CHAPTER XVIII.
MORE OF THE FIRST BATTLE OF MALVERN--A PAUSE--THE ATTACKS ON THE MAINPOSITION--REPULSE AFTER REPULSE--VICTORY--STRANGE INCIDENTS OF THE LASTHOUR OF THE BATTLE.
Still the battle went on--that ferocious attack which seemed to have thedesperation of defence, and that steady defence which appeared to havethe assured confidence of an attack. The smoke gathered rapidly, rolledaway at times, then settled in dense masses, shutting out portions ofthe battle-field and whole divisions of either army from view, andconcealing the movements of either belligerent from the other untillifted in the occasional lulls of the fiery storm or wafted away by thelazy breeze which came sluggishly over from the James River marshes. Menfell thickly, crushed, mangled and dead, or so terribly wounded by shotor shell that life could be henceforth nothing more than one long,helpless agony. Slightly wounded soldiers went limping to the rear,seeking surgical aid; while badly wounded men were eagerly caught up andborne off the field by their "comrades in battle" or by white-liveredrecreants, anxious to desert their braver companions and placethemselves in safety. A certain percentage of such craven-hearted libelson humanity--let it be said here--are always to be found in every armyand on every battle-field, dusky backgrounds against which brave menshow the brighter, and ever ready to take advantage of any circumstancethat will help them to the rear. In the armies of the older and morewarlike nations of Europe, where the reins of discipline are much moretightly drawn than in our own, such skulking is prevented byregularly-organized ambulance-parties and by the prompt shooting down ofany officer or soldier, not wounded, who dares to leave the rankswithout orders. Even in our own service, a Taylor is occasionally found,fighting such a desperate battle as that of the Bad Axe against theIndians, and posting a line of his most reliable troops in the rear,with orders to make short work of the skulkers. Such discipline asthis--an enemy in front and an equally dangerous body of friends behind,is generally found efficacious even for the weakest knees; and but fewhours of such experience are necessary to produce a marked-change in thesteadiness of any corps under fire.
Noon now approached, and the battle had raged for more than two hours,without any intermission except the occasional lulls when batteries werelimbered up and dragged off at a gallop to new positions, and whenregiments deployed in line or closed in column, making evolutions to theflanks or movements to the front. Attacks had been fiercely made onevery portion of the Union lines by the maddened rebels--maddened, aswas afterwards discovered, by the gunpowdered whiskey in their canteens;and they had been quite as fiercely repulsed by the loyal troops, whoneither needed nor received any such stimulus. This defence had beenmaterially assisted, and the Federal troops enabled to gain ground atevery repulse of the rebels, by the arrival of several regiments ofinfantry and two of his best batteries, sent in haste by McClellan fromhis main position at Malvern Hill, so soon as the roar of artilleryannounced that the fight had fairly begun with the rear-guard.
A little before meridian, the musket fire of the enemy slackenedperceptibly, while their artillery, operating against the Union left,seemed to redouble its fury. This change was at once made known toPorter, who as quickly divined the intention of Longstreet. This was toengage all attention with the Federal left, while several of hisdivisions, passing rapidly through roadways and obscure paths in thewoods known only to the native Virginians, were to take the right wingin flank. Porter immediately directed counter movements to meetthem--movements admirably calculated and as admirably executed. Burns,with his own and two other brigades, moved rapidly to the right anddeployed in line opposite the edge of the white oaks from which therebels must emerge to make their attack. Four batteries went up at atrot and took position where they were masked by a fringe of bushes andsome patches of tall corn. From this point the artillery couldconcentrate a terrible fire of grape, canister and short-fuse shell uponany part of the opposite woods from which the enemy might make theirappearance. The infantry were ordered to lie down, and were concealedfrom view by clumps of trees, corn and underbrush. This repelling forcewas not kept long in suspense, and it was evident that the movement hadnot been made a moment too soon for safety. Suddenly from the shadow ofthe white-oaks, out came the Confederates by regiments, without tap ofdrum or bugle-call, pouring from the various openings in double-quicktime, and by the right and left flanks. They filed rapidly right andleft until the woods were cleared; then by a halt and face-to-the-frontthey were brought quickly into line of battle. A halt of very briefspace to align and close up ranks, and they were ordered forward to theattack. On they came, in close order and with long swaying lines,exulting in the prospect of a successful issue to their bold movement,and so confident that they would take the Federal flank and rear bycomplete surprise, that silence was no longer felt to be necessary andyells and shouts of triumph were beginning to burst from one portion andanother of their line. Still on they came, and not a shot had been firedon either side since they emerged from the woods. Their left was thrownforward in advance of the centre and right, as if seeking to surroundthe positions supposed to be held by the Federal troops. They were evenallowed to advance within pistol-shot of some portions of the ambuscade,before the trap laid for them was sprung.
