v1.1.2 / chapter 19 of 93 / 01 oct 09 / greg goebel / public domain
* While Stonewall Jackson was making fools of the Yankees in the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederates also tried to blunt the Union drive on Richmond in a muddled and bloody battle in front of the city. The results of the "Battle of Seven Pines-Fair Oaks" were inconclusive, but led to a change in Confederate combat leadership that would have an enormous effect on the course of the war.
* While Stonewall Jackson was driving the Yankees wild up in the Shenandoah
Valley, McClellan continued his preparations for the siege of Richmond. By
24 May 1862, his men were so close to the city they could hear its bell
towers chiming the hours. And then McClellan found out McDowell wouldn't be
arriving after all. McClellan was disgusted, writing: "Heaven save a
country governed by such counsels!" Jackson's diversion seemed to be working
all too well, and McClellan wired Secretary Stanton:
THE REAL ISSUE IS IN THE BATTLE ABOUT TO BE FOUGHT IN
FRONT OF RICHMOND.
Lincoln's patience with the general was short by this time, and McClellan got
a curt reply:
I THINK THE TIME IS NEAR WHEN YOU MUST EITHER ATTACK RICHMOND
OR ELSE GIVE UP THE JOB AND COME TO THE DEFENSE OF WASHINGTON.
McClellan responded with assurance, but the President had received such
assurances before.
Although McClellan's forces were far larger than those facing him, he was not happy. Pinkerton was reporting that he faced a minimum of 180,000 Confederates, and McClellan's shuffling of the Army of the Potomac in expectation of receiving McDowell's reinforcements left his forces straddling the "confounded Chickahominy", as McClellan called it. To make matters worse, the Chickahominy ran through low-lying land. The river was normally less than 50 feet (15 meters) wide over most of this length, but it had been raining heavily, and now the river was a curling path of wide, sodden marshes. McClellan put his men to work building bridges and corduroying roads to keep them passable.
McClellan's men lived in mud, heat, and humidity that was quickly wearing off their parade-ground polish. Paper collars had disappeared, and men in Zouave regiments began to question the value of their colorful red pants and yellow sashes. They weren't so impressive once the grime built up, and to the extent they were still colorful it only made them much too good a target for rebel sharpshooters. For similar reasons, officers who had once strutted around in plumed hats, gold braid, and sashes began to buy private's uniforms and sew their insignia of rank on their shoulders. War was becoming less of a game and more of a business.
* McClellan had not abandoned all hope of getting McDowell's reinforcements, since the President had simply suspended the movement, not revoked it. To pave the way for McDowell's possible return, on 27 May McClellan sent Brigadier General Fitz-John Porter with a reinforced division north of Richmond to a place named Hanover Court House. Porter was to clear out rebel defenses there and then tear up the tracks of the Virginia Central Railroad.
The resulting fight was short but sharp. The Federals proved determined and aggressive, with one New York regiment firing so fast and hot that an officer reported the men had to pour water over their musket barrels so they could stand to handle them. While the Yankees suffered over 350 killed and wounded against the rebels' 200, over 700 Confederates were taken prisoner. The Battle of Hanover Court House boosted Federal morale and put real fear into Joe Johnston. It appeared that the linkup between McClellan and McDowell was imminent, and if that happened, Richmond was doomed. There was nothing to do but attack first.
Johnston planned to launch his assault against the right wing of McClellan's army to the north of Richmond on 29 May, but on the night of 28 May Johnston learned that McDowell was not coming south after all. Johnston revised his plan back to one he had been considering all along: to attack McClellan's forces south of the Chickahominy.
* Confederate scouts reported on 30 May that Federal positions in that area had significant weaknesses that could be exploited. Johnston organized his army into two wings of three divisions each, with an attack wing under Major General Longstreet and a reserve and support wing under Major General Gustavus Smith.
The Confederates marched to battle at dawn on Saturday, 31 May 1862. Although no announcements were made, it was obvious to the citizens of Richmond that something was up, and people began to gather on the hills to the east of the city in hopes of seeing some of the fight. A violent rainstorm that had dumped inches of rain during the night left the roads muddy for the advancing rebels, but it also turned the Chickahominy into a raging torrent that swamped several of McClellan's bridges, making it harder for Federals north of the river to come to the aid of those south of it.
