A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [157]
Map.9 The Seven Days, June 25–July 1, 1862
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The Battle of Mechanicsville, as Dawson’s engagement was called, was a costly disappointment for Lee. Jackson’s failure to arrive on time resulted in Confederate troops having to attack without adequate support. Lee was still feeling his way into his new command, but the one quality he did not lack was determination. The following day, General Hill’s troops once again led the assault. But by now Jackson and his men, including the Louisiana Brigade, had arrived and they too rushed into battle. Seeing his men stagger beneath a barrage of fire, Major Wheat galloped in front of the Louisiana Tigers, urging them to follow. Both he and his horse were immediately riddled with bullets. The fighting continued so hotly that Wheat’s body lay where it fell for twenty-four hours.
For the next seven days, beginning on June 25, Lee and McClellan clashed along the Chickahominy River, around the perimeter of Richmond, in one bloody encounter after another. Although McClellan lost none of these battles, he was unnerved by Lee’s attacks and began retreating southward, away from Richmond. Lee wanted to demolish “those people,” as he referred to the Federals, with another all-out attack on July 1. By now, the Union army was entrenched around Malvern Hill, fifteen miles southeast of Richmond. The terrain favored the Federal soldiers sitting atop the 150-foot-high plateau. McClellan still had 115,000 men with 100 pieces of artillery and, unlike their general, their nerves were holding steady.
The Confederate attack was so disjointed that isolated brigades ran forward only to be chewed up by artillery fire. This “was not war—it was murder,” a Confederate general later said of Lee’s failed assault. The Louisianans (minus Sam Hill, who was happily drawing up maps, thanks to some clever wrangling by his sister) were mauled by Irishmen in blue, including the 69th New York. The total Confederate loss on this terrible day was five and a half thousand, nearly twice the number of casualties sustained by the Federals.11.4
About a quarter of Lee’s eighty-thousand-strong army was either dead or wounded. McClellan could have ordered a counterattack, and many of his generals urged him to do so, but he had lost the will to fight. The next morning, July 2, the mist lifted from the battlefield to reveal so many bodies that the terrain appeared to be masked by a bloody quilt. Some were dead, but many still crawled feebly like stricken insects. Despite having inflicted a stunning blow against Lee’s army, McClellan continued his retreat, and the Seven Days’ Battles were a strategic victory for Lee, despite his heavy losses. On June 3, McClellan had been five miles from Richmond; on July 3, he was thirty. The casualties for the two sides amounted to more than 35,000 men.
McClellan left behind a treasure trove for the undersupplied Confederates. “All along the road,” wrote an English observer, “cartridge boxes, knapsacks, blankets and coats may be picked up. The rebels, as they pass, generally cast away their own worse equipments and refit.… Here were cartridge boxes, unopened and perfectly new.”70 Five days later, on the eighth, Lincoln sailed down to Harrison’s Landing on the James River in order to see the situation for himself. His impatience with McClellan was echoed all over the North. Only the general seemed to think that his withdrawal was nothing other than a “change of base.” The rest of the country called it a reckless squandering of a brilliant opportunity to capture Richmond and win the war.
Lord Edward