Then what a change!--like that when the thunder-storm, long gatheringbut still silent, breaks at once into desolating fury. It seemed as ifat one and the same instant the four Union batteries opened, and aterrible concentrating storm of flame and projectiles leaped from themuzzles of twenty-four pieces of artillery and burst upon their centrewith devastating effect. In an instant after, the infantry sprung totheir feet, and a sheet of fire burst from right to left, one deadly andirresistible shower of lead sweeping through the rebel ranks that had solittle expected such a reception. They hesitated--halted--recoiled.Before they could recover from the awful shock, volley after volley waspoured into their wavering lines, and they could not again be broughtforward. On the instant when their discomfiture was clearly perceived, acharge was ordered against them. The Union men dashed forward, glad tohave that order at last, and breaking into ringing cheers--the first inwhich they had indulged that day. The rebels could not stand a momentbefore that impetuous onset, but broke and ran for the cover of thewhite-oaks, leaving the ground of the conflict almost impassable withthe terrible piles of their dead and wounded.
A general advance of our lines was now ordered, and the command wasobeyed with alacrity. The rebel front, weakened by the withdrawal of somany troops for the grand flanking movement, gave way before they couldbe reached with the steel; and their three-deep lines became mixed up inthe most hopeless disorder. Kearney's division made a gallant charge, inthis movement, Sickles' Excelsior Brigade once more evidencing thatsplendid steadiness with the bayonet which had been so conspicuous atWilliamsburgh and Fair Oaks. General Heintzelman joined in thisbrilliant advance, his tall form and blue blouse conspicuous as he roderapidly along the lines, speaking words of cheer and steadying the menwho did not need urging forward.
The Union batteries had meanwhile kept up their terrible fire, whilethose of the enemy were silenced one after another and drawn off withthe recoiling troops, with the exception of one battery, whichmaintained its fire with invincible obstinacy. It was felt that thisbattery must be taken or silenced. A stream of men in dingy French bluewere seen to leap forward, and it was known that the Excelsior boys weremaking a dash at the battery. The gunners saw the movement, began tolimber up their pieces and succeeded in galloping away with four ofthem. But the two remaining guns could not be handled quickly enough,and the Excelsiors took them with a rush and a cheer, and in suchexcellent spirits that one of them was the moment after sitting astrideof each gun and waving his cap in token of victory. The battle-flag ofone of the Georgia regiments, and three hundred prisoners, were alsocaptured in this gallant dash, which effectually showed how little thespirits of the Army of the Potomac had been damped by recentmisfortunes. General Heintzelman lost his horse by the last fire of oneof the captured pieces, and at the same time
received a wound in thearm--fortunately not serious. The repulse of the rebels was nowcomplete. Longstreet was compelled to "retire" and not by any means in"good order," leaving the field with its dead and wounded, and many armsand other trophies, in the possession of the Federal forces.
Of course this success could not be followed up, the object of thebattle having been to secure an uninterrupted line of march to the JamesRiver. And of course the Union generals were well aware that while therebels possessed any remaining strength, they would not give up theircherished object of crippling or destroying the main body before itcould reach the shelter of the river and the gun-boats. Fresh troopswould be brought up; and but little time would be allowed the Federaltroops to recover from the fatigue and excitement of that arduousmorning. The rebel plan evidently was to give the Federal forces norest--to precipitate fresh masses of their own troops continually uponthem, when weary and exhausted with previous fighting; and when theywere at last fairly worn out and incapable of further exertion, to"gobble them up" (to use an expressive, though not elegant phrase) ordestroy them in detail and at leisure. The theory was admirable, andboth brain and heart were necessary to prevent its being carried out insuccessful practice.
The Federal dead were buried on the field where they had so bravelyfallen; the wounded were sent on to Harrison's Landing; the slaughteredrebels were left to the tender care of their approaching comrades; theprisoners were gathered together and put properly under guard; and thenthe army-corps of General Fitz-John Porter fell back under previousorders to the strong position of Malvern Hill proper, where McClellanwas certain he would at once be attacked by the rebels in force, itspossession being the most important point in their plan of action, andits triumphant retention one of the most important in his own.
The first battle of Malvern was ended; but the curtain was soon to riseon a still more fearful scene of slaughter and one yet more uneven inits character as regarded the losses of the Union army and the rebels.