Unfortunately for the rebels, the attack got off to a clumsy start. Johnston had been very secretive about his plans. Neither Jefferson Davis nor Robert E. Lee had been briefed in any detail; the only other person who in theory knew the whole picture was Longstreet, and his instructions had been delivered verbally. Confederate columns ended up getting lost and tangled up with each other, and it wasn't until about 1:00 PM that the fight actually began.
Confederate General Daniel Harvey Hill had been waiting impatiently with four brigades, totalling about 8,500 men, in front of the Federal lines that stood forward of a crossroads named Seven Pines. His instructions were to stay put until General Benjamin Huger moved his division into position south of Hill's brigades. When Huger finally got in place, five hours late, Hill threw his men forward against a green Union division under Brigadier General Silas Casey. The surprise was complete, since Casey had failed to establish regular patrols of his front, but the Federals fell back to entrenchments they had prepared and managed to hold for a while. Hill still outnumbered Casey by 2 to 1, and finally a screaming rebel charge cracked the Union line. The Yankees broke and ran, fleeing the battle with about 40% casualties. Casey raged at his men but they streamed past him.
As the retreating soldiers fled, they ran past Union regiments coming up to reinforce them. By about 3:00 PM, troops from Brigadier General Darius N. Couch's division and Phil Kearny's division had managed to stop the rebel flood. Kearny rode unscathed through the fighting, encouraging his men and enjoying himself. When a colonel asked him where to deploy his regiment, Kearny replied: "Oh, anywhere! 'Tis all the same, Colonel, you'll find lovely fighting along the whole line."
A rebel brigade under Brigadier General Robert Rodes took the brunt of Kearny's counterattack. Rodes had been wounded in the arm, but kept on fighting for two hours until he could take the pain no more, finally passing command to General John B. Gordon of the 6th Alabama. Gordon led his soldiers forward to see men falling all around him, including his 19-year-old brother, who was shot through the lungs. The 6th Alabama was to lose a total of 59% of its strength, one of the worst casualty ratios of the entire war.
In the meantime, General Hill sent an urgent request for help back to Longstreet. Longstreet was still muddled, having sent four brigades to places where there was no combat. Finally, he sent his two remaining brigades forward separately to battle. One brigade, under Colonel James L. Kemper, marched into the thick of the fighting to support Gordon's devastated command. They moved up to the firing line past streams of wounded whose blood stained the grass.
A Virginia private passed a Confederate battery whose horses and men had all been killed except for a boy, the powder monkey: "He cowered behind a wheel of one of the guns, with eyes protruding, hands clasped, teeth clenched and a face wearing a look of horrified fright -- face so white, so startling in its terror, that it haunted me for days after." The newcomers quickly learned such terror themselves as they advanced into a crossfire from artillery and Kearny's infantry. Cut to ribbons, they fell back to empty Federal earthworks and stayed there, too pinned down by flying metal to fall back across the open space to their rear.
The second brigade, under Brigadier General Richard H. Anderson, attacked northeast along the fighting line in the direction of Federal positions forward of a train station called Fair Oaks, and broke through the Union defenses there. Two regiments of the brigade under 26-year-old Colonel Micah Jenkins of South Carolina then turned south towards Seven Pines, taking casualties but inflicting them as well, and completed the break in the Federal lines.
Longstreet remained confused through the rest of the day, but called to Johnston for reinforcements at about 4:00 PM. Johnston had been at least as confused, but when he got the call for help he personally led one of the reserve divisions, under the command of General W.H.C. Whiting, one of Gustavus Smith's brigadiers, towards the fighting.
Johnston arrived at Fair Oaks station at 5:00 PM to find it abandoned. The Yankees had apparently pulled out. General Whiting suspected that the place was not quite as deserted as it seemed, and had a hunch the Yankees were still present in force to the north and rear. Johnston replied: "Oh, General Whiting, you are too cautious!" -- and then shells began to burst around them, coming from their north and rear.
There were actually four Union regiments and a battery of six guns there, fragments of General Couch's division, including Couch himself, that had been isolated by Colonel Jenkins' drive down the Union center. Couch had seen the rebels march in, and in response set up his regiments in a hasty line of battle on either side of a building named Adams House. Couch then ordered the battery, under Captain James Brady of Pennsylvania, to open fire.
