While he had established a solid defensive position by the river, his lack of haste had eliminated whatever possibility Holmes might have had to seriously interrupt the Federal retreat. According to Porter Alexander, if Holmes had moved with dispatch he might have been able to occupy Malvern Hill. That is debatable, and even if that had been possible, the chance that he would have been able to hold it against the growing Union strength is highly unlikely. Holmes had arrived around 10:00 a.m. Porter stated that he had selected the position as early as 7:00 a.m., and his men had begun arriving at 9:00 a.m. He soon had two divisions of the Fifth Corps plus thirty-six guns, most of them rifled, in supporting distance. George Sykes’s men were on the hill, and Gouverneur Warren’s troops were taking position in the valley to the south of Malvern, across the river road, preventing a Confederate flanking action. Of his position, Sykes later commented that “nothing could be more commanding than the line I held.”58
At about 4:00 p.m., Major R.K. Meade of the engineers saw Federal movement and rode up to Holmes to say that the enemy was “retreating in considerable confusion” on the road that crossed Malvern Hill. Meade recommended that a battery of rifled guns could be placed to “greatly embarrass” the Federals’ efforts to retreat. Holmes ordered three sections of rifled artillery, six guns, to be moved two miles down the road and to be placed in a position to do just that. His chief of artillery, Colonel James Deshler, was sent with them, along with the 30th Virginia regiment of infantry from Walker’s brigade. Holmes went forward to reconnoiter and started the remainder of his division forward. Soon he ran into Lee, who had just returned from viewing the Federal position. Lee approved of Holmes’s efforts and directed that the artillery and infantry fire on the enemy’s retreating columns. Porter said that Holmes’s artillery placed itself in position to fire upon his own on the hill, and Holmes’s infantry appeared ready to attack Warren.59
As Holmes’s men marched down the crowded river road to support the artillery, they raised a dust cloud that alerted the Union fleet. The gunboats began launching their “awe-inspiring shells” into the Confederate column. The Galena and the Aroostook fired shells from their nine- and eleven-inch Dahlgren guns and one-hundred-pound Parrott rifles. Added to this were the shells from the rifled guns on Malvern Hill. D.H. Hill later commented that the shells didn’t do great damage, but “they had a wonderful effect upon the nervous system.” Porter Alexander later said, “[N]o fire is so appalling to unseasoned troops as that of heavy artillery received in a thick wood where every shot cuts limbs and smashes trees around them.” Holmes’s men, gathered in the woods, were now exposed to just such a fire, and it converged on them from opposite quarters. Part of Graham’s Petersburg battery panicked and lost two guns and two caissons, and great confusion ensued. Some of the irregular cavalry stampeded, and only the efforts of veteran officers kept the inexperienced infantry from the same fate. Holmes’s effort was falling apart. While it would be difficult to find humor in the situation, Theophilus Holmes managed to provide it. The half-deaf Holmes had gone into a small house, and as the shells shrieked all around, he came out of the building and said, “I thought I heard firing.”60
Aware of the Confederate advance, the Federals were taking advantage of the natural strength of Malvern Hill. They had several batteries, and Colonel Deshler estimated that Unionists had between twenty-five and thirty guns on the hill, as well as his own guns nearly in a crossfire. When he opened fire, the Federals returned it, and within an hour “they had pretty well disabled my battery.” Men were wounded, and servicing the guns became problematic. He reported that two limbers and two caissons were blown up. Deshler was forced to withdraw his guns.61
The Federal fire continued, and the terrain would not permit a like number of Confederate guns to be brought into position to counter the Union cannons. Porter’s artillery fired down on Holmes’s guns, and Warren’s men added a murderous infantry fire. Holmes thought that there was not much more he could do, as “the strength of the enemy’s position and their imposing numbers were such that an attack upon them with my small force unsupported would have been perfect madness.” His troops would have had to “march over three-quarters of a mile up a steep hill destitute of cover.” In the face of Federal artillery, it could have meant slaughter. Events on Malvern Hill on the next day would verify that concern. At about nine o’clock that evening, he sent his men back near to where they had started, on the ridge near New Market Heights. Holmes’s losses for the “Battle of Turkey Bridge” were two killed and forty-nine wounded.62
