LOOKING FOR JOHN CRAWFORD, OF DURYEA'S ZOUAVES--THE MORNING OF THE FIRST
OF JULY--MCCLELLAN AND HIS GENERALS--THE FIRST BATTLE OF
MALVERN--VICTORY IN RETREAT.
It will be remembered that Richard Crawford, lying helplessly on his
sofa and murmuring over the bodily disability which at once entailed
idleness and suffering, made it one of the grounds of comparisons
injurious to himself, that his brother John was on service in Virginia
with the Advance Guard--better known, perhaps, as "Duryea's
Zouaves"--that gallant corps designated by the rebels as the "red-legged
devils," and spoken of by every European officer who has seen their
action in battle, as the equals of any body of regulars of any service
in the world. The claims of business alone had prevented his being in
the ranks of that regiment, if in no higher position, when they marched
down Broadway on their departure in the summer of 1861, receiving the
merited compliment of being the finest-looking body of men, as to
physique and probable endurance, that had ever passed over that
procession-trodden pavement, and headed by a gallant officer (Colonel,
now General, Abram Duryea) who had been so largely instrumental in
making the Seventh Regiment famous for drill, discipline and readiness
for any service.
John Crawford, a younger brother of Richard (his _only_ brother, in
fact--the whole living family being comprised in Richard, Isabella and
John) had left his lucrative employment as a confidential dry-goods
clerk, in one of the largest down-town establishments, and joined the
Advance Guard. He had participated in nearly or quite all the battles
shared in by that lucky corps, from Big Bethel, where they performed the
wonderful feat of re-forming under fire in the space of four minutes,
after having been thrown into complete disorder by the discharge from an
ambuscade of artillery,--to the severe conflicts of the Peninsula, in
McClellan's advance upon Richmond; and only once had he been wounded,
even slightly. He seemed to bear a charmed life; and there was
something in the rollick and dash of his letters home, always full
charged with the very sense of bravery and physical enjoyment, well
calculated to arouse the feeling, if not the envy, of a brother quite as
patriotic and probably quite as brave as himself, but kept back by
circumstances and afterwards by ill-health from participating in the
same glorious conflicts. No matter whether he described the carnage of
the turning point in a day of battle; an hour beside a wounded soldier
in the hospital, talking of home and friends; or one of the
chicken-and-pig-foraging expeditions for which the Zouaves have been
almost as famous as for their fighting,--through all these shone the
spirit of the gay, rattling, contented soldier, who might have sat for a
portrait, any day, of Paddy Murphy, in the "Happy Man," making his
baggage-wagon, commissariat and camp-chest of a one-headed drum, ready
to fall in love with the first neat pair of ankles that peeped from
beneath a well-kept petticoat, a little regardless of any proprietorship
in the same ankles, other than that vested in the actual owner, and
splendidly indifferent as to either the time or the mode of his death,
whenever that death should become a matter of necessity.
The letters of such soldiers as these are the best recruiting-sergeants
that can be sent abroad among any people; just as the letters of
whining, lugubrious or dissatisfied men, who have gone into war without
expecting any of its dangers or discomforts--who are satisfied with no
fare less luxurious than that served up at Delmonico's or the Maison
Doree, and who protest against any sleeping which is not done upon
spring-mattresses strown with rose-leaves,--cannot do otherwise than
discourage and unnerve the whole immediate community in which they fall.
Whether the growlers through the press and in general society, have done
most to discourage and demoralize the army, or whether the grumblers in
the army have wrought more effectually in discouraging enlistments and
weakening the national cause, certain it is that the two evil influences
have worked together, and that those who have displayed the contrary
spirit are entitled to full credit from the whole loyal community.
John Crawford, the Zouave, has not yet made his appearance upon the
scene; but it will now become necessary to turn attention to events and
incidents in which he was engaged, and to discover what influence his
action may have produced on the after events of this story. In this
change of scene, too, we pass away for the time from the outside actions
and influences of the war--the examination of recruiting officers, their
camps and their Broadway parades, with the domestic and social
entanglements in which they were involved by the struggle,--to the
theatre of the war itself and the sights and sounds involved in one of
the deadliest conflicts that ever shook the earth with the thunder
created by the blood-shedding descendants of Cain.