Whiting sent four regiments across the clearing in front of the Adams House to clear out the Federals, but Brady's guns threw them back. The rebels charged again and were repulsed again, and then pressed forward once more with all they had. Brady had run out of canister and ordered his men to fire shells with the fuzes cut for point-blank range. The rebels got to within a stone's throw of his cannon and were blown to pieces. The Federals were at their limit of endurance and would not have stood another charge, but then Union reinforcements suddenly appeared from across the flooded Chickahominy.
When the fighting started earlier that afternoon, General McClellan, sick in bed with malaria, had sent a message to General Edwin Sumner, placing his corps to the north of the Chickahominy on alert. Sumner was always anxious for a fight and got two divisions down to two temporary bridges that had been built over the flooded river. He had been ordered to move out at 2:30 PM, but one bridge was already under water and collapsed after a brigade made it across, while the other seemed ready to give way. An engineer officer told General Sumner that it would be impossible to pass. Sumner replied in his foghorn voice: "Impossible?! Sir, I tell you I can cross! I am ordered!"
The men of Brigadier General John Sedgwick's corps moved across the bridge, even as it seemed ready to fall apart under them. They wrestled their artillery through the marsh on the far side and advanced toward the sound of fighting, arriving after Couch's men had thrown back the third rebel charge. The lead units in Sumner's column, three brigades of about 8,000 men total, moved in to brace up Couch's line, and then organized a second line perpendicular to it, setting up a killing ground that the Confederates could not hope to cross. Johnston didn't realize that the Federals had been reinforced and ordered Whiting to send three brigades forward. They never made it to the Union lines: men were cut down when they advanced and when they tried to flee. All three brigade commanders were hit. One was killed; another was left for dead and taken prisoner; and Brigadier General Wade Hampton, one of the richest men in the Confederacy, was struck in the foot.
As dusk fell, Johnston ordered the futile attacks stopped. He rode forward to arrange the dispositions of his troops. As he and his staff came within range of the Federals, one of his officers ducked after hearing a projectile whiz by. Johnson smiled and said: "Colonel, there is no use of dodging. When you hear them, they have passed." As if to prove this, a bullet then hit Johnston in the right shoulder, and a moment later a shell fragment hit him in the chest, throwing him off his horse and knocking him out. Johnston was dragged off the field, where Jefferson Davis and General Lee came upon the wounded man as was he recovering consciousness.
Davis went to his side and took his hand, asking him if there was anything he could do for him. Johnston shook his head, and then realized he had lost his sword, which his father had carried in the American Revolution. He asked: "I would not lose it for ten thousand dollars. Will someone go back and get it for me?" He also asked that his missing pistols be retrieved. An orderly went and fetched them, and Johnston, magnanimous even in pain, gave the man one of his pistols for his trouble.
Johnston was carried off the field by stretcher-bearers and command fell to G.W. Smith. By this time, darkness had fallen and serious fighting was over for the day. The Confederates had taken a bloodying at Fair Oaks, but had made considerable progress at Seven Pines, having forced the Federals back to a third line of defense two-and-a-half miles (four kilometers) from their initial entrenchments. However, the Federals were busily bringing up reinforcements and for all practical purposes the Confederates had shot their bolt.
It was a dead-black, drizzling wet night. Men made themselves as comfortable as possible in the mud and dampness. A Massachusetts soldier recalled later: "All were wet to the hips, many had lost their shoes in the mud and the bodies of the dead and wounded were lying on every side. You could not move without falling over them -- the air was filled with shrieks and groans."
Smith decided to renew the battle at dawn and called Longstreet to a council of war in the small hours of the morning. Smith wanted Longstreet to attack to the northeast. Longstreet replied that the terrain there was difficult, the Federals were being reinforced, and the enemy would strike him in the flank if he made such a move. Smith blandly claimed the Federals in front of Longstreet had been routed, and when Longstreet continued to protest, bluntly ordered him to make the attack. Longstreet had no intention of obeying. The plan was obviously foolish and Smith showed signs of being unnerved. All Longstreet did was tell General D.H. Hill to send out a few brigades to probe enemy strength to the northeast.
At dawn on 1 June, Hill sent out three brigades. His arrangements were extremely haphazard. Each of the three brigadiers were given casual orders separately, and were not told the other two were also engaged in the movement. There was no coordination between them. Two of the brigades, under Brigadier Generals William Mahone and Lewis A. Armistead, made contact with a Federal brigade under the command of Brigadier General William A. French at about 6:30 AM, and wild, confused fighting followed.