The main position occupied by McClellan was a splendid one for defence;and, thanks to what De Joinville calls the "happy foresight of theGeneral, who, notwithstanding all the hindrances presented by the natureof the soil to his numerous artillery, had spared no pains to bring itwith him"--the preparations for holding that position were magnificentlyadequate. The extreme right flank was comparatively narrow, and as itwas a point liable to a determined attack, strong earth-works had beenhastily thrown up entirely across it, and it had been further protectedby a thick, impenetrable mass of abattis, the materials for which wereso plentifully furnished by the Virginia woods and in the constructionof which the quasi-mechanical army was rapidly efficient. The left wasprotected by the James River and the terror-inspiring gun-boats. Infront the hill sloped gently down to the Charles City and Richmond road,and other points by which the enemy must debouch to begin the attack.On this natural plateau not less than three hundred pieces ofartillery--a number fabulous in any preceding struggle in the history ofthe world--were placed in battery; so arranged that they would notinterfere With the fire of the infantry along the natural glacis upwhich the assailants would be obliged to advance unsheltered. In theskirts of the woods lying beyond the foot of the hills, long lines ofrifle-pits had been dug--these, and the woods beyond, occupied by abrigade of Maine and Wisconsin infantry and a portion of Berdan'scelebrated regiment, to act as sharp-shooters.
The sun was sinking rapidly westward in the direction of Richmond--thatcoveted capital of Secessia, for the possession of which so much bloodand treasure had been unavailingly expended; the trees, which for somany hours had afforded no shelter from the blinding blaze, exceptimmediately beneath their spreading branches and dust-dimmed leaves,began to cast long shadows eastward; and the fervent heat began to bemore sensibly tempered by the breeze creeping in from the placid James.Still the Union troops were resting on their arms, weary but undaunted,awaiting the approach of the Confederates, then (at five o'clock)reported as advancing to the attack. The line was formed as follows: theremnants of Porter's and Sumner's corps on the right; Franklin andHeintzelman in the centre; and Couch's division of Keyes' corps on theleft. In position, on the left, were two New York batteries, Robertson'sUnited States battery of six pieces, Allen's Massachusetts and Kern'sPennsylvania batteries. Griffin's United States battery, Weeden's Rhodeisland, and three from New York, held positions in the centre. On theright were Tidball's, Weed's and Carlisle's regular batteries, a Germanbattery of twenty-four pounders, a battery belonging to the Pennsylvaniareserve, and one New York battery--in all about eighty pieces.
Within a few minutes of five the signal officers at the various stationswaved their telegraphic bunting, announcing the approach of the rebelsunder Magruder, and immediately afterwards they appeared in sight, inlarge dense masses reaching apparently quite across the country to theWest, North-west and West-south-west,--with cavalry on either flank andartillery thickly scattered at various points, all along their line.Stretching away from the foot of Malvern Hill, in the hostile direction,lay a large open space known as Carter's Field--a field destined thatday to be more thickly sown with dead than almost any historic spot onthe globe except some portions of the field of Waterloo or that ofGrokow. It was a mile long by three quarters of a mile in breadth,enclosed by thick woods on the three distant sides, while that towardsthe Hill was open. On the two sides flanking the enemy's approach oursharp-shooters were principally concealed. Entirely across Carter'sField stretched the rebel line, while in depth their columns extended sofar back that the eye of the signal officer lost them in a wavering linefar away in the thick woods extending beyond the scene of the morning'sbattle.
The Union forces rose up wearily but steadily, and awaited the approachof the Confederate host, known to be at least twice or thrice their ownnumber, and led on by that sanguinary commander otherwise described by awriter who accompanied him through all his battles in the United Statesservice and thoroughly knows his habits of speech and action,[13]--as"the flowery and ever-thirsty John Bankhead Magruder--the pet of_Newport_ and the petter of _old wine_." The rebels moved forward ingood order; slowly at first, and then, as if spurred on irresistiblyfrom behind in all parts of the field, the whole dingy-gray mass brokefrom the "common time" step into that "dog-trot" known in the tactics ofthe present day as the "double-quick." At the same moment they brokeinto those shrieks of horrible dissonance, remarked in the fight of themorning, rising even above the din of the opening artillery, and moreresembling the whoops of the copper-skinned warriors of the renegadeAlbert Pike, than soldiers of what is called a Christian nation, led onby a commander believing himself the very "pink of chivalry."
[Footnote 13: White--"Mexican War Sketches."]