It is with the battle of Malvern Hill that we have to do--a battle as
yet misunderstood and underrated by many who think themselves thoroughly
conversant with the events of the war--one of those marvellous
_victories in retreat_ which often more fully than successes in advance
illustrate the genius of those who achieve them. When the history of the
War for the Union comes to be written at a later day, and when the petty
jealousies and misunderstandings are discarded which now embarrass all
contemporary records,--it is scarcely to be doubted that the battle of
Malvern Hill will be set down as the most terrible conflict ever known
on this continent; the most splendid artillery duel of any country or
any age; a crowning test of indomitable bravery on the part of both
loyalists and rebels; and a brilliant victory for the Union cause, which
saved an army, crowned the reputation of its young General, and averted
a series of evils which could not have failed to culminate in the fall
of Washington and the virtual destruction of the last hope of the
republic.
The events which had immediately preceded Malvern Hill are too fresh in
the minds of the people to need any extended recapitulation. McClellan,
deprived of his last hope for the immediate capture of Richmond, by the
unexpected strength shown by the Confederates in front and the
withdrawal of McDowell under the orders of the government, when within
ten miles of effecting a junction with him;--McClellan, his forces sadly
thinned by the labors and the diseases incident to the long delay amid
the swamps of the Chickahominy; McClellan, driven at last from the
possibility of even holding his position, by the arrival at Richmond of
a large proportion of the rebel army driven from Corinth by Halleck, and
by the movement of Jackson with a body of forty thousand men to take his
right wing in flank;--McClellan had abandoned the White House on the
Pamunkey River, on Sunday the twenty-ninth of June, after the terrific
conflict of the Friday previous, burning the White House itself and
immense quantities of stores and supplies that could not be transported,
and was now falling back on the line of the James River, where he could
meet the protection of the Union gun-boats and safely await the slow
coming of those reinforcements with the aid of which he yet made no
doubt of being able to take the rebel capital.
To McClellan's army this movement, accompanied with so much haste and
such extensive destruction of valuables, necessarily looked more like a
disastrous retreat after defeat than it was in reality; and the
consequence was such a depression of spirits in many of the corps, as
could only have been prevented growing into demoralization by the
confidence that every officer and every soldier yet felt in the young
commander. To the rebels, knowing the country better than the loyal
troops, the movement appeared nearer what it really was, a successful
escape from overwhelming difficulties, to a better and more secure
position, from which an offensive movement might again be made at an
early day, threatening their capital beyond a hope of defence. To them,
a prize long watched and supposed to be securely entrapped, was after
all escaping to a place of safety; and every Confederate officer and
soldier seemed to feel that the Union army must not be allowed to gain
the line of the James as an army, if any series of desperate and
continued attacks could suffice to destroy it. Never, perhaps, was
greater bravery or more indefatigable energy shown in pursuing a beaten
but dangerous foe, than was shown on this occasion by Hill, Longstreet
and Jackson; and never, certainly, was the doggedly dangerous defence of
the tiger slowly retreating to his jungle, more splendidly shown than by
McClellan, Hooker, Sumner, Keyes, Heintzelman and the other Union
commanders. The conflict of Monday the thirtieth June, at White Oak
Swamp, had brought no substantial benefit to the Confederate arms, nor
had it in any considerable degree weakened the Union forces; and on the
night of that day it became evident to the commanders of both armies
that if Tuesday the first of July should pass without a substantial
victory gained by the Confederates, the Union troops would gain the
shelter of the James and the gun-boats, and the rebel advance be checked
effectually.
It was upon the two armies in this position that the night of Monday
closed down; and it was upon the two armies with their positions very
little changed, that the morning broke on Tuesday, giving light for the
double battle, of a whole day's duration, hereafter to be known as that
of Malvern Hill.[11]
[Footnote 11: For the close and accurate description of this battle, the
correctness of the technical terms employed, the ground occupied, and
some of the very language used,--the writer in this place begs to make
his acknowledgments to Mr William H. White, soldier and scholar, a
Lieutenant in the Ninth Infantry in the campaign against the city of
Mexico, and author of the popular "Sketches of the Mexican War" which
have supplied our literature with some of the finest battle-pieces in
the language.]