French was gruff fellow, described by a Union officer who was clearly no admirer as "one of those plethoric French colonels who are so stout, and who look so red in the face, that one would suppose that someone had tied a cord tightly around their necks." He also tended to blink continuously when excited. His men called him "Old Blinkey", though not to his face. An enlisted man who had the bad judgement to laugh at French's blinking during a march was found dangling from a tree by this thumbs by the following regiment.
French had plenty to get excited about at the moment. He managed to stabilize his line, though in the middle of the fighting he tried ride over what he thought was a mud puddle and ended up in water over his head. He emerged, sputtering and angry, as his men laughed, despite all the violence around them. French then called for help from Brigadier General Oliver Otis Howard, a pious abolitionist from Maine, whose brigade was nearby. General Howard responded by sending forward a regiment of Pennsylvanians. They prepared to fire on a mass of Confederates, but made the lethal mistake of confusing the rebels for Union troops. The Pennsylvanians held their fire and were cut down for their courtesy. They scattered back from the fighting, but a young lieutenant named Nelson A. Miles rallied them and got them to hold their ground. Howard then personally led two New York regiments forward against the rebels. The shooting was intense, and Howard was hit twice in the arm. One of the regiments faltered, while the other, the 61st, pressed forward under the command of Colonel Francis Channing Barlow.
Barlow was an interesting sort, a Harvard-educated lawyer who had enlisted as a private and become a colonel in the reshuffle following Bull Run. He was a slight, physically unimpressive man who tended to use legal terms in his reports, but despite the fact that he didn't look much like a soldier he was a icy, aggressive man, a tough disciplinarian who was respected by his men because he was an even tougher fighter. Barlow saw some of his men lying down to get out of the fire and shouted at them: "Who ordered you to lie down?! Get up at once!"
Barlow's regiment threw their weight against the rebels. The fighting rose to a roar. The Confederates fought hard but were severely pressed. The lack of coordination and muddled instructions led to confusion, and as the Federals moved up reinforcements, Mahone and Armistead were forced to fall back. The third Confederate brigade, under Brigadier General George E. Pickett, hadn't even been involved in the fighting. When Pickett finally moved toward the sound of the fighting, he found Armistead and his staff in a state of confusion, and could do nothing but fall back with him.
The rebels were fighting with no support whatsoever. Smith was now completely useless, Longstreet had gone passive, and by about 1:00 PM D.H. Hill decided to pull out. The rebels withdrew all along the line. There was some vicious rear-guard fighting, but by 2:00 PM it was all over. At sunup the next day, the lines were as they had been before the battle. The Confederates had suffered over 6,000 casualties, versus a little over 5,000 Federals. General Howard lost his right arm. Phil Kearny, who was missing his left, later visited him in the hospital and assured him that "the ladies will not think less of you." Howard laughed and replied: "There is one thing we can do, General -- we can buy our gloves together."
The whole thing had been little more than a series of violent collisions in wood and swamp, both armies floundering in the mud while they killed each other. Wounded men died in flames when the underbrush caught fire, or drowned in filthy pools of stagnant water. Details went around in the fighting to prop them up against trees. Major elements of both armies didn't even get into the fight. There were recriminations among the Confederate command for the bungled attack. The failures of leadership and organization were apparent. Gustavus Smith, his nerves shattered, resigned from the military a few days later.
On the Union side, McClellan had done little or nothing to direct the battle, a fact that was not lost on some of his officers. McClellan's reaction after the clash was to dig in deeper with his siege weapons. After such fighting, he felt it unlikely the rebels would try it again.
Despite the fact that the battle had been muddled and inconclusive, Northern papers called it a great Union victory, though Radical Senator Zach Chandler, drunk in the lobby of Williard's in Washington, loudly denounced McClellan in front of the crowd as a liar and a coward. Publicly, despite the severe casualties, it did seem a victory of sorts: the Army of the Potomac was poised to seize Richmond, the Confederate attempt to shatter the Federal juggernaut had failed, and Joe Johnston had been struck down.
That last item did not actually turn out to be good news for the Union. He needed a replacement, and even as the fighting continued Jefferson Davis had selected a new leader for the Confederate forces in the East. On 1 June 1862, General Robert E. Lee took command.