Gallantly, it must be owned by all who saw the movement, did thegray-clads spring forward to the encounter, rushing over the field atan accelerating speed which soon increased to a full run. Then and nottill then again burst the deadly storm of defence. From the Federallines across the hill there belched murderous blasts of grape andcanister into their front, and from the rifle-pits and woods wentshrieking showers of rifle shots and Minie balls into their flanks, thetwo terrible influences almost sweeping them away like leaves caught bythe gale. They fell by hundreds at a discharge, encumbering the groundand leaving wide gaps in their ranks; yet still their dense columnsclosed again and dashed resolutely up, until more than two-thirds thedistance across Carter's Field was accomplished. Here the carnage, fromthe combined effects of artillery and small-arms at short range, becameabsolutely terrible among the rebels--such a spectacle as even loyalsoldiers, gazing at it, could not but feel to be a species of wholesalemurder for which the cause could no more than give excuse. The bones inthe rebel regiments seemed to be crushed like window-glass in ahailstorm; masses of gory pulp that had but a few moments before beenmen, began to form an absolute coating for the ground; and the fierceyells of attack had become awfully commingled with the shrieks of thosemangled beyond endurance and dying in agony. It was too much for humanbravery
to withstand--probably no troops in the world would have stoodlonger under that withering fire, than the brave but misguided tools ofthe secession heresy. Their lines began to waver with a ricketty,swaying motion, to and fro, as if the whole body was one man and he wasexhausted and tottering; then there-was a movement to the "right about,"and the whole head of the column sought hasty shelter under the friendlywoods in the rear, from which they had so lately debouched.
A terrific artillery-duel proper was now commenced, and kept up for morethan an hour, the Confederates showing no disposition to renew theattack, and the Federal forces contented to hold them at bay undercircumstances in which the balance of damage by artillery must be solargely in their own favor. Then came a sudden lull in the storm, duringwhich the Confederates made preparations to capture the flankingrifle-pits of the Federals, which had annoyed them so severely in thecharge. Several desperate attempts were made upon them in quicksuccession, and they were taken and retaken repeatedly. In the end,however, they were permanently held by the defenders, whose stubbornpluck, aided by the enfilading fire of the advanced batteries, provedmore than a match for the determined bravery of the attacking forces.
On the summit of Malvern Hill, and nearly in the middle of the plateauformed by the whole eminence, stands a red brick mansion-house, quaintlybuilt, antique and sombre. The house is of two stories, long and low.Solemn shade-trees surround it; and corn and wheat fields stretch awayfrom the Virginia fences of its spacious yard, down the slope of thehill and across the lowland to the margin of the James. In time ofpeace, this old house boasted a most charming situation, and the viewfrom the verandah was one of the very finest in the country, taking inat a glance the long line of the winding river for many miles in eitherdirection, and looking up the river, the high range of bluffs on theother side on which has been erected that serious obstacle to an advanceon Richmond by water--Fort Darling. At the eastern end of the mansionstand the inevitable "negro-quarters," now empty and deserted, and withnothing about them to remind one of their former dusky denizens, exceptthat unmistakable odor which supplies an obvious parody on Moore's aromaof the roses in the broken vase. Opposite the west end of the house is adeep, roof-covered well; and around this crowds of the wounded andthirsty Union soldiers were continually gathered during the fight,drinking in, as fast as permitted, that sweetest as well as freest ofNature's blessings--water.
On the west gable of this mansion, on the afternoon of the battle, asignal-officer was stationed, with his ten-foot staff and odd-shapedparti-colored yard of muslin, and his field-glass. His view extended farin the direction of Richmond, taking in the various camps of Wise'sLegion, Jackson's and Huger's divisions, and others of the rebel forces;while riverwards his eye could easily reach, with the aid of the glassand when the smoke of the field did not arise too thickly, the famedDrury's Bluff and the redoubtable Fort Darling itself, still frowningdefiance at the threatening little Monitor.
The failure to take the rifle-pits had been followed by a second lull,betokening, to the experienced soldier, fresh rebel preparations for anattack in another quarter. Suddenly, when the sun was just sending thelast of its rays through the murky clouds of the battle-field, as if inindication that the eye of heaven had not wholly deserted thebrotherhood of Cain,--the Federal signal-officers in the distance wavedtheir flags, and other signal-officers in the vicinity repeated theirmotions. These pantomimic exhibitions, mysterious to the unpractisedeye, told to the officers in command, that the Confederates, stronglyreinforced by the fresh troops of Jackson and Huger, and their troopsinspired by fresh draughts of the maddening gunpowdered whiskey, werebeing marshalled for another and final attack upon the Federal position.
