Condition of Affairs.--Plan of General Johnston.--The Field of
Battle at Seven Pines.--The Battle.--General Johnston wounded.--
Advance of General Sumner.--Conflict on the Right.--Delay of
General Huger.--Reports of the Enemy.--Losses.--Strength of
Forces.--General Lee in Command.
Our army having retreated from the Peninsula, and withdrawn from the
north side of the Chickahominy to the immediate vicinity of Richmond,
I rode out occasionally to the lines and visited the headquarters of
the commanding General. There were no visible preparations for
defense, and my brief conversations with the General afforded no
satisfactory information as to his plans and purposes. We had, under
the supervision of General Lee, perfected as far as we could the
detached works before the city, but these were rather designed to
protect it against a sudden attack than to resist approaches by a
great army. They were, also, so near to the city that it might have
been effectually bombarded by guns exterior to them. Anxious for the
defense of the ancient capital of Virginia, now the capital of the
Confederate States, and remembering a remark of General Johnston,
that the Spaniards were the only people who now undertook to hold
fortified towns, I had written to him that he knew the defense of
Richmond must be made at a distance from it. Seeing no preparation to
keep the enemy at a distance, and kept in ignorance of any plan for
such purpose, I sent for General B. E. Lee, then at Richmond, in
general charge of army operations, and told him why and how I was
dissatisfied with the condition of affairs.
He asked me what I thought it was proper to do. Recurring to a
conversation held about the time we had together visited General
Johnston, I answered that McClellan should be attacked on the other
side of the Chickahominy before he matured his preparations for a
siege of Richmond. To this he promptly assented, as I anticipated he
would, for I knew it had been his own opinion. He then said: "General
Johnston should of course advise you of what he expects or proposes
to do. Let me go and see him, and defer this discussion until I
return."
It may be proper here to say that I had not doubted that General
Johnston was fully in accord with me as to the purpose of defending
Richmond, but I was not content with his course for that end. It had
not occurred to me that he meditated a retreat which would uncover
the capital, nor was it ever suspected until, in reading General
Hood's book, published in 1880, the evidence was found that General
Johnston, when retreating from Yorktown, told his volunteer aide, Mr.
McFarland, that "he [Johnston] expected or intended to give up
Richmond." [41]
When General Lee came back, he told me that General Johnston
proposed, on the next Thursday, to move against the enemy as follows:
General. A. P. Hill was to move down on the right flank and rear of
the enemy. General G. W. Smith, as soon as Hill's guns opened, was to
cross the Chickahominy at the Meadow Bridge, attack the enemy in
flank, and by the conjunction of the two it was expected to double
him up. Then Longstreet was to cross on the Mechanicsville Bridge and
attack him in front. From this plan the best results were hoped by
both of us.
On the morning of the day proposed, I hastily dispatched my office
business, and rode out toward the Meadow Bridge to see the action
commence. On the road I found Smith's division halted, and the men
dispersed in the woods. Looking for some one from whom I could get
information, I finally saw General Hood, and asked him the meaning of
what I saw. He told me he did not know anything more than that they
had been halted. I asked him where General Smith was; he said he
believed he had gone to a farmhouse in the rear, adding that he
thought he was ill. Riding on to the bluff which overlooks the Meadow
Bridge, I asked Colonel Anderson, posted there in observation,
whether he had seen anything of the enemy in his front. He said that
he had seen only two mounted men across the bridge, and a small party
of infantry on the other side of the river, some distance below, both
of whom, he said, he could show me if I would go with him into the
garden back of the house. There, by the use of a powerful glass, were
distinctly visible two cavalry videttes at the further end of the
bridge, and a squad of infantry lower down the river, who had covered
themselves with a screen of green boughs. The Colonel informed me
that he had not heard Hill's guns; it was, therefore, supposed he had
not advanced. I then rode down the bank of the river, followed by a
cavalcade of sight-seers, who, I supposed, had been attracted by the
expectation of a battle. The little squad of infantry, about fifteen
in number, as we approached, fled over the ridge, and were lost to
sight. Near to the Mechanicsville Bridge I found General Howell Cobb,
commanding the support of a battery of artillery. He pointed out to
me on the opposite side of the river the only enemy he had seen, and
which was evidently a light battery. Riding on to the main road which
led to the Mechanicsville Bridge, I found General Longstreet, walking
to and fro in an impatient, it might be said fretful, manner. Before
speaking to him, he said his division had been under arms all day
waiting for orders to advance, and that the day was now so far spent
that he did not know what was the matter. I afterward learned from
General Smith that he had received information from a citizen that
the Beaver-dam Creek presented an impassable barrier, and that he had
thus fortunately been saved from a disaster. Thus ended the
offensive-defensive programme from which Lee expected much, and of
which I was hopeful.