Nature has no sympathy with bloodshed and but little with suffering; and
it is only when a God puts off mortal existence that the earth is racked
with the thunders and the earthquakes of Calvary. The birds sing as
sweetly and the sun shines as brightly as usual, on the day when we lay
in the earth all that was mortal of one dearer to us than sunshine or
bird-music; and the moon does not turn red or veil her light, even in
the presence of midnight murder. If the skies weep rain upon Waterloo,
it does not fall because the powers in heaven are making lamentation
over the slaughter so soon to be accomplished, but because the crops of
the Flemish farmers have called up to the skies for moisture.
The sun peeps lovingly down even on many a battle-field, and it kisses
the tips of bayonets soon to be wet with the blood of brothers and the
blades of swords that are to be hacked and hammered in deadly conflict,
just as it might glint upon the polished barrel of the sportsman or
flash from the diamond aigrette of the lady riding forth on her white
palfrey to catch the breath of early morning. And how man, with the
capacity of thought, shrinks and shrivels within himself when he marks
the eternity of the course of nature and the very silent scorn bestowed
upon him when he is committing crimes or displaying heroisms that make
all _his_ little world one overwhelming convulsion! It was the reply of
an officer of undaunted bravery, when asked what was the predominant
feeling in his mind when he headed the forlorn-hope in one of the
desperate assaults that preceded the taking of the City of Mexico: "I
think I heard the singing of the birds in the trees, more distinctly
than anything else, and I felt a little vexed that they seemed to care
nothing about the terrible scrape we were pitching into." And something
of the same dissatisfaction, though more tinged with melancholy, has
been felt by many who stood beside the closing grave and heard the same
bird-music making harsh discord with the rumbling of the clods falling
on the lid of the coffin, and who saw the pleasant sunshine tinging the
very sods that were in a few moments to form an impassable barrier
between the beloved dead and the miserable living.
Nature smiled upon the field of Malvern, on the morning of the First of
July, however the powers that wheel the courses of the sun may have
frowned behind their battlements at the sacrifice of life then beginning
and the fearful passions then being called into more active exertion. A
slight mist lay over wood and river, in the very early morning, but the
first beams of the sun dispelled it, and the picturesque Virginia
landscape was exposed to full view, with its long stretches of hill and
plain, its river glimmering in the distance, its patches of corn and
tobacco, its scattered and unthrifty farm-houses flanked with their
negro quarters, and its long lines of white and sun-baked roads.
At that point on the direct road from Charles City to Richmond, and
about four miles from Malvern Hill in a North-west direction, such a
scene was presented, half an hour after sunrise, as has seldom been
looked upon by mortal eye. The increasing light brought more and more
plainly to view the retreating march of the Union forces--unmistakably
a retreat and yet quite as unmistakably no panic. Interminable lines of
wagons, whose length and number no one can estimate who has not seen a
formidable army on the march, rolled on slowly over the white roads,
raising clouds of impalpable dust that rose no higher than the wheels
and then settled again without obscuring the view. Battery after battery
of rifled Parrots, smooth-bores, howitzers and monster siege-guns,
rumbled leisurely along the uneven way. Long lines of jaded cavalry
tramped wearily and stiffly, the horses with drooping heads and the
riders with listless attitudes and loose seats in their saddles which
denoted the very extremity of fatigue and exhaustion. Streams of
limping, footsore stragglers and slightly-wounded soldiers flanked the
roads on either side, trudging along beside the ambulances in which
their worse-wounded companions were being carried forward. Mixed in with
these were unshorn Confederate prisoners; teamsters whose mules and
wagons lay at various points between the Chickahominy and Turkey Bend;
and ruined sutlers whose precious captured stores were now giving aid
and comfort to the appreciative stomachs of the hungry rebels. The
Provost-Marshal's Guard and fatigue-party of Colonel Porter brought up
the rear--picking up stragglers; blowing up ammunition that had been
left by the way; burning feed and forage; smashing barrels of liquids,
of which the apparent wanton waste on the ground would at any other time
have almost produced a revolt in the ranks; bending the barrels and
throwing into the swamp, of muskets dropped by dead and exhausted
soldiers; breaking up and burning abandoned wagons, and destroying
knapsacks, blankets, and all such other articles that could be of any
possible use to an enemy, as had been left behind by the regiments that
had passed on to the James River.