But a few moments elapsed before the roar of the Confederate batteriesgave proof that this warning had not been in vain. Every piece theycould bring to bear sent its missiles of death hurtling into the Unionlines, the next charge to be made under cover of that cannonade. Butprobably even they had not calculated upon such a reply as was given bythe artillery of McClellan. Never before, since war became a science ofbutchery, did so many pieces thunder at once upon the devoted ranks ofany attacking force. Never before were the very peals of the artilleryof heaven so terribly rivalled. Only a portion of the Union guns hadbefore been brought into play: now nearly the whole three hundredbelched forth their deadly defiance in crashing and booming repetitions.Those who heard the sound will never forget it; nor will many of themlive to hear that sound repeated. Far away among the mountains, ahundred and fifty miles distant, the boom of that terrible cannonade washeard, announcing the conflict to loyalist and rebel who had no othermeans of knowing that it was in progress. At times the firm earth shookwith the continued reverberations, as if an earthquake was passing; andcombatants even stood still in the very face of the deadliest danger,under a momentary impression that some fearful convulsion of nature mustbe in progress and that the sinking sun must be going down on the lastday of a crumbling earth.
The rebel artillery was skilfully managed, and their range proved to beexcellent; while the management and effect of the Union guns can only bedescribed by one word--magnificent. The superior weight and managementof the Federal metal was manifest from one fact if no other--thecontinual limbering up and changing positions of the rebel pieces, toescape the deadly aim of artillerymen who have probably never beenexcelled in any service. The only historian who has as yet dealt withthe events of that great day,[14] says that it was "madness for theConfederates to rush against such obstacles," and that during the entireday, owing to the weight and superior management of the Federalartillery, they fought "without for a single moment having a chance ofsuccess." And yet this was the artillery of an army, and this was thearmy itself, spoken of by detractors as "defeated" and "demoralized,"and utterly incapable of further offensive movements against Richmond,however rested and reinforced!
[Footnote 14: De Joinville.]
Under cover of the smoke of this fire, the mighty hosts of Huger,Jackson and Magruder advanced to the second general assault. Onward theyrushed, and, emerging from the sulphurous clouds, rolled forward inheavy columns. They presented a still more imposing front than at thefirst attack, stretching more than half a mile across the fatal Carter'sField, with scarce a break or an interval in its entire length. On theypressed--steadily, resolutely, desperately--pausing an instant to pourin their fire, and then forward again at quick step. The advance was metwith belching volumes from rifles, muskets and batteries, sending suchstorms of "leaden rain and iron hail" as no body of men on earth couldhope to withstand, and joining with the shrieks and shouts of thecombatants and the dying, to create such a din as might well have giventhe impression that the chains of Pandemonium were unloosed and all thelost replying to the thunders of heaven with screams of blasphemy anddesperation.
At this moment, too, a new element of terror and destruction brokesuddenly into the conflict. As if the powers of the air had indeed begunto take part in the struggle, fiery meteors fell out of the air, from adirection not commanded by the Federal batteries--fiery meteors beforewhich whole ranks of men seemed like stubble before the scythe. One ofthem would fall hissing through the air, burst with a horribleexplosion, and the moment after nothing would remain of the ranks ofrebels within thirty or forty feet of it, but a mass of shattered andmangled fragments, limbs torn from limbs and heads from bodies. At firstthe rebels could not understand the meaning of this new and awfulvisitation, and even the Union troops were not for the time aware whatnew power had come to their aid, destroying more of the enemy at a blowthan their heaviest and best-served batteries. But the signal officer onthe gable of the old mansion on Malvern Hill saw, and soon communicatedthe fact to the officers in command--that the gun-boats Galena andAroostook (not the Monitor, as has been sometimes reported), had steamedup from their anchorage at Curl's Neck, two miles below, and openedfurious broadsides of shell from their heavy rifled guns. These shellswere the terrible missiles working that untold destruction in the rebelranks; and the horrors an
d dangers of the fight to them must have beenintensely aggravated by these fiery monsters that came tearing andshrieking through the forest and exploded with concussions that shookthe earth like discharges from whole batteries. Only after the battlewas over could the ravages made by this agency be fully appreciated,from the effects produced on natural objects lying in the line of theircourse. In many places, avenues rods long and many feet in width, werecut through the tree-tops and branches; and in not a few instances,great trees, three and four feet in diameter, were burst open frombranch to root, split to shreds and scattered in splinters in alldirections.
