Destruction and Reconstruction:

e miles north of Richmond, on the evening of the 25th of June. To deceive the enemy, General Lee had sent to the Valley a considerable force under Generals Whiting, Hood,

outh of which point it had been interrupted, was used to facilitate our movement, but this was slow and uncertain. The advance frequently halted or changed direction. We were pushing between

ll ambulance was left with me, and my staff was directed to accompany Seymour and send back word if an engagement was imminent. Several messages came during the day, the last after nightfall, reporting the command to be camped near Pole

r, the former following with the horses. We took the route by which the troops had marched, the din of conflict increasing with every mile, the rattle of small arms mingling with the thud of guns. After weary hours of rough road, every jolt on which threatened to destroy my remaining vitality, we approached Cold Harbor and met numbers of wounded. Among these was Ge

these, I came upon Winder's, moving across the front from right to left. Then succeeded Elzey's of Ewell's division, and, across the road leading to Gaines's Mill, my own. Mangled and bleeding, as were all of Ewell's, it was holding the ground it had won close to the enemy's line, but unable to advance. The sun was setting as I joined, and

esided in New Orleans, where he edited the leading commercial paper-a man of culture, respected of all. In early life he had served in Indian and Mexican wars, and his high spirit brought him to this, though past middle age. Brave old Seymour! I can see him now, mo

he field of battle. The campaign around Richmond is too well known to justify me in entering into details, and I shall conf

's, and Long, the lowermost; after which the stream, affected by tide, spread over a marshy country. The upper or Grapevine Bridge was on the road leading due south from Cold Harbor, and, passing Savage's Station on York River Railroad, united with the Williamsburg road, which ran east from Richmond to Bottom's Bridge. A branch from this Williamsburg road continued on the south bank of the Chickahominy to Long Bridge, where it joined the Charles City, Darbytown, and Newmarket roads coming south-southeast from Richmond. Many other roads, with no names or confusing ones, c

ish race, the Chickahominy itself classic by legends of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas; and yet we were profoundly ignorant of the country, were without maps, sketches, or proper guides, and nearly as helpless as if we had been suddenly transferred to the banks of the Lualaba. The day before the battle of Malvern Hill, President Davis could not find a guide with intelligence enough to show him the way from one of our columns to another; and this fact I have from him. People find a small cable in the middle of the ocean, a thousand fathoms below the surface. For two days we lost McClellan's great army in a few miles of woodland, and never had any definite knowledge of its movements. Let it be remembered, too, that McClellan had opened the peninsular campaign weeks before, indicating this very region to be the necessary theatre of conflict; that the Confederate commander (up to the time of his wound at Fair

passage. His right was on high ground, near Cold Harbor, in a dense thicket of pine-scrub, with artillery massed. This position, three miles in extent, and enfiladed in front by heavy guns on the south bank of the Chickahominy, was held by three lines of infantry, one above the other on the rising

wton's (Georgians), and Winder's. At Cold Harbor Jackson united with the division of D.H. Hill, in advance of him, and directed it to find and attack the enemy's right. His own divisions, in

's rear. Lawton came to Ewell's support, Whiting to A.P. Hill's; while of the three brigades of the last division, the second went to Longstreet's right, the third to A.P. Hill's center, and the first was taken by Winder, with a fine sold

rd Bottom's and the railway bridges, while Stuart's cavalry watched the river below to Long Bridge and beyond. From all indications, he thought that McClellan would withdraw during the night, and expected to cross the river in the morning to unite with Magruder and Huger in pursuit. Holmes's division was to be brought from the south side of the James to bar the enemy's road; and he expressed some confidence that his dispositions would

n the afternoon, a great noise of battle came-artillery, small arms, shouts. This, as we afterward learned, was Magruder's engagement at Savage's Station, but this din of combat was silenced to our ears by the following incident: A train was heard approaching from Savage's. Gathering speed, it came rushing on, and quickly emerged from the forest, two engines drawing

ake, in the midst of which a half-drowned courier, with a dispatch, was brought to me. With difficulty, underneath an ambulance, a light was struck to read the dispatch, which proved to be from Magruder, asking for re?nforcements in front of Savage's Station, where he was then engaged. Several hours had elap

nd other divisions, seeking to find their proper routes. Countless questions about roads were asked in vain. At length, we discovered that Jackson had followed the one nearest th

t assigned to a command. Wigfall had left the army to take a seat in the Confederate Congress as Senator from Texas, and from him I learned that he was in hopes some brigadier would be killed to make a place for Hampton, to whom, as volunteer aide, he proposed to attach himself and

