Lee's Lieutenants

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Worse, his approach march had brought his whole division to a stream known as Gillies Creek, and after the storm of the previous evening the creek was raging. Confronted by this barrier, Longstreet decided that he would save time by bridging the creek instead of seeking a different route along muddy, overflowed roads. Before the leading regiment had begun to cross the makeshift bridge there, another complication developed: Huger’s division came down the hillside to cross the rebellious creek to reach the Charles City Road. The fact that the movement of Huger’s front brigade was to fix the time for opening the battle, by relieving Rodes, should have assured Huger the right of way, but apparently nobody at the crossing knew that the latecomers should be the first over. Longstreet insisted on the right of prior crossing because of earlier arrival. In an atmosphere of some unpleasantness, the two commanders waited for their respective troops to cross the creek. By 9 o’clock Longstreet’s division had reached the position opposite the mouth of the Charles City Road where Captain Beckham found the general.16

  The commanding general manfully told Smith that the misunderstanding over the line of advance might be his fault, not Longstreet’s. Without further discussion, Johnston proceeded to revise his dispositions on the left. He chose to march Whiting forward to take the place assigned Longstreet on the Nine Mile Road. By 11 o’clock Johnston knew that D. H. Hill had cleared Longstreet’s columns and was making ready to attack; by 1 o’clock Whiting’s line was across the Nine Mile Road close to headquarters. Now came a long period of suspense. From the direction of Longstreet’s proposed attack not a sound was audible. No report arrived of progress or repulse. Perplexed by this silence, though outwardly calm, Johnston confided to one of his staff that he wished all the troops were back in their camps. To General Lee, who had ridden quietly out to headquarters, Johnston had little to say.17

  As heavy minutes dragged to 2 o’clock the commander waited. What could be delaying Longstreet? Had anything gone amiss on the right? Another staff officer, Major Jasper Whiting, was sent galloping off to the Williamsburg Road; 3 o’clock came and went. Ten hours of daylight had been consumed. Was it possible that the Federals still remained without information of troop movements in their front? Had the advantage of surprise been lost? What had happened to Longstreet? Why did he not report?

  At last, from the south, rolled the echo of artillery fire. Lee thought he heard, also, as a vague undertone, the sound of distant musketry. Johnston would not allow it. An artillery duel was in progress; that was all. The irregular, broken growl of field guns, the mysterious accompaniment of something subdued and sinister, continued until 4 o’clock was drawing near. Then the mutter swelled definitely and unmistakably into furious small-arms fire—volleys and the grim rattle of engaged columns. Major Whiting rode up; Longstreet, he said, was in the midst of heavy fighting and was gaining ground. On the heels of the major’s horse dashed a courier with a note from Longstreet. This reported progress in driving the enemy, but voiced disappointment that no help had come from the left. At once Johnston ordered Smith to send Whiting’s division down the Nine Mile Road to engage the troops that confronted Longstreet. Thereupon, almost before Whiting’s men could fall in, Johnston mounted and rode across the fields toward the Federal position. As he hurried away, Jefferson Davis came up the lane to headquarters. Some who saw the quick departure of the commanding general thought that he hastened off to avoid a meeting with the President.18

  Within an hour Whiting’s brigades were attacking in the tangled forest around Fair Oaks Station. Strong Federal artillery and confident infantry easily repulsed Whiting’s assaults. When night closed the confused action, 1,283 of his men had been killed, wounded, or captured, and the division was back on the line from which the attack had been launched. It was soon established that Whiting had encountered troops sent across the Chickahominy from the north bank to reinforce those whom Longstreet had assailed.19

  Not until late in the night of May 31-June 1 were the details of Longstreet’s battle on the right known at headquarters. A strange story there was to tell. After Beckham’s report that D. H. Hills column had cleared the intersection, Longstreet had kept his division waiting by the side of the Williamsburg Road until Huger completed his crossing of Gillies Creek. Then he directed Huger to pass him. Longstreet’s orders to Huger were to march down the Charles City Road with his division and three of Longstreet’s brigades and await further instructions. Pickett’s brigade then was detached to march north and cover the nearby York River Railroad. Having sent off four of his brigades, Longstreet ordered the remaining two, Kemper’s and R. H. Anderson’s, to move down the Williamsburg Road and be ready to support D. H. Hill’s four in the main assault. That is to say, with thirteen brigades at his disposal, Longstreet intended to open with only five the attack on the entrenched position of the enemy.20