Panting, swearing, whooping and bleeding, the Confederate lines had beenpushed on, until they had reached a point nearly as far in advance as inthe former attack. But here, beneath the storm of canister, case-shotand grape-shot, solid-shot, shell and musketry, human endurance failedand even the madness of intoxication grew useless. The hurricane ofmetal was too deadly for mortal man to withstand. No efforts could urgethem further forward; and finding it impossible to run to the end thatgauntlet of iron and lead, they once more wavered and broke, faced aboutand sought the shelter of the woods, leaving Carter's Field burdenedwith its second terrible harvest of death for that day--the dead inactual heaps and winrows, and the wounded one mere struggling, writhingand groaning mass.
But why repeat the story that has no variety except in horror? Again andagain, with fresh troops flung every time to the front, that mad attemptto carry Malvern Hill was repeated and repulsed. An attack--a repulse;and each time with added but never-varied slaughter. The consumption ofraw spirits among the rebel ranks must have been enormous during theday; for every rebel canteen found on the field had been filled withthat maddening compound, with or without the fiendish addition of thesulphur and nitre of gunpowder. Their attacks were like the rolling ofbillows toward a beach: their waves of battle swept up with ragingfierceness, but broke and receded at every dash; and, like the waveswhen the tide is fast ebbing, the surging lines broke farther off ateach advance. The attack on Malvern Hill had failed--at what a fearfulexpenditure of valor and courage on the part of the Union troops, onlythose who participated can ever know;--and at what a cost of life to therebels, only that Eye which looked down from a greater height than thatof the signal-officer on the gable of the old mansion, could have powerto measure!
During the last of these rebel attacks, the gun-boats were signalled tocease firing, lest their shells might prove equally fatal to friends andfoes; and the Union forces were ordered to prepare for an advance, asPorter had determined to act, temporarily at least, on the offensive,and thus crown the events of a day which had been virtually one ofsplendid victory for the Union arms. Just when the rebels were haltingand wavering under the effects of the renewed artillery fire poured outto meet them, Burns', Meagher's, Dana's and French's brigades, of theright, were ordered to charge. The order did not come too soon for thebrave fellows who had been chafing like caged lions at the necessity offighting all day on the defensive. Right gallantly and with ringingcheers did they spring forward, until within a hundred yards of theenemy, when they halted and sent a scorching fire of musketry directlyinto their faces. Couch's division on the left had been thrown forwardalmost at the same moment, and the order was obeyed with equal alacrityand effect. Then the whole line was ordered to advance, and away theywent with ringing shouts, like so many confined school-boys suddenly letout for an hour's play, but going, alas!--to a game of "ball" thatentailed death on many of the players.
The brave Irishmen of Meagher were already in the advance, blazing andchopping away with that indomitable good humor which seems to be thenormal condition of the Hibernian when fairly launched into his darlingfight. In this general advance Duryea's blue, red and baggy Zouaves ledthe way, as they had done in many a fight before, and always withsuccess,--dashing savagely on the foe with ear-splitting shouts peculiarto themselves, and borrowed from the well-known war-cry of thecorresponding regiments in the French service. The long Federal line ofbristling steel pushed on at double-quick with irresistible force; andit was only for an instant that any portion of the Confederate linestood to meet it. At last discouraged and appalled--perhaps as much bythe appearance and the war-cry of the never-defeated Zouaves as by anyother agency that could have been brought to bear upon them,--they firstwavered in front, then grew unsteady in the main body, and at last brokeand fled in confusion and indecent haste, seeking once more the shelterof the woods from which they were no more to emerge as an attackingparty.
The Federal troops were not allowed to follow them to the woods, nightfalling and the commander being indisposed to allow his exhausted troopsany further exertion. The rebels left, in this last attack, severaldismounted pieces of artillery, many blown-up caissons, and thousands ofsmall arms, besides a thousand unhurt prisoners and a field literallycovered with dead and wounded. The battle of Malvern Hill was over,though the rebel artillery continued to belch at intervals until afterten o'clock at night, the Federal advanced batteries replying to everyfire. At length, and when the still summer night had thus far fallen onthe late scene of conflict, the last rebel shot was sullenly fired, thelast response was made by the Federal gunners, and the long conflictceased. The baffled and beaten rebels, who had certainly fought withbravery and determination worthy of a better cause, fell back behind thesheltering woods and commenced their final retreat towards Richmond,having received at last a satisfactory taste of the quality yetremaining in the outnumbered, harrassed, but never-discouraged andever-dangerous Army of the Potomac.
