One disaster precipitated another. On the eleventh the Virginia-Merrimack was blown up to keep her from falling into Federal hands. In Richmond, on receipt of this news, there was bewilderment, consternation, and resentment; at Johnston’s headquarters there was grave fear that the enemy might pass the fortifications at Drewry’s Bluff. Simultaneously, from the direction of West Point on the York, General McClellan seemed to be preparing to advance against the Confederate left.
Concerning all aspects of his defensive plan he wrote nothing to the President or to General Lee. He virtually suspended correspondence when an engagement or a movement was impending. Perhaps his memory of the quick spread of the report that Manassas was to be evacuated in March tightened his lips. Justified as was his reticence, Johnston carried it too far at this time in dealing with the President. On May 12 the chief executive and General Lee rode out to confer with him. The three talked so long that Lee and Davis could not return to Richmond that night, but the conversation did not satisfy the President. Johnston explained that he had drawn in his left to clear it of deep water, whence it could be turned, that he did not have strength to take the offensive, and that he would await attack. That was all he confided.4
On May 15 the Federal gunboats made the anticipated attempt to pass the fortifications at Drewry’s. To the delight, and scarcely less to the surprise, of the Confederates the obstructions proved impassable. Guns of the batteries bore down almost on the decks of the warships. After three hours and twenty minutes of mauling from the heavy ordnance on the bluff, the Federals were glad to drop downstream out of range.
While this repulse was to Richmond a relief past reckoning, the enemy’s attempt showed the possibility of joint operations on the James River by the Federal army and navy. Johnston reasoned that he should draw still nearer Richmond and should put himself in position to cope with an attack from the river, from the Southside, and from the direction of West Point. Accordingly, on the day of the attack on Drewry’s Bluff, he abandoned the middle and lower stretches of the Chickahominy and drew his forces back to a line about seven miles below Richmond. On the seventeenth, finding this line weak and the supply of water inadequate, he fell back again until he was at some points within three miles of the city.5
On May 20, McClellan crossed troops over the Chickahominy at Bottom’s Bridge and began a cautious advance. Soon it was suspected that he was moving up the left bank of the river also, working his way to the north of Richmond. This was interpreted in the capital as preliminary to attempted junction with the army under McDowell, which was known to be mustering in strength on the Rappahannock. The President believed that Johnston would do battle for Richmond, but he felt dissatisfaction with Johnston’s preparations and redoubled his efforts to ascertain what plan the general proposed to follow. On the twenty-first he directed Lee to write specifically and imperatively for the desired information. Lee, as usual, did this with consideration: “Your plan of operations … may not be so easily explained, nor may it be prudent to commit it to paper. I would therefore respectfully suggest that you communicate your views on this subject personally to the President, which perhaps would be more convenient to you and satisfactory to him.”6
Johnston readily enough supplied a desired statement of the strength of his forces, but he made no immediate reply to the invitation. It was the twenty-fourth before he came to Richmond for conference. Even then, if he disclosed anything to the President, Davis did not regard it, apparently, as detailed or adequate. Two days later, in a renewed effort to procure information, General Lee appeared again at Johnston’s headquarters. Johnston by that time had ascertained that the Federals were across the Chickahominy and were not more than ten miles east of Richmond. He knew, also, that Federal cavalry had occupied Mechanicsville, five miles north of the city, and he had word that McDowell was moving southward from Fredericksburg. McClellan and McDowell, then, evidently were planning an early junction. Furthermore, Johnston had summoned to him J. R. Andersons force on the R.F. & R and L. O’B. Branch’s brigade from Gordonsville. In addition, Huger, who had reached Petersburg, had been ordered to hold himself in readiness to repulse an attack on Drewry’s Bluff or to move to Richmond.