Added to Holmes’s lack of initiative was a potentially more serious problem. During the confusion, he had requested reinforcements, and Longstreet sent Colonel Robert Chilton with orders for Magruder to march from his rear to go to Holmes’s aid. This effectively removed Magruder’s thirteen thousand men from the critical action at the crossroads. While they might add enough weight for Holmes to attack Malvern, timing would not permit that to happen. Guided by Chilton, Magruder marched his command to the river. Arriving near sunset, Magruder rode off to find Holmes. Unable to locate him, Magruder ordered his men to advance, to which General Semmes replied that it was too dark and the woods were too dense; units would become disorganized or worse. A short time later, Magruder received orders to march his men back to the Glendale area to support Longstreet’s assault. While nothing of consequence was happening by the river, Longstreet and A.P. Hill would desperately need Magruder’s troops during the climax of the battle, when Lee’s campaign hung in the balance. Instead, Magruder’s command was exhausted and wasted by marching to and fro. When the battle at Frayser’s Farm was at its most desperate and victory could go to the side that threw in the most reinforcements, Magruder’s thirteen thousand were nowhere to be found.63
Chapter 6
THE AFFAIR AT WHITE OAK
On the morning of the thirtieth, after leaving Savage’s Station, Jackson’s command continued to follow the retreating Federals. At about noon, they reached the northern crest of White Oak Swamp, a nearly impassable morass of muck, trees and vines. After a rain, the stream would swell and the bottom would be even muddier, and there had been rain the previous night. A Confederate recalled, “The hills descended by long and gentle declivities on both sides.” Along the sides of the waterway the meadows were “soft and miry from the recent rains.” On the northern (Confederate) side, in the field to the right of the road, there was an extensive farm with open fields, and on the left there was a “dense forest of pines.” On the Federal side, there were open fields on both sides of the road, with woods behind, but the “low margin of the stream opposite the Confederate right was covered by a belt of tall forest, in full leaf, which effectively screened the Federals from view.” Jackson had arrived on the north bank, and Union general Franklin remembered that “without exciting suspicion of his presence on our part, the whole movement being hidden by the woods.”64
Franklin’s men had destroyed the bridge crossing the swamp, and on the south side, he had posted an artillery detachment and Caldwell’s brigade (of Richardson’s division) in the open, opposing any attempt to cross. To the rear, concealed by trees, was the remainder of Richardson’s division. They were posted to the east of the road. To the west, and farther back in an open field, was Baldy Smith’s division. Interestingly, Franklin did not leave a cavalry screen north of the swamp to detect any Confederate approach, leaving him effectively blind to the Confederate advance.
White Oak Swamp. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Jackson ordered his chief of artillery, Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield, to find a location to place his artillery, hoping to mass his guns to have effect on the enemy across the swamp. Only twenty-six years old in 1862, Crutchfield would later lose a leg at Chancellorsville and in 1865 would be killed at Sailor’s Creek. He found an open position on the high bank, to the right of the road. Crutchfield needed to cut a road through some woods to reach it, which his men proceeded to do with dispatch. A total of about twen
ty-three guns were massed and, at 1:45 p.m., began open firing on the Federals on the far bank. Crutchfield mentioned Carter’s King William Artillery, Rhett’s South Carolina Battery and the batteries of Hardaway (Alabama), Balthis (Staunton), Nelson (Hanover) and Reilly (North Carolina). According to Crutchfield, they “opened suddenly upon the enemy, who had no previous intimation of our position and intention.” Confusion reigned in the Federal batteries. They attempted counter-battery fire, but it was ineffective. Under the intense Confederate fire horses, mules and some teamsters panicked. Franklin said that the stampeding mules ran into a regiment of Meagher’s brigade, “disabling more men than were hurt in the brigade during the remainder of the day.” General William T.H. Books, commanding the Second Brigade of Smith’s Division, said that the Confederate artillery “commanded the camp of the brigade that it was impossible for the troops to remain in it a minute.” The batteries of Hazzard and Mott took the brunt of the fire, and their guns were silenced. Federal infantry and artillery quickly pulled back to the cover of woods but left one of Mott’s guns behind.65