Owing to the fact that this battle was so largely an artillery-duel, ashas before been remarked, the opportunities for the display orobservation of personal bravery were comparatively limited, and mostlyconfined to a short period towards the close of the battle. That theUnion troops would have shown the same personal dash and daringthroughout, had the plan of the General in command made hand-to-handfighting advisable--was fully proved by the short conflict which closedthe day. In that short period occupied by the advance of the two wingsand afterwards of the main body, two or three incidents occurred, whichsome of the combatants will yet remember when their attention is thuscalled to them, and without which this battle-picture, necessarily verydefective, and aiming much more at truth than sensation, would be foundalmost destitute of details.
In the first advance, no less than three color-bearers, carrying thesame flag of one of the regiments of Meagher's Irish brigade, were shotdown within less than five minutes. When the third fell, a Lieutenant inthe color-company of the same regiment, who had not many months beforedeserted the mock combats of the stage for the sanguinary fights ofactual warfare, concluded to try _his_ success at carrying the dangerousbunting. He seized the staff and held it, himself untouched, for severalminutes, while bullets were actually riddling the flag. At the end ofthat time a stalwart Irishman, finding his rifle-barrel heated and theramrod jammed in attempting to load, made two or three ineffectual jerksat the rod, found that it was impossible to remove it; then grasped theweapon by the muzzle, whirled it half a dozen times around his head,bringing the butt down in each instance with crushing force, on the headof a foe; and finally, giving it another and longer whirl, with a wild"Whooruh!" that might have originated among the bogs of Connaught, sentit whirling among the enemy with such force that it literally plowed itsway through them and left a perceptible track of fallen foemen. "Be theHill of Howth!" roared Paddy, when he had completed this exploit. "It'smeself hasn't the bit of a muskit left to fight wid at all at all! Here,Captain!" to the Lieutenant holding the flag, "it's meself should behouldin' that, and not you!" and at the word he grasped the staff out ofthe officer's hands and plunged still farther forward among the enemywith it, than it had before been carried by either of the bearers,coming out of the fight at last without a scratch.
At very nearly the same time, and at the point in the rebel frontassailed by Meagher's brigade, another scene was presented, perhapsunexampled in the history of war. A Georgia regiment (Georgia has
sentout some of the very best and most determined fighters of the wholerebel army) was in the front and immediately opposed to the jolly NewYork Irishmen. The evening being a hot one, most of the Irish boys hadprepared themselves for the charge by throwing off knapsacks, coats, andeven hats, so as to "fight asier." Their habit of doing this, by theway, in hot weather and in the excitement of battle, has not only costthe government a round sum for new clothing and equipments, but givenmany opportunities to the Confederates for boasting of a victory whenthey had won nothing of the kind. They have regarded the thrown-awaycoats and knapsacks as evidence of a panic and a rout, when the fact isthat they have only evidenced Paddy's desire, quoted above, to "fightasy."
In the present instance, Capt. S----, a young Irishman, of Meagher'sBrigade, a fire-boy and a gymnast, was surrounded by a knot of hisfellows, and they were making good progress in driving back the Georgiaregiment, when the Captain encountered the Major of the Georgians.Whether something in the eye of each defied the other, will perhapsnever be known; but certain it is that Captain S---- sprung for asingle combat with the Major, and that the Major, quite as willing,sprung forward with a corresponding intention. A few passes were madewith the sword by each, and then both seemed to forget the use of theweapon. In half a minute swords were dropped, and the two combatantswere clenched, pounding away with their _fists_! Something after themanner of the armies of old time when two great warriors metsingle-handed, the combatants on both sides seemed to stand still forthe moment and look on at this singular struggle--this novelty in deadlywar. Captain S---- was the heavier man, but the Georgia Major thenimbler, and they seemed very well matched. The Confederates were givingway on either side, and the Georgia regiment must necessarily retreatdecidedly in a moment. The effort of Captain S---- accordingly seemed tobe directed to first "knocking" the Major "out of time," and then makinga captive of him; while probably the Major had no fancy for thattermination of the affair. At length the rush came from behind and oneither side, and the whole group were irresistibly borne backward. Someof the Georgia soldiers grasped the Major from behind, and attempted todrag him off. Some of the Irishmen rushed forward to assist in holdinghim. In a minute more, not two men, but dozens, were engaged in afist-fight, not a weapon being used. Directly Captain S---- managed toget in a blow under the chin of the Major, and in the neighborhood ofthe gullet, which sent him backwards nearly insensible. As he fell hekicked with mechanical force, and the kick striking the Captain in thelower abdomen, "doubled him up" effectually. The Georgians were stilllaboring to save their commander from capture, and Captain S---- and hismen to take him, or _as much as they could of him_. The _finale_ wasthat the Georgia Major was lugged off and rescued by his men, and thatCaptain S----, clinging to him with the proverbial Kilkenny tenacity,succeeded in dragging off him his coat, sword and belts, andrevolver,--leaving the foe very much in the condition of his ownmen--that of shirt and trowsers.