In the mean while the enemy moved up, and, finding the crossing at
Bottom's Bridge unobstructed, threw a brigade of the Fourth Corps
across the Chickahominy as early as the 20th of May, and on the 23d
sent over the rest of the Fourth Corps; on the 25th he sent over
another corps, and commenced fortifying a line near to Seven Pines.
In the forenoon of the 31st of May, riding out on the New Bridge
road, I heard firing in the direction of Seven Pines. As I drew
nearer, I saw General Whiting, with part of General Smith's division,
file into the road in front of me; at the same time I saw General
Johnston ride across the field from a house before which General
Lee's horse was standing. I turned down to the house, and asked
General Lee what the musketry-firing meant. He replied by asking
whether I had heard it, and was answered in the affirmative; he said
he had been under that impression himself, but General Johnston had
assured him that it could be nothing more than an artillery duel. It
is scarcely necessary to add that neither of us had been advised of a
design to attack the enemy that day.
We then walked out to the rear of the house to listen, and were
satisfied that an action, or at least a severe skirmish, must be
going on. General Johnston states in his report that the condition of
the air was peculiarly unfavorable to the transmission of sound.
General Lee and myself then rode to the field of battle, which may be
briefly described as follows:
The Chickahominy flowing in front is a deep, sluggish, and narrow
river, bordered by marshes, and covered with tangled wood. The line
of battle extended along the Nine-mile road, across the York River
Railroad and Williamsburg stage-road. The enemy had constructed
redoubts, with long lines of rifle-pits covered by abatis, from below
Bottom's Bridge to within less than two miles of New Bridge, and had
constructed bridges to connect his forces on the north and south
sides of the Chickahominy. The left of his forces, on the south side,
was thrown forward from the river; the right was on its bank, and
covered by its slope. Our main force was on the right flank of our
position, extending on both sides of the Williamsburg road, near to
its intersection with the Nine-mile road. This wing consisted of
Hill's, Huger's, and Longstreet's divisions, with light batteries,
and a small force of cavalry; the division of General G. W. Smith,
less Hood's brigade ordered to the right, formed the left wing, and
its position was on the Nine-mile road. There were small tracts of
cleared land, but most of the ground was wooded, and much of it so
covered with water as to seriously embarrass the movements of troops.
When General Lee and I riding down the Nine-mile road reached the
left of our line, we found the troops hotly engaged. Our men had
driven the enemy from his advanced encampment, and he had fallen back
behind an open field to the bank of the river, where, in a dense
wood, was concealed an infantry line, with artillery in position.
Soon after our arrival, General Johnston, who had gone farther to the
right, where the conflict was expected, and whither reënforcement
from the left was marching, was brought back severely wounded, and,
as soon as an ambulance could be obtained, was removed from the field.
Our troops on the left made vigorous assaults under most
disadvantageous circumstances. They made several gallant attempts to
carry the enemy's position, but were each time repulsed with heavy
loss.
After a personal reconnaissance on the left of the open in our front,
I sent one, then another, and another courier to General Magruder,
directing him to send a force down by the wooded path, just under the
bluff, to attack the enemy in flank and reverse. Impatient of delay,
I had started to see General Magruder, when I met the third courier,
who said he had not found General Magruder, but had delivered the
message to Brigadier-General Griffith, who was moving by the path
designated to make the attack.
On returning to the field, I found that the attack in front had
ceased; it was, therefore, too late for a single brigade to effect
anything against the large force of the enemy, and messengers were
sent through the woods to direct General Griffith to go back.
The heavy rain during the night of the 30th had swollen the
Chickahominy; it was rising when the battle of Seven Pines was
fought, but had not reached such height as to prevent the enemy from
using his bridges; consequently, General Sumner, during the
engagement, brought over his corps as a reënforcement. He was on the
north side of the river, had built two bridges to connect with the
south side, and, though their coverings were loosened by the upward
pressure of the rising water, they were not yet quite impassable.
With the true instinct of the soldier to march upon fire, when the
sound of the battle reached him, he formed his corps and stood under
arms waiting for an order to advance. He came too soon for us, and,
but for his forethought and promptitude, he would have arrived too
late for his friends. It may be granted that his presence saved the
left wing of the Federal army from defeat.
As we had permitted the enemy to fortify before our attack, it would
have been better to have waited another day, until the bridges should
have been rendered impassable by the rise of the river.
General Lee, at nightfall, gave instructions to General Smith, the
senior officer on that part of the battle-field, and left with me to
return to Richmond.
Thus far I have only attempted to describe events on the extreme left
of the battle-field, being that part of which I had personal
observation; but the larger force and, consequently, the more serious
conflict were upon the right of the line. To these I will now refer.