William F. “Baldy” Smith. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Once the Union artillery established its new position, about one thousand yards from the Confederate guns, they began to return fire. Hazzard was heroic, carrying ammunition to exhausted cannoneers. A limber was hit; the limber’s horses had become entangled, and the wounded drivers were unable to extricate themselves. Hazzard was even taking turns loading one of his guns and was hit by a piece of shrapnel that shattered his leg. Taken from the field, he never completely recovered and died a few months later. Romeyn Ayers and Thaddeus Mott’s batteries, with their longer-range rifled Parrott cannons, enjoyed some advantage in distance over the Confederates. Crutchfield remembered that it was difficult to determine the exact number and position of the Federal guns, as they were concealed in the wood. Of course, the Confederate position was by now well known. Crutchfield said that the Federal fire “was rapid and generally accurate, though the nature of the ground afforded us such shelter to protect us from much loss.” Hazzard’s battery exhausted its ammunition, so Rufus Pettit’s guns were ordered up from the Glendale area in relief and fired some 1,600 rounds. The artillery duel lasted until dusk “without intermission.” For all of the metal thrown about that day, losses were relatively slight. The Confederates lost no guns or carriages but hit a Union caisson and exploded it. The next day, a Federal ten-pound Parrott gun and three caissons would be captured from the field.66
Union artillery at White Oak Swamp Bridge. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated History of the Civil War.
Union general William “Baldy” Smith vividly remembered when the Confederate batteries opened fire: “[O]pening the little outhouse, where I was, I saw that a great number of pieces had been quietly placed on the opposite bank, and they were throwing an immense quantity of iron—in fact the air seemed literally full of it.” Trying to get his horse, he sought out his “Negro groom. I found he had taken my best horse in the direction of safety, and I saw no more of him or horse for two days.”67
William Franklin recounted a story of the farmer who lived in a house within the Union lines. He had a young wife and a child of about two years and came up to Franklin and asked if there would be a fight. Franklin, of course, responded that “there certainly would be,” and he estimated that it would begin in about half an hour. The farmer said, “I will have time to take my wife and child to my brother, who lives about a mile down the swamp, and get back before it begins.” Surprised by this response, Franklin asked, “But why come back at all?” To this the farmer replied, “Why, if I don’t your men will take all my chickens and ducks.” Smith’s headquarters was near the house, so it was a natural target for the Confederates. The farmer indeed returned. Several shots hit the house, one of which took off the man’s leg. He bled to death in a matter of minutes. Franklin sadly commented, “He had sacrificed himself for his poultry.”68
At the Nelson House, about two miles away, the intensity of the cannonade alarmed Sedgwick, and he sent two brigades, Dana’s and Gorman’s (Sully’s), to Franklin’s aid. The two brigades rushed to the scene, marching at least part of the distance at the double-quick. This left Sedgwick with only one brigade in reserve, but the threat at White Oak appeared pressing. Hopefully they would not be needed in the Frayser’s Farm area that day.69
Jackson wanted to know the effect of the barrage and the situation on the other side of the swamp. Did the guns do their job? Would his division be able to cross? He ordered Thomas Munford’s 2nd Virginia Cavalry to attempt it, accompanied by D.H. Hill and Jackson himself. A former student of Jackson’s at the Virginia Military Institute, Munford voiced his doubts that the swamp could be crossed, to which Jackson sternly replied, “Yes Colonel, but you haven’t tried it! Try it, Colonel!” The party advanced, and Jackson’s curiosity was swiftly answered. As Munford remembered, “In we plunged, and there we floundered, belly deep to the horses in mud and mire, and the interlocking debris of the bridge, which had been destroyed and thrown in the creek, so as to impede our crossing.” Having moved back to the wood line, the enemy battery was accompanied by “long lines of infantry,” and these were able to pour fire on the destroyed bridge and the open area around it. The Federals opened on the Confederate scouting party with grape and canister, forcing the group back. Hill later commented wryly that “fast riding in the wrong direction is not military, but it is sometimes healthy.” Clearly Jackson’s men would not be able to cross at the bridge. On a lighter note, the scouting group had managed to capture one drunken Irish bluecoat. When asked if they should keep the prisoner or let him go, Hill ordered that they release him “to be a comfort to his family.” He remarked, “That Irishman must have had a charmed life.” Fired on four times at only fifty paces, “the only recognition that I could see the man make was to raise his hand as if to brush off a fly.” A Federal solider later wrote that the story was indeed true, that the man had belonged to Company C of the 7th Maine Volunteers, and had said, “If he had one more canteen of whisky he could have held the position all day.”70