The position at which our point of view is taken, and through which
these streams of wagons, guns, horses and men were passing with the
appearance of a retreat and yet with the steady regularity of an
ordinary march, formed the camping-ground of Genl. Fitz-John Porter's
command, lately the right wing but now the rear of the army of the
Potomac. The shattered remnants of the corps of that indomitable
General, who after services of the first bravery and importance, was so
soon afterwards to be placed in an ambiguous position before the country
and dismissed from a service which he had illustrated rather than
disgraced,--together with portions of those of Sumner, Heintzelman and
Keyes, made up his present command and the rear-guard of the army,
holding this point on the Richmond and Charles City road. And whatever
may have been the merits of other commands embraced in that still vast
army, in that of General Porter was certainly included Borne of the best
regulars yet spared to the service, and some of the bravest and most
efficient volunteer regiments that were ever suddenly formed from the
ranks of civil life, to defend the honor of any country. To them the
often-misapplied phrase, "war-worn veterans," could now be applied
without mockery, for the men and their encampment furniture looked alike
worn and jaded, and it was only by their regularity and evident
discipline that they could be recognized for what they really were--the
most reliable soldiers in the army, and men well worthy of the trust
confided to them, of defending the threatened rear and breaking any
sudden assault of a foe flushed with success. Those men who stood upon
guard at various points of the hasty encampment, may have been faded and
ragged in uniform, the arms they bore may have shown hard usage, and
their discolored tents showed little of the "pomp and circumstance of
glorious war;" but they had full warrant for all this in past services,
for not a storm in all the long campaign that they had not breasted, and
not a battle of all the long line on the Peninsula in which they had not
sown the soil of freedom with sacred seed from their thinned ranks.
A bloodless military pageant may be a splendid spectacle, and hearts may
beat high and eyes grow bright when the steady foot-fall of our
"household troops" is heard on Broadway, and they file by with rich
music, flashing banners and the proud consciousness of a strength that
would be terrible if asserted; but what are such feelings to those with
which the truly patriotic look upon those who have lost all their glow
and gilding in the "baptism of fire," and acquired that sacred squalor
springing from active and dangerous service? The faded, coat and cap and
the dingy accoutrements are badges of honor, worth a thousand of those
new, bright, untried, and incapable of telling or suggesting any heroic
story. And if the ranks of a regiment of such men are thin, there is a
glorious shadow standing in every vacant place once filled by a gallant
soldier; and a voice rings out which gives the same reply to the inquiry
after the absent ones, that was so long given in the armies of
Napoleon's time to the roll-call which pronounced the name of La Tour
d'Auvergne, the "First Soldier of France"--"dead on the field of honor!"
Think of it, lady of the agricultural and ornithological bonnet and the
irreproachable silks, when the next time in a city railroad car two
"soldiers" sit down beside you, and one is a spruce, natty-whiskered,
good-looking member of a pet regiment of the N.G.S.N.Y. or the N.Y.S.M.,
going down to an evening drill and a supper of oysters after it, and the
other a hard-featured and weather-beaten discharged soldier from our
Southern battle-fields, lame or otherwise, in faded uniform and a shirt
not too suggestive of plentiful washerwomen,--think of this, and if you
smile bewitchingly upon the one, as is your nature, when he apologizes
for accidentally creasing your dress,--do not father up your robes with
too much contempt, from contact with the stained garments of the other,
who has outraged your _amor propre_ by taking a place beside you; for
though you may be merely shunning contact with a vulgar ruffian or a
coward who has deserted his colors in the hour of need--you _may_ be
insulting a _hero_.
Outlying pickets had of course been thrown out from General Porter's
force, now posted to keep the advancing rebels at bay until the still
immense trains of stores and ammunition could be conveyed to Harrison's
Landing, and the siege-guns and field-batteries placed in position at
Malvern Hill and other points guarding the new base. McClellan had
evidently calculated upon making the last and effectual stand at Malvern
Hill, and the rebels had quite as evidently calculated upon his doing so
if allowed to reach it; and on the issue of the struggle in that
neighborhood was to depend the question whether the Union forces were to
be driven pell-mell into the James River, surrender or hold their own
and repulse their assailants. Sudden attacks and attempts at surprise
were naturally expected by the rear-guard at any moment; and against
these usual and unusual precautions had been taken, which would have
satisfied old Frederick himself--that hard-headed old soldier who
dreaded nothing in war but an attack by surprise.