Our force there consisted of the divisions of Major-Generals D. H.
Hill, Huger, and Longstreet, the latter in chief command. In his
report, first published in the "Southern Historical Society Papers,"
vol. iii, pp. 277, 278, he writes:
"Agreeably to verbal instructions from the commanding General, the
division of Major-General D. H. Hill was, on the morning of the 31st
ultimo, formed at an early hour on the Williamsburg road, as the
column of attack upon the enemy's front on that road. . . . The
division of Major-General Huger was intended to make a strong flank
movement around the left of the enemy's position, and attack him in
rear of that flank. . . . After waiting some six hours for these
troops to get into position, I determined to move forward without
regard to them, and gave orders to that effect to Major-General D. H.
Hill. The forward movement began about two o'clock, and our
skirmishers soon became engaged with those of the enemy. The entire
division of General Hill became engaged about three o'clock, and
drove the enemy steadily back, gaining possession of his abatis and
part of his intrenched camp, General Rodes, by a movement to the
right, driving in the enemy's left. The only reënforcements on the
field in hand were my own brigades, of which Anderson's, Wilcox's,
and Kemper's were put in by the front on the Williamsburg road, and
Colston's and Pryor's by my right flank. At the same time the decided
and gallant attack made by the other brigades gained entire
possession of the enemy's position, with his artillery,
camp-equipage, etc. Anderson's brigade, under Colonel Jenkins,
pressing forward rapidly, continued to drive the enemy till
nightfall. . . . The conduct of the attack was left entirely to
Major-General Hill. The entire success of the affair is sufficient
evidence of his ability, courage, and skill."
This tribute to General Hill was no more than has been accorded to
him by others who knew of his services on that day, and was in
keeping with the determined courage, vigilance, and daring exhibited
by him on other fields.
The reference, made, without qualification, in General Longstreet's
report, to the failure of General Huger to make the attack expected
of him, and the freedom with which others have criticised him,
renders it proper that some explanation should be given of an
apparent dilatoriness on the part of that veteran soldier, who, after
long and faithful service, now fills an honored grave.
It will be remembered that General Huger was to move by the Charles
City road, so as to turn the left of the enemy and attack him in
flank. The extraordinary rain of the previous night had swollen every
rivulet to the dimensions of a stream, and the route prescribed to
General Huger was one especially affected by that heavy rain, as it
led to the head of the White-Oak Swamp. The bridge over the stream
flowing into that swamp had been carried away, and the alternatives
presented to him was to rebuild the bridge or leave his artillery. He
chose the former, which involved the delay that has subjected him to
criticism. If any should think an excuse necessary to justify this
decision, they are remanded to the accepted military maxim, that the
march must never be so hurried as to arrive unfit for service; and,
also, they may be reminded that Huger's specialty was artillery, he
being the officer who commanded the siege-guns with which General
Scott marched from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. To show that the
obstacles encountered were not of such slight character as energy
would readily overcome, I refer to the report of an officer
commanding a brigade on that occasion, Brigadier-General R. E. Rodes,
whose great merit and dashing gallantry caused him to be admired
throughout the army of the Confederacy. He said:
"On the morning of the 31st the brigade was stationed on the Charles
City road, three and a half miles from the point on the Williamsburg
road from which it had been determined to start the columns of
attack. . . . I received a verbal order from General Hill to conduct
my command at once to the point at which the attack was to be made.
. . . The progress of the brigade was considerably delayed by the
washing away of a bridge near the head of White-Oak Swamp, by reason
of which the men had to wade in water waist-deep, and a large number
were entirely submerged. At this point the character of the crossing
was such that it was absolutely necessary to proceed with great
caution to prevent the loss of both ammunition and life. In
consequence of this delay, and notwithstanding that the men were
carried at double-quick time over very heavy ground for a
considerable distance to make up for it, when the signal for attack
was given, only my line of skirmishers, the Sixth Alabama and the
Twelfth Mississippi Regiments, was in position. . . . The ground over
which we were to move being covered with thick undergrowth, and the
soil being marshy--so marshy that it was with great difficulty that
either horses or men could get over it--and being guided only by the
fire in front, I emerged from the woods from the Williamsburg road
under a heavy fire of both artillery and musketry, with only five
companies of the Fifth Alabama."
General Huger's line of march was farther to the right, therefore
nearer to White-Oak Swamp, and the impediments consequently greater
than where General Rodes found the route so difficult as to be
dangerous even to infantry.
On the next day, the 1st of June, General Longstreet states that a
serious attack was made on our position, and that it was repulsed.
This refers to the works which Hill's division had captured the day
before, and which the enemy endeavored to retake.