  The attack, indeed, already had opened. D. H. Hill, impatient and ardent, sent orders for Rodes to move across to the Williamsburg Road. About 1:00 P.M., while Rodes was still fifteen minutes’ march behind the troops on the left of the highway, Garland’s and G. B. Anderson’s brigades, Hill ordered the signal gun fired for opening the attack. On initial contact these two brigades received the full fire of the enemy, but Rodes soon caught up. His support, Rains’s brigade, cleverly flanked the main Federal earthwork, known as Casey’s Redout. Soon, by furious onrush, now here, now there, the Federal front line was swept back. Eight guns and all the equipment and supplies of a brigade camp were captured.

  The enemy rallied in the woods behind a strong abatis, and from this position Rodes determined to drive them. Around his martial figure—six feet tall, clear-eyed, thin, with a drooping tawny mustache—his men dressed their line for a second charge. Then a Federal column appeared at an angle across the road to assail their left. Up dashed Captain Thomas H. Carter’s King William Artillery at the gallop, unlimbered, and opened fire at the very nick. It was done magnificently. Under Carter’s rapid and accurate fire the Federals on the flank soon broke and retired. Hill saw all this, thrilled with the joy of battle, and to the end of his days averred that war never had witnessed anything finer.

  Rodes’s left was safe. His center then plunged recklessly forward. His wild-eyed, panting men reached the open space in front of the woods. The Federals opened furiously. No pause, scarcely a wincing was there as the first volley was received. On went the writhing, uneven, but persistent line. Wounded men fell in water above their knees. Some drowned before they could be succored. At length Kemper’s brigade came up in support, and together Kemper and Rodes untangled the line. Rodes received an ugly wound in the arm, but kept the field until sunset. On Hill’s order his men were drawn out of the wood.21

  On the other side of the Williamsburg Road, Garland and G. B. Anderson had, if possible, even worse conditions to face. Regiments were confused. Lines overlapped. Officers fell and organization was lost, but by the volume of their fire the Confederates steadily weakened the resistance of the enemy. Then, with a crash, R. H. Anderson’s brigade came forward and took the lead. Anderson coolly divided his command, conducting one column and entrusting the other to Colonel Micah Jenkins of the Palmetto Sharpshooters. The South Carolinians attacked like demons possessed, swept through the abatis, stormed two gun positions, and at nightfall held the most advanced position on the entire field. The other brigades of Longstreet’s division touched only the fringes of the battle or else arrived on the scene after dark.

  This, in incomplete outline, was the story that reached headquarters during the night of May 31-June 1. The next morning an opportunity seemed to be offered on the Confederate right to drive the enemy further, but because of vacillation, overcaution, and conflicting orders on the part of G. W. Smith, the only results were more casualties, confusion, and recrimination. That night the Confederate army, unpursued, fell back to the position from which it had launched the attack.22

  3

  GRIM FRUITS OF ANNIVERSARY

  What, then, had been achieved by
the attack at Seven Pines? The Confederate left had made little progress. Five brigades on the right, despite confusion and difficult ground, had driven one Federal brigade in rout and shaken Casey’s division but had not overwhelmed it before the arrival of reinforcements. In exchange for the temporary occupation of a square mile or so of woodland, two abandoned lines, ten guns, some 6,000 small arms, and a handful of prisoners, Confederate losses had been excessive. The fine brigade of Rodes had been shattered. He went into action with about 2,000 men. Of these, 1,094 were killed or wounded. John B. Gordon’s 6th Alabama sacrificed 60 per cent of its effective strength. Garland’s brigade lost 740. R. H. Anderson’s losses were not separately reported but doubtless were as high as G. B. Anderson’s 866. For the entire army the butcher’s bill was 6,134.23