The nature of the country in the neighborhood as well as indeed along
the whole line from the Chickahominy to the James, abounding as it did
in woods and swamps, made it impossible to form extended lines of battle
even at the spot where successful defence and the holding of a certain
position appeared to be the most necessary. Many regiments had not even
room to deploy more than half the length of their proper fronts; and the
full strength of the command could not possibly be brought to bear
against an attacking foe, distributed as it was in knots for miles
across the country.
These natural obstacles, meanwhile, were not disadvantageous to the
rebels. Their superior knowledge of the section, with its numerous minor
swamp-roads, forest-paths and approaches necessarily unknown to the
Union forces, gave them immense advantages, such as they had not been
slow to improve, in corresponding circumstances, during the whole of the
preceding campaign. Aware of these facts, a night attack on Monday might
have been expected by the Federal officers, and the men had slept on
their arms in anticipation of it. But White Oak Swamp had been too
severe a trial of courage and energy; they were not disposed to attack
again before receiving more of the reinforcements steadily pouring
onward from Richmond; and as a consequence the wearied troops had been
allowed to pass the night without disturbance, and they had even
overhauled the remains of rations remaining in their haversacks and made
their scanty and unsavory breakfasts, long before the expected hostile
cloud burst upon them.
It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning when some of the scouts of
Smith's brigade came in and announced the enemy advancing in force. In a
moment after, the rattling rolls of drums and the brazen notes of bugles
resounded among the bivouacs; and with the regimental and national
colors planted at prominent points before arranged, the regiments
formed upon them and took up the positions assigned. Some of the
brigades were hidden in the cornfields adjoining the encampment; some
were drawn up along the lines of fences, affording little protection,
but obscuring knowledge of the field by an enemy attempting to
reconnoitre from a distance; several regiments were thrown into the
woods right and left; and a considerable portion of the command awaited
the attack on open ground, without other protection than God, the
justice of their cause, and their own valor. Kern's Pennsylvania
Battery, Martin's Massachusetts, and Carlisle's and Tidball's Regular
Batteries, were on the ground. They moved up nearer the front than they
had before been lying, the Regular Batteries in the main road and upon
an eminence to the right. Kern took position near the edge of the swamp
on the left; and Martin found post in a wheat-field to the right.
Several brigades of infantry were also thrown well in advance, though
not in range of the artillery; and so prepared, the Union troops awaited
what they felt was to be a decisive conflict.
Gradually the "crack! crack! crack!" of a scattering fire of small-arms,
which had been heard for a quarter of an hour to the westward, came
nearer and nearer, as the pickets were driven in, contesting their
ground stubbornly as they fell back. On came the Confederates, slowly at
first and afterwards with more rapidity, throwing out clouds of
skirmishers, in the rear of which the main body marched in such
formations as the nature of the ground permitted. Whenever they deployed
in line of battle, instead of the customary arrangement of a single line
of two ranks, they formed in three lines "closed _en masse_," thus
making their front six ranks deep. This disposition of course was
calculated to give increased weight in a bayonet charge, and indeed to
make it well nigh irresistible; but besides the fact that the solid
formation would render the execution of artillery among them much more
destructive, in the event of a repulse it would be almost impossible to
rally them, as the different regiments would necessarily lack space in
which to manoeuvre, the lines inevitably mix up in an inextricable mass,
and the whole body become a disorganized mob. Some of the rebel
divisions were formed in column, either of division or company, all
closed up at half distance.
It was a matter of remark to the Union officers who saw the advance of
the Confederate forces on that day--the most formidable advance,
perhaps, that they have made during any battle of the war,--that there
were no flashing and showy uniforms, and that but few flags were seen.