With these reinforcements at hand Johnston felt that he could and must strike McClellan before McDowell joined the Army of the Potomac. In short, now that Johnston saw a possibility of doing more than defending himself, he could formulate a plan for an offensive. The details he promptly confided to Lee. The plan, commendably simple, was this: With part of his forces Johnston would attack north of the Chickahominy and clear that bank of Federals; then, while the Union forces were confused, he would strike with his right against the troops south of the Chickahominy and east of Richmond. The operations were set for May 29.7
Statement of this plan of campaign temporarily satisfied President Davis. Although the official relations between him and Johnston continued cool and formal, their sharper differences were put aside in the excited preparations for the battle. Long-sought promotions were made. The only direct vacancy created by the battle at Williamsburg had been that due to the wounding of Jubal Early. To the command of his troops Brigadier General Samuel Garland was assigned. He had served as colonel of the nth Virginia, had the endorsement of Johnston as worthy of promotion, and had distinguished himself in leading his fine regiment in the fighting on the right at Williamsburg. He was a man who could be trusted. Colonel Wade Hampton was tendered a brigadier’s commission, and like honor came to Robert Hatton, who already commanded the Tennessee regiments.
Much more necessary than the promotion of these men was, in Johnston’s opinion, the appointment of at least two additional major generals. He did not have sufficient officers of that grade to handle large bodies of troops. Davis’s reluctance to increase the number of high-ranking generals might confuse the coming battle and certainly would hamper Johnston in directing it. Whiting was at the head of a division though he still ranked as a brigadier. Johnston had urged his promotion but without success. The President had not forgotten that Whiting had rejected command of a Mississippi brigade; Whiting, in short, was persona non grata. Of men acceptable to Davis, D. R. Jones of South Carolina already was slated to be major general, and his nomination was pending before the Senate. As Johnston continued earnestly to ask for additional officers to command divisions, Davis at last appointed two men who had distinguished themselves at Williamsburg—Lafayette McLaws and A. P. Hill. To McLaws a division of Magruder’s large force was assigned. A. P. Hill—Powell Hill to his intimates—was put in charge of Branch’s brigade and J. R. Anderson’s command.8
All five of these promotions were made between May 23 and May 26, when a major battle was imminent. Johnston’s appeals for the assignment of generals of division had been frequent and pointed, and to an unfriendly mind it might have appeared that the President had waited as long as he dared before yielding to Johnston in this, the last of their current differences.
The day that A. P. Hill assumed command, May 27, was an important one in the preliminaries of the battle. General Branch, brought down from Gordonsville, had been left by Johnston to protect the Virginia Central Railroad. In the exercise of this discretion Branch moved his brigade from Hanover Court House southward about four miles, where, on the twenty-seventh, he was attacked by a heavy Federal column. Although his troops put up a stiff fight, they were driven back to Ashland, where he reported to his new commander, Hill. The affair was in no sense discreditable to Branch, but it was a somber induction of the new division.9
Even more serious than casualties and humiliation was the evidence offered by this clash that McClellan apparently was extending northward a strong hand of welcome to McDowell. Their junction of force was the one development above all others that Johnston had best reason to dread. He wrote Smith, “We must get ready to fight.”10 On the afternoon of the twenty-seventh battle plans were formulated. Circumstance, more than choice, shaped them. McClellan’s troops north of the Chickahominy would be th
ose who first united with McDowell. Smith and his three divisions must attack and break the link the Federals were soon to weld.
By the evening of May 28, Smith reported to a council of war at army headquarters that his preparations were complete. The enemy had a strong position about a mile east of Mechanicsville, but he had confidence that an assault by his three divisions would clear the ground of Federals. Johnston listened and then announced—with more inward relief than his manner disclosed—that an important change in the situation had occurred: “Jeb” Stuart reported that McDowell had halted his advance to join McClellan. That was not all. McDowell had returned to Fredericksburg, according to Stuart’s information, and seemed to be planning to move even farther north.