From the final report of General Longstreet, already cited, it
appears that he was ordered to attack on the morning of the 31st, and
he explains why it was postponed for six hours; then he states that
it was commenced by the division of General D. H. Hill, which drove
the enemy steadily back, pressing forward until nightfall. The
movement of Rodes's brigade on the right flank is credited with
having contributed much to the dislodgment of the enemy from their
abatis and first intrenchments. As just stated. General Longstreet
reports a delay of some six hours in making this attack, because he
was waiting for General Huger, and then made it successfully with
Hill's division and some brigades from his own. These questions must
naturally arise in the mind of the reader: Why did not our troops on
the left, during this long delay, as well as during the period
occupied by Hill's assault, coöperate in the attack? and Why, the
battle having been preconceived, were they so far removed as not to
hear the first guns? The officers of the Federal army, when called
before a committee appointed by their Congress to inquiry into the
conduct of the war, have by their testimony made it quite plain that
the divided condition of their troops and the length of time required
for their concentration after the battle commenced, rendered it
practicable for our forces, if united--as, taking the initiative,
they well might have been--to have crushed or put to flight first
Keyes's and then Heintzelman's corps before Sumner crossed the
Chickahominy, between five and six o'clock in the evening.
By the official reports our aggregate loss was, "killed, wounded, and
missing," 6,084, of which 4,851 were in Longstreet's command on the
right, and 1,233 in Smith's command on the left.
The enemy reported his aggregate loss at 5,739. It may have been less
than ours, for we stormed his successive defenses.
Our success upon the right was proved by our possession of the
enemy's works, as well as by the capture of ten pieces of artillery,
four flags, a large amount of camp-equipage, and more than one
thousand prisoners.
Our aggregate of both wings was about 40,500. The force of the enemy
confronting us may be approximated by taking his returns for the 20th
of June and adding thereto his casualties on the 31st of May and 1st
of June, because between the last-named date and the 20th of June no
action had occurred to create any material change in the number
present. From these data, viz., the strength of Heintzelman's corps,
18,810, and of Keyes's corps, 14,610, on June 20th, by adding their
casualties of the 31st of May and 1st of June--4,516--we deduce the
strength of these two corps on the 31st of May to have been 37,936 as
the aggregate present for duty.
It thus appears that, at the commencement of the action on the 31st
of May, we had a numerical superiority of about 2,500. Adopting the
same method to calculate the strength of Sumner's corps, we find it
to have been 18,724, which would give the enemy in round numbers a
force of 16,000 in excess of ours after General Sumner crossed the
Chickahominy.
Both combatants claimed the victory. I have presented the evidence in
support of our claim. The withdrawal of the Confederate forces on the
day after the battle from the ground on which it was fought certainly
gives color to the claim of the enemy, though that was really the
result of a policy much broader than the occupation of the field of
Seven Pines.
On the morning of June 1st I rode out toward the position where
General Smith had been left on the previous night, and where I
learned from General Lee that he would remain. After turning into the
Nine-mile road, and before reaching that position, I was hailed by
General Whiting, who saw me at a distance, and ran toward the road to
stop me. He told me I was riding into the position of the enemy, who
had advanced on the withdrawal of our troops, and there, pointing, he
said, "is a battery which I am surprised has not fired on yon." I
asked where our troops were. He said his was the advance, and the
others behind him. He also told me that General Smith was at the
house which had been his (Whiting's) headquarters, and I rode there
to see him. To relieve both him and General Lee from any
embarrassment, I preferred to make the announcement of General Lee's
assignment to command previous to his arrival.
After General Lee arrived, I took leave, and, being subsequently
joined by him, we rode together to the Williamsburg road, where we
found General Longstreet, his command being in front, and then
engaged with the enemy on the field of the previous day's combat. The
operations of that day were neither extensive nor important, save in
the collection of the arms acquired in the previous day's battle.
General R. E. Lee was now in immediate command, and thenceforward
directed the movements of the army in front of Richmond. Laborious
and exact in details, as he was vigilant and comprehensive in grand
strategy, a power, with which the public had not credited him, soon
became manifest in all that makes an army a rapid, accurate, compact
machine, with responsive motion in all its parts. I extract the
following sentence from a letter from the late Colonel R. H. Chilton,
adjutant and inspector-general of the army of the Confederacy,
because of his special knowledge of the subject:
"I consider General Lee's exhibition of grand administrative talents
and indomitable energy, in bringing up that army in so short a time
to that state of discipline which maintained aggregation through
those terrible seven days' fights around Richmond, as probably his
grandest achievement."
[Footnote 41: For recital and correspondence of 1874, see "Advance and
Retreat," by J. B. Hood, Lieutenant-General in the Confederate Army,
pp. 153-156.]