The same remark had before been made during other conflicts of the
Peninsular campaign, and the contrast thus presented to the gaudy and
careless dressing of many of the Union troops, seemed one to reflect
credit on the Confederate prudence at the expense of that quality on
which they had so prided themselves--their _chivalry_. Except as the sun
shone on the sloping musket-barrels and bristling bayonets, there were
few brilliant objects in all that formidable array, on which the
sharp-shooters of the Federal army could readily fix as targets. Few
bright buttons flashed on uniforms, even of officers, and
shoulder-straps were so uncommon as to make it difficult to distinguish
an officer (even a field or staff officer, if not on horseback) from a
private. Our own forces, throughout the war, have probably been
needlessly reckless in this regard; and there is no doubt that the
brilliant uniforms, particularly of the various Zouave corps, have often
made them more easily distinguishable and added to their losses when
fighting at long range. But the truly brave man is not apt to consider
the consequences to his own safety, of wearing a dress or carrying an
insignia which he would otherwise bear with propriety and with pride. It
was an inviting mark which Henri of Navarre offered to the foe at Ivry,
in the white plume with which he led on his followers; and Murat, when
he made those desperate charges to which reference has before been made
during the progress of this narration, must have known that his flashing
silks, his feathers and embroidery, put his life much more in danger
than that of an officer less conspicuously clad; but neither the foe of
the League nor the brother-in-law of Napoleon remembered the danger when
the glory was to be won and the great object of the soldier
accomplished. Perhaps that duellist may be pardoned by those who look
on, when he carefully removes from his person every mark that could
furnish a target to his enemy, but he is no more than pardoned; and if
there is one redeeming trait in the detestable character of the
duellist, it is to be found in that ready exposure of his life to the
chances of _fate_ and _skill_, which does not stop to calculate a button
or measure the narrowest line of aim which can be presented to an
adversary. Straitened circumstances and the want of many of the
appliances of luxury, may have had something to do with the lack of
personal display on the part of the Confederates, more especially the
officers, throughout the struggle; but a long time will elapse before
the non-chivalrous "Yankees" whom they have despised, will cease to
believe that commendable anxiety for personal safety has lain at the
bottom of the self-denial.
The fire of the rebel skirmishers, in this advance, was met promptly by
those of the Union army, and so sharply that the former were soon driven
back pell-mell on the main body. The Federal sharp-shooters, taking
advantage of every tree, rock or knoll, frequently overlapping their
flanks, kept up a continual and most destructive fire on the steadily
advancing lines and columns. The Confederates came on in excellent
order, their dingy lines sometimes bulging to the front, then
occasionally bending rearwards,--now the left wing curving forward, and
then the right swaying in an opposite direction. But these trifling
deviations from mathematical lines were always quickly corrected, and
the "dress" of their long fronts was really so good as to give evidence
of continued and careful drill on the part of the men and much ability
on that of the officers.
A heavy gray-clad body of rebels advanced in soldierly style until they
came within two hundred yards of the position occupied by Couch's
division, which was lying down in the weeds and partially screened by
them. A blast of bugles--a roll of drums--a few sharp words of command;
and up rose the before-dormant mass to their feet. A scorching,
withering fire of small-arms, delivered by companies from left to right,
and with the greatest deliberation, was sent directly into the faces of
the advancing rebels--such a close and deadly fire as seems almost as
impossible to advance against as against the lightnings of heaven. They
halted, wavered, and gave signs of confusion; but they were soon
restored to order and again came on. Again one of those close and
terrible volleys was poured into them, thinning the ranks and
encumbering every step with dead; and again they halted and wavered.
This time they deployed in line of battle and commenced a fierce fire on
the opposing divisions; accompanied by yells peculiar to
themselves--such as no other civilized troops in the world have ever
uttered--not a hurrah, a cheer, or even a roar, but a _shriek_ as
dissonant as the Indian war-whoop, and more terrible.
On the right and on the left the enemy came hurrying up, their columns
at a double quick. But they were met and brought to a stand at every
point. Their artillery, ordered to the front, dashed up by batteries,
took positions, unlimbered and opened savagely. The Union batteries,
already posted, commenced their splendid practice. Sheet after sheet of
deadly flame burst from one side and the other of the combatants; the
rattling crack of the volleys of firearms became blended with the heavy
metallic ring and sullen boom of the artillery; and the first battle of
Malvern Hill--that which was to decide the approach to the main
position--was now fairly begun.