Searching for an alternate way to cross, Jackson sent Munford downstream to look for an undefended crossing. Munford found a cow path and believed that infantry could cross there and sent word to that effect back to his commander. He later recalled, “I had seen his infantry cross far worse places, and I expected that he would attempt it.” Wade Hampton located another crossing about a quarter of a mile away. At that point, the water was shallow and the bottom was sandy, and it was not more than ten to fifteen feet across. He saw the Federals lying down, relaxing and not expecting enemy action in that area. Things looked promising to Hampton, and he rode back to Jackson and said that he could build a bridge suitable for infantry to cross. Jackson instructed him to proceed. After completing the construction, Hampton returned and found Jackson seated on a log with his eyes closed. When Hampton stated that the ridge was ready, Jackson did not respond but instead rose and walked off in silence. Hampton was stunned and returned to his troops.71
Yet another possible crossing point was discovered. Ambrose Wright, of Huger’s command, had been ordered down the New Road in search of Kearny’s men and reached White Oak during the afternoon. Riding up to Jackson and asking for orders, Wright was instructed to retrace his steps and search for a place to cross upstream (to the west). A guide led him to Brackett’s Ford, but the bridge was destroyed and trees were felled to block the crossing. Slocum’s Federals were positioned on the far bank. Wright did not think it looked promising. Continuing three miles farther upstream, he located a potential crossing point at Fisher’s house. However, it soon became dark, and he apparently did not advise Jackson of his find, nor did Jackson send a messenger to him. Appearances at Brackett’s may have been deceiving. Franklin said that Jackson “ought to have known of the existence of Brackett’s Ford, only one mile above White Oak Bridge, and ought to have discovered the weakness of our defense at that point.
” The Federal general said that had Jackson attacked at both Brackett’s and in the White Oak area, he would have “embarrassed us exceedingly.” Softening his tone a bit in defense of Jackson, Franklin commented that Jackson must not have been clear on Lee’s expectations and poorly informed of the Federal weakness at Brackett’s.72
After Hampton left, Jackson sat down under a tree, fell asleep and did not wake until after dark. Sitting down for dinner with his staff, he once again fell asleep. After a while, he rose abruptly and said, “Now gentlemen, let us at once to bed, and rise at dawn, and see if tomorrow we cannot do something!” All the while, Longstreet and A.P. Hill were just a few miles away, struggling ferociously to gain control of the Glendale crossroads. While crossing the swamp directly in the face of the Union guns and infantry was prohibitive, crossing elsewhere and threatening the Federal flanks would certainly have caused Franklin concern. Not being overly threatened by Jackson, he felt secure enough to release some ten thousand troops to the rescue of Federal troops desperately holding on farther south near Glendale. The crucial effect of this will be seen later. It was possibly the most disappointing performance of Jackson’s career, and it came at the worst possible time.73
Ayres’ artillery at White Oak by Alfred Waud. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
What had happened to Jackson? Much like the previous night, the legendary commander who was famous for pushing his troops and launching crushing attacks on the enemy seemed uninterested and totally exhausted. Many explanations have been offered for his behavior. D.H. Hill, Jackson’s brother-in-law, who was present at the time, thought that “the labor of the previous days, the sleeplessness, the wear of gigantic cares, and the drenching of the comfortless night” had worn him down. Hill also suggested another reason, which was “Jackson’s pity for his own corps, worn out after long and exhausting marches, and reduced in numbers by its numerous sanguinary battles.” Hill said that Jackson “thought the garrison of Richmond ought now to bear the brunt of the fighting.” He added that they didn’t know that Longstreet and Hill were attacking without support or “that the firing that we heard was theirs.” He even inferred that “Jackson’s genius never shone when under the command of another.” This would certainly be disproved at Chancellorsville the following spring! In any case, one of his comments is haunting: “[H]ad all our troops been at Frayser’s farm, there would have been no Malvern Hill.”74
The Battle of Glendale Page 5