It is a somewhat pitiful conclusion to this little reminiscence ofS----'s odd adventure, that the next morning, in his tent, showing thecaptured weapons to one of his comrades, the revolver went offaccidentally and blew the Captain's left arm to fragments! Such are thechances of war--a soldier escaping unhurt amid a very rain of destroyingmissiles, and meeting wounds and disablement from a trifling accident ina moment of fancied security!
The third incident of that day, and still more notable than either ofthe others, occurred on the left while the incidents previously recordedwere taking place on the right and in the centre. When Couch's divisionwere just advancing to the attack and at the very moment when theconflict began to grow close and deadly, some of the men in the front,and the rebels as well, witnessed a spectacle equally startling andunexplainable. A figure in white burst suddenly through from the Unionrear to the front, prostrating a dozen men with the irresistiblerapidity of the movement; and then it sprung into the very thick of therebels and commenced its most singular and primitive warfare. Of thehundreds who unavoidably saw the apparition (for apparition it certainlyseemed) not one will ever forget it or remember it without a shudder.The figure was that of a very tall man, evidently of immense naturalstrength, with a face shrunk to skeleton thinness and terrible staringeyes rendered more fearful by the heavy red beard and long matted hair.It was dressed in what appeared to be white trousers, but barefoot; andits upper clothing seemed to be a shirt beneath and a loose flowingwhite robe hanging from the shoulders. In its hand this terrible figurecarried a club of green sapling oak, heavily knotted at the end, aboutfive feet in length, two inches in diameter at the butt and tapering towhere it was grasped at the lower end. A more effective weapon in closecombat could not be devised; and with this weapon, and with fierce yellsthat seemed like those emanating from the throat of an infuriate madman,this strange combatant began laying about him in the rebel ranks,crushing heads, breaking arms, and killing and disabling scores of armedmen. No sword could reach him, and no bullet appeared to strike him,though dozens of the rebels discharged muskets and even revolvers athim, at close range, when it began to be apparent on which side he wasfighting. Up went that mighty flail, and down it came again on the headsof the human tares of rebeldom who so needed threshing out in the verygarner of wrath. More than one of the Union men in the vicinity of thestrange spectacle, who happened to have been classic readers in otherdays, gazing at the white figure and its terrible prowess, thought ofCastor and Pollux and the apparitions in white which decided the battleon the shore of Lake Regilius, when the Thirty Cities warred againstRome. But there was nothing of the supernatural in this figure; forafter a few moments of wonderful immunity in the midst of that plungingfire, and after a destruction of life which seemed really wonderful tobe accomplished by one single man,--fate withdrew the shield which hadbeen interposed before him. The great club was full uplifted in the air,when the combatants saw him suddenly waver and stagger, then saw thedeadly weapon drop, a stream of spouting blood from the wounded breastgush over the white garment, and that tall figure and ghastly face sinkdownward to the earth, one last long yell, wilder and more fearful thanany that had preceded it, sounding the signal of his death, and thebattle again going on over the trampled body.
It was not until hours after that the mystery of the white figure wasfully explained. The poor fellow had been a soldier of one of theWestern regiments, ill with fever, and sent on to Harrison's Landingwith the first of the troops who reached the James. In his delirium hehad no doubt heard the booming of the cannon in the morning attack, andgathered the impression that a battle must be going on and that _he_should not be absent. He had managed, by some means, to elude the guardsand the few hospital nurses yet spared to the army; had escaped from thetemporary hospital, barefoot and clothed only in his white drawers,shirt, and a sheet thrown around his shoulders; had made his way,unseen, through the woods and over the marshes lying between Harrison'sLanding and Malvern; had provided himself probably by means of his stillremaining jack-knife, with that singular but fatal weapon of offence;and then, nerved with fictitious strength by his fever and the sightsand sounds of battle raging before him, he had rushed into the conflictas before described, dying a death more noble than the lingering decayof fever, after working such destruction among the rebel ranks as hemight never have been able to do in the pride of his health and manhood.
And here this extended picture of one of the most important battles everyet fought on this continent, must close, except so far as inside-issues connected with it may happen to be involved some of thepersons more intimately concerned in the progress of this relation.
Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 Page 19