From various and hitherto unknown paths through the woods and marshes,
the gray-clads came on in swarms, every moment adding to the formidable
character of the attack, the evident numbers of the assailants, and the
certainty that the struggle was to be a close and terrible one. But the
gathering thousands were fiercely met by the blue-clad veterans of the
Union, and repeatedly driven back in confusion. Let this be recorded,
from the personal knowledge of sharers in that combat--whatever
after-history may choose to consider authority on the subject,--that
_the Federal troops never permanently yielded one foot of ground during
the fight_, however worn-out with fatigue, embarrassed by a cramped
position, outnumbered and at one time half-surrounded.
It has before been said that the Battle of Malvern Hill was one of the
most magnificent artillery duels known to the history of war; and though
the most splendid effects of that terrible arm were shown at a later
period, when the whole range of McClellan's heavy pieces came into play,
yet even now the effects were such as to have satisfied the very Moloch
of destructive war. The play of the Union regular batteries was
beautiful, (if such a term can be applied to that which defaces the
beauty of God's handiwork, in however holy a cause.) Every shot could be
seen to tear open the dense masses of the enemy in wide spaces, through
which the white background could be distinctly seen until they were
closed again by almost superhuman efforts. The volunteer batteries
seemed little behind in their practice--their solid shot and bursting
shell falling in a perpetual shower and making fearful havoc alternately
in the solid masses of the rebels and among the gunners of their
artillery.
When the Confederates opened with their batteries, General Porter,
accompanied by a part of his staff, was occupying the upper slope of an
eminence to the right, from which a tolerably good view of the
battle-ground could be obtained. It was not one of those points "from
which all the details of the fight could be taken in at a glance,"
according to the phraseology of many of the graphic describers of modern
battles; for no such spot has ever been known, in the neighborhood of
any extensive conflict, since the use of artillery covered every field
with smoke and destroyed the romantic opportunities for observation
which existed in the days of the lance and the cross-bow. But it was the
very best position for a general oversight of the field, attainable
under the circumstances; and that it was within easy range of the
enemy's missiles was demonstrated by one of the very first shot, which
struck a tree immediately behind the General, shattering it to pieces
and severely wounding one of the aid-de-camps with the flying splinters.
It is impossible to describe, in such form that it can be realized by
the reader, this fiercest of battle-fields for the two hours which
followed the first attack. Many men felt it, and of those who live to
tell the tale, all will remember it; but it may be said that no man saw
it. The canvas best depicting it would be deprived of all the essentials
of a picture, and merely made a chaos of destruction, with here the
glint of a gun and there the flash of a sabre; here a momentary view of
a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of
one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of
belching flame--but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid
shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and
howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The
leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living
targets, killing, crippling and intimidating; buck, ball and Minie
bullets missed and made their marks; and the rattling volleys of
companies and platoons became at length blended in one general and
irregular burst of all destructive sounds known to modern warfare.
The Union ranks were of course sadly thinned by the murderous discharges
from those of the rebels, even if their own fire was so effective. The
odds in point of numbers and weight of fire was heavily against them,
and they knew it. The prestige of success was not theirs, for though the
enemy had been beaten in almost every trial of arms since the first
landing on the Peninsula, yet the irresistible force of circumstances
(and what the world will always believe _blunders_) had prevented their
reaping the fruits of those repeated victories, and the great object of
the expedition--Richmond--had been daily receding and was now apparently
out of reach. The brilliant flank movement which McClellan was
executing, seemed to them to be a simple retreat which was to take the
remains of the Army of the Potomac to the James River for the purpose of
an immediate embarkation and abandonment of the campaign. Men less
heroic would have grown disheartened and struck feebly in the midst of
so many causes of discouragement; and the able review of the Campaign on
the Peninsula, by a true man and a soldier, the Prince de Joinville,
shows that even with his past knowledge of their bravery and endurance
_he_ would not have been surprised to see the spirit of the whole army
sinking under sufferings, wrongs and disasters. Perhaps such would have
been the case, had they had less confidence in their leaders; but while
that existed there could be nothing like demoralization; and if there
has ever been a day since that time, when the same noble body of men
and the others who have been joined with or replaced them, have
displayed that hopeless deterioration of efficiency as an army, the
fault has lain in their being led by men in whom they lacked confidence
and men who lacked confidence in themselves! Up to this time no such
misfortune had fallen upon them. They had learned to suffer and endure,
but they had not yet learned to be permanently defeated. Sumner,
Franklin, Kearney, Heintzelman, Keyes and Fitz-John Porter, but above
all McClellan, possessed their undivided confidence; and whenever, at
any point of the retreat towards the James, either of those great chiefs
had appeared in their midst or ridden along their battle-thinned
ranks--renewed hope and energy had been always evinced by the heartiest
acclamations.