What had happened to McDowell? Johnston knew that Stonewall Jackson was on the move in the Shenandoah Valley. Perhaps, even probably, McDowell’s countermarch was related to Jackson’s advance, but of the details nothing was clear. If McDowell was withdrawing, should the Confederates attack McClellan, and if so, where? Smith did not believe that McDowell’s column was permanently off the stage of the Richmond theater of war, but he at once withdrew his plan for an attack north of the Chickahominy. It would be easier now, Smith said, to beat that part of the Federal army south of the river, where the ground was less unfavorable for an offensive. Longstreet disagreed and expressed himself in favor of the execution of Smith’s original plan.
A long discussion followed. Longstreet continued to argue his point, but when overruled by his chief, urged then an attack be delivered the very next morning in the vicinity of Seven Pines, directly east of Richmond. Again Johnston shook his head. If it proved true, he said, that McDowell was not marching to join McClellan, he would strike at the first large force of Federals that came within easy reach on the south side of the river; but the next day? No! Too many of the troops were concentrated on the left in anticipation of McDowell’s advance. Moreover, Huger was soon to arrive. The army could afford to await him.11
The twenty-ninth passed without execution of “Longstreet’s scheme,” but on May 30, D. H. Hill made a reconnaissance in force on the Williamsburg Road and found the enemy advanced to the west of Seven Pines. No enemy was found on the Charles City Road, which, opposite Seven Pines, was about two and a half miles south of and approximately parallel to the Williamsburg Road. The presence of the Federals on one of these roads and not the other was somewhat puzzling. Either the Federal left flank, facing west, was refused, or else it rested on low, boggy ground between the roads. Furthermore, Hill’s information was that the whole of the IV Corps, Keyes’s, was south of the Chickahominy.12
When this intelligence reached Johnston about noon, he knew that Huger was in the outskirts of Richmond and would be available the next day. Johnston accordingly decided to attack at Seven Pines on the thirty-first. In a long conference with Longstreet he worked out the detailed plan. Longstreet was told to take command of the right—his own, Harvey Hill’s, and Huger’s divisions—and for his march and dispositions was given verbal orders. Those of the other division commanders were in the form of letters from Johnston.
All these messages were sent, and all preparations for the battle were made in the midst of a deluge of rain. The storm would slow the Confederate march and perhaps delay the action, but it would flood the Chickahominy and probably prevent the movement of Federal troops from the north of that stream to strengthen the drenched divisions that were to be assailed. For the great day of Johnston’s life, for the first major battle he was exclusively to direct, the prospect seemed as fair as the night was black.13
2
A BATTLE OF STRANGE ERRORS
Johnston’s aim in the battle of May 31 was to overwhelm the Federal IV Corps at Seven Pines before it could be reinforced. His concentration and deployment were based on the three highways that led to the enemy’s position. The first of these was the Nine Mile Road. This left the suburbs of Richmond and ran east and southeast to Fair Oaks Station, on the York River Railroad, and on to Seven Pines. Next, to the southward, was the Williamsburg Road, which followed a course almost due east from Richmond to Seven Pines and thence to the Chickahominy at Bottoms Bridge. At no point west of Seven Pines were the Nine Mile and Williamsburg roads more than 2.25 miles apart. The third line of Johnston’s advance was the Charles City Road. This forked from the Williamsburg Road 2.3 miles east of Richmond and ran thereafter southeast. Opposite Seven Pines the upper stretches of troublesome White Oak Swamp separated the two thoroughfares, and the ground between was difficult in the best of conditions and impassable after heavy rains. Except for this fact, the location of the roads seemed ideal for a swift convergence on Seven Pines.
To facilitate that convergence, D. H. Hill already had three brigades of his division on the Williamsburg Road; there seemed no reason why he could not bring his fourth brigade, Rodes’s, across from the Charles City Road and lead the attack down the Williamsburg Road. Longstreet was in camp on the Nine Mile Road; simply by moving down that road he could form on Hill’s left and attack the right flank of the Federals when Hill assailed their center and left. To reinforce Longstreet, in all contingencies, use could be made of Whiting’s division. The remainder of Smith’s command could guard the south bank of the upper Chickahominy against attack from north of that stream. Magruder could be in general reserve.