ousands. While we were idly shelling the wood, behind which lay Franklin's corps-the right of McClellan's army-scarce a rifle shot to the southwest, but concealed by intervening forest, Longstreet and A.P. Hill were fighting the bloody engagement of Frazier's Farm with Heintzelman and McCall, the Federal center and left. Again, fractions against masses; for of the two divisions expected to support them, Magruder's and Huger's, the latter did not get up, and the former was taken off by a misleading message f

p Creek toward Malvern Hill, passing the field of Frazier's Farm, and Magruder's division,

ts, which, though hidden by timber, threw shells across his entire front. Distance and uncertainty of aim saved us from much loss by these projectiles, but their shriek and elongated form astonished our landward men, who called them lamp posts. By its height, Malvern Hill dominated

On the extreme left, the division of Whiting, then artillery supported by a brigade under Wade Hampton, my brigade, and on my right the division of D.H. Hill. In reserve w

his support was crippled and driven off. It was 5 o'clock or after when a loud shout and some firing were heard on the right, and, supposing this to be Magruder's attack, Hill led his men to the charge. He carried the first line of the enemy, who, unoccupied elsewhere, re?nforced at once, and Hill was beaten off with severe loss. The brigades of Trimble, Lawton, Winder, and Cunningham were sent to his assistance,

or. Had he been brought over the Long Bridge two days earlier, McClellan's huge trains on the Charles City

ensuing morning found him and his army at Harrison's Landing, in

takes, occasioned by want of knowledge of the theatre of action, and it is to be feared that Time, when he renders his verdict, will declare the gallant de

ken to Richmond, where I learned of my promotion to major-general, on the recomme

singular versatility. Of a boiling, headlong courage, he was too excitable for high command. Widely known for social attractions, he had a histrionic vein, and indeed was fond of private theatricals. Few managers could have surpassed him in imposing on an audience a score of supernumeraries for a grand army. Accordingly, with scarce a tenth the

onger than the York River line. This, keeping him more directly between the Confederate army and Washington, would have given him McDowell's corps, the withdrawal of which from his direction he earnestly objected to. The true line of attack was on the south of the James, where Grant was subsequently forced by the ability of Lee; but it should be observed that after he took the field, McClellan had not the liberty of action accorded to Grant. That Lee caught his right "in the air" at Hanover and Cold Harbor, McClellan ascribes to his Government's interference with and withdrawal of McDowell's corps. Reserving this, he fought well at Gaines's Mill, Cold Harbor, and Frazier's Farm. Alway

remote equaled by helplessness when it was present, and mendacity after it had passed, the annals of despotism scarce afford an example of the elevation of such a favorite. It has been said that his talent for the relation of obscene stories engaged the attention and confidence of President Lincoln. However this may be, great was the consternation at Washington pro

te means of information, Lee was to some extent taken unawares. His thin lines at Antietam, slowly fed with men jaded by heavy marching, were sorely pressed. There was a moment, as Hooker's advance was stayed by the wound of its leader, when McClellan, with storgé o

a commander, at the accepted moment, to throw every man on the enemy and grasp complete victory. But his Government gave him no further opportunity. He disappeared from the w

not that he seemed without sympathies, but that he had so conquered his own weaknesses as to prevent the confession of others before him. At the outbreak of the war his reputation was exclusively that of an engineer, in which branch of the military service of the United States he had, with a short exception, passed his career. He was early sent to Western Virginia on a forlorn hope against Rosecrans, where he had no success; for success was impossible. Yet his lofty character was respected of all and compelled public confidence. Indeed, his character seemed perfec

nt's army, at second Cold Harbor, refused to obey the order to attack, so distressed was it by constant butchery. In such a condition of morale an advance upon it might have changed history. In truth, the genius of Lee for offensive war had suffered by a too long service as an engineer. Like Erskine in the House of Commons, it was not his forte. In both the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns he allowed his cavalry to separate from him, and was left without intelligence of the enemy's movements until he was upon him. In both, too, his army was widely scattered, and had to be brought into acti

ning fortunes of the Confederacy as did Hector those of Troy. Last scene of all, at his surrender, his greatness and dignity made of his adversary but a humble accessory; and if departed intelligences be permitted to take ken of the a

rdnance corps. After some years they become scientists, perhaps pedants, but not soldiers. Whatever may be the ultimate destination of such young men, they should be placed on duty for at least one year with each arm of the service, and all officers of the general staff below the highest grades should be returned to the line for limited periods. In no other way can a healthy connection between line and s