Particularly, it has been said, was this the case with McClellan. His
extraordinary popularity has been more than once incidentally adverted
to, in the course of this narration; and if it has been so, the cause is
not to be found in either partisan spirit or man-worship on the part of
the writer, but in the unavoidable necessity of echoing what "everybody
says." "Little Mac" was then, he is to-day,[12] the most popular soldier
of the age, whether the country has or has not anything to show for the
confidence long reposed in him by the government and the immense bodies
of troops at one time placed at his disposal. No general since Napoleon
has ever so gained the love of his soldiers or so inspired them with
confidence in his will and ability to _take care of them and to
accomplish what he was set to do, if not interfered with_. Their
favorite reply to any suspicion of danger to any corps, was: "Little Mac
will take care of us!" and to any doubt of the success of the campaign:
"Little Mac knows what he is about!" Blind confidence, perhaps!--but
such confidence, or something approaching it, must be commanded by
personal qualities, or great operations in war can never be
accomplished.
[Footnote 12: February 16th, 1863.]
At no time during the Peninsular campaign has the commanding General so
fully commanded the confidence of the soldiers, as during all those
severe battles afterwards to be known as the Seven Days. His calm and
collected action had been of the very character to inspire that
confidence, and could not have wrought more effectually to that end had
it had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted when all
their plans are progressing favorably, permit their words to become few
and their manner sombre and abstracted when difficulties thicken,
creating fear and distrust in the minds of those around them, even when
they themselves have not lost confidence and are only absorbed in
thought. McClellan, always a silent man, displayed the very opposite.
One of his staff officers said of him on that terrible Friday afternoon
of the first conflict, when the result certainly seemed a most
threatening one for the Union arms: "Little Mac seems to have woke up! I
have not seen him look so happy before, since he received the news of
McDowell's falling back on Washington." And there had not been wanting
those to circulate throughout the army his confident and self-possessed
action on the morning before--that of White Oak Swamp, when he sat on
horseback at the cross-roads, with aid-de-camps dashing up with
unfavorable reports, and heads of divisions a little embarrassed if not
dispirited around him. "Gentlemen, take it easy! Only obey me, and I
will bring you out of all this without the loss of a man or a gun, God
willing!"
Such words had been like the pause of the Bruce to cut his armor-strap
when flying before the English enemy--they had inspirited the whole
command. He had remained, too, the whole of Monday, in the neighborhood
of the White Oak Swamp, personally superintending everything and
hastening the passage of the immense trains onward towards the James.
Nothing had seemed to discourage him, and no exposure in the terrible
heat had seemed to fatigue him beyond endurance. All these facts had
crept out to every division of the army, as they will do through the
subtle and unaccountable telegraphism of comrade-ry; and when regiment
after regiment heard of the incident since made memorable by De
Joinville, of his rising from his momentary rest on the piazza of a
house near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his soldiers
picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty hostess, they
had burst out into laughs and cheers more complimentary to the young
General's pluck than his devotion to Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he
might have been engaged in picking other cherries for himself, that grew
on red lips instead of on the tree!
Such were the influences which combatted those otherwise so unfavorable,
kept up their spirits even when they could see nothing but defeat and
discouragement in every movement, and made every blow they struck at the
advancing enemy more deadly than the last. Such were the influences
peculiarly active on this day when they were so much needed, and which
inspired the army-corps of Fitz-John Porter for the memorable blow
struck in the first battle of Malvern. The rebel South will long mourn
for its lost children, perished in that sanguinary conflict and in the
wider and more destructive but not fiercer one which was so soon to
follow at Malvern Hill itself.