To complete a sound plan of operations, the only other essential requirement seemed to be to cover D. H. Hill’s right flank against the Federal left, whose exact position north of White Oak Swamp was not known. For securing the Confederate right Johnston would use Huger’s division of three brigades. No intimation was given Huger that he was to be under the direction of anyone save the commanding general. The full plan of action was not communicated to him, though the time for the opening of the battle was to be set by his movements in this essential respect: As soon as Huger’s column reached Rodes, that officer was to start his brigade from the Charles City Road to join the remainder of D. H. Hill’s division on the Williamsburg Road. When Rodes came up, a signal gun was to be fired. Hill was immediately to attack. Longstreet was to go into action on hearing Hill’s fire. In this manner the complicated arrangements for opening the battle depended, first of all, upon the time one of Huger’s brigades reached Rodes.
The one participating divisional commander of whose cooperation in battle Johnston knew nothing was General Huger. His high South Carolina birth, the reputation he had won as Scott’s chief of ordnance in the Mexican War, and his former position in the old army as fourth-ranking major of the Ordnance Department had raised high expectations, which he fulfilled by his administration in Norfolk, though somewhat slowly and in the face of many difficulties. On his unopposed evacuation he had been under the close direction of General Lee. Now Huger waited west of Gillies Creek. At fifty-six years of age—medium in height, thick-set, stout, ruddy, with gray hair, gray eyes, and heavy mustache, slow of speech and of motion but bearing unmistakably the stamp of the proud and martial aristocrat—he was to lead troops into action for the first time in his life. Would he succeed? Did he know what was expected of him?14
At 6 o’clock the leading brigade of Whiting’s division was ready to start its march out Nine Mile Road. At the mouth of the road and moving across it, Whiting found Longstreet’s division. The prospect of having to wait to execute his orders until Longstreet cleared the road made Whiting nervous and impatient. He was not entirely relieved by the assurance from headquarters that Longstreet was to proceed him. He went to Johnston’s headquarters, whither Smith had previously ridden; would Smith ask Longstreet to put an end to the delay? Captain R. F. Beckham of Smith’s staff made off at once with a message to Longstreet. In about an hour Beckham sent back a courier to report that Longstreet was not on the Nine Mile Road. Beckham himself had ridden across country to see if he could find the general on the highway to the south.
Johnston was skeptical of this report that Longstreet was not on the designated road; one of his own staff offic
ers would go down the Nine Mile Road to search out Longstreet. The aide Johnston designated for the mission did not return—he unwittingly rode into the Federal picket line and had to surrender—but Beckham, sometime after 10 o’clock, reported back that he had found Longstreet—on the Williamsburg Road opposite the point where the Charles City Road forked. Longstreet was waiting for D. H. Hill to pass down the Williamsburg Road in order to open the action.15
Seven Pines. Lines of advance eastward from Richmond to Seven Pines, as used for the attempted concentration of May 31, 1862.
This meant that Longstreet was at the one point where congestion and resulting delay were most apt to occur. By perverse misfortune he was on D. H. Hill’s road. Unless Huger previously had passed, his division, too, might be on the Williamsburg Road west of the turnout into the Charles City Road. With three roads available for four divisions, three of the four were, or might be, on a single mile of one road. Gone was all prospect of an early beginning of the battle!
How had such a mix-up occurred? One of two things had happened. Either Longstreet had understood that he should move down the Nine Mile Road and then across to the Williamsburg Road in rear of D. H. Hill, or else Longstreet had concluded that, as he had been placed in command of the right wing, he could modify as he saw fit the lines of advance of that wing. Whatever the reason, he had confused the advance frightfully.
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