn to some vivid account of the most pitiful part of Napoleon's retreat from Russia, and fill out the picture-the grim, gaunt, bloody picture of war in its most terrible features. "It was determined to move on during the night. The distance to Turkey Island Bridge, the point on James river which was to be reached, by the direct road was six miles. But those vast numbers could not move over one narrow road in days; hence every by-road, no Jackson's corps, consisting of his own, with Whiting's, D. H. Hill's, and Ewell's divisions, came in the Rebel advance down the Quaker Road, whereon our army had mainly emerged from the Swamp; while Magruder, with most of Huger's division, advancing on the direct roads from Richmond, menaced and soon assailed our left. Longstreet's and A. P. Hill's divisions, having had the heaviest of the fighting thus far, and been badly cut up, were held in reserve by Lee in the rear of Jackson, and were not brought into action. It is none the less true, how matter how circuitous, had been searched out by questioning prisoners and by cavalry excursions. Every one was filled by one of the advancing columns. The whole front was in motion by seven P. M., Gen. Keyes in command of the ad vance. "I rode with Gen. Howe's brigade of Couch's division, taking a wagon-track through dense woods and precipitous ravines winding sinuously far around to the left, and striking the river some distance below Turkey Island. Commencing at dusk, the march continued until daylight. The night was dark and fearful. Heavy thunder rolled in turn along each point of the heavens, and dark clouds overspread the entire canopy. We were forbidden to speak aloud; and, lest the light of a cigar should present a target for an ambushed rifle, we were cautioned not to smoke. Ten miles of weary marching, with frequent halts, as some one of the hundred vehicles of the artillery train, in our center, by a slight deviation, crashed against a tree, wore away the hours to dawn, when we debouched into a magnificent wheat-field, and the smoke-stack of the Galena was in sight. Xenophon's remnant of the Ten Thousand, shouting, 'The sea! the sea!' were not more glad than we." |