  Among the fallen was Brigadier General Robert Hatton, of Whiting’s division. Johnston Pettigrew, a magnificent man who commanded another of Whiting’s brigades, had been shot down far to the front. Because he believed his wound mortal, he had refused to permit his men to leave the ranks to carry him to the rear. Whether he lived or died none knew until June 4, when he sent a letter through the lines. “I was picked up by the first party which came along,” he wrote, “which proved to be the enemy” Wade Hampton also was wounded but kept the field and insisted that the bullet be extracted from his foot while he sat his horse under fire. Besides this toll on the right and the wounding of Rodes, three colonels lost their lives—John R. R. Giles of the 5th South Carolina, Tennent Lomax of the 3rd Alabama, and R.T. Jones of the 12th Alabama.24

  Despite losses and failure to achieve any substantial result, Confederate victory was proclaimed in every key The public was assured that McClellan had been defeated with immense slaughter. Exultant praise was given, first of all, to the men in the ranks. It was deserved. They were the real heroes of the battle. Most of D. H. Hill’s troops had never been in action until May 31, but where they were well led they acquitted themselves admirably. Those of Longstreet’s men who got into action sustained their reputation. No fault could be found with Whiting’s division. It had not beaten the enemy but it had not failed to try.

  When the reports were published praise literally was poured on most of the high-ranking officers. General Johnston mentioned Longstreet first, for operations “worthy of the highest praise.” In the next sentence he commended Harvey Hill; then the “skill, energy, and resolution” of G. W. Smith. Longstreet, in his turn, said of D. H. Hill: “The entire success of the affair is sufficient evidence of his ability, courage, and skill.” All the brigadier generals of his division, together with the colonels commanding brigades, Longstreet wrote down as “distinguished for their usual gallantry and ability.”25

  Hill had high praise for his brigadiers, with the exception of General Rains, who after his first flank operation against Casey’s Redout “did not advance farther in that direction.” In sketching the operations of June 1, Hill reported that Armisteads brigade of Hugers division “fled early in the action…. ” Mahone, said Hill bluntly, “withdrew his brigade without any orders,” while Colston “did not engage the Yankees, as I expected him to do.” General Smith refrained from detailed praise of Whiting because, as he said, Whiting acted more immediately under Johnston. When the commanding general filed his report he renewed his familiar recommendation that Whiting be promoted.26

  Some among those “mentioned in dispatches” did not deserve what was said of them; but when the account was balanced the assets of army leadership, in terms of fulfillment or of promise, had been increased by the performance of seven men:

  1. D. H. Hill, though displaying the same impatience and precipitancy that had caused him to rush forward at Williamsburg, had conducted the operation in other particulars with cold calculation, vigor, and sensitive feel of action. He acted as if the command of a division was an art he had mastered so long previously that he negligently could have disdained half he knew and still could have won.

  2. R. E. Rodes emerged with reputation as a hard-hitting brigadier whom losses or difficult ground could not deter. A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, he had been graduated at the Virginia Military Institute in 1848. Thereafter he had served as civil engineer for various railroads, married in Alabama, and just before the outbreak of the war accepted a professorship at his alma mater. He left V.M.I. almost at once to organize a company in Alabama and soon received commission as colonel of the 5th Regiment. With his command he had come promptly to Virginia. On October 21, 1861, he was promoted brigadier general and assigned the 5th, 6th, and 12th Alabama and the 12th Mississippi. Until that day at Seven Pines he never had opportunity of leading them into action. Once on the field he had shone. “Coolness, ability, and determination,” the qualities that Longstreet praised, most justly characterized him. He was now thirty-three. Given time he would rise.

  3. Samuel Garland had justified his promotion to the command of Early’s brigade. Like Rodes, he was a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, and a graduate of V.M.I. His father was a lawyer of distinction, and at the University of Virginia he had studied his father’s profession and had practiced it in Lynchburg. He was one of the most studious and well-read men of his city. From a captaincy in the nth Virginia he had been promoted speedily and, at Williamsburg, had been distinguished in A. R Hill’s brigade and been wounded. Now that he had fought his first battle as a brigade commander he had shown the unmistakable qualities of the soldier. In the thickest of the struggle Garland, though much exposed, escaped unhurt. Perhaps there was a deliberate recklessness in his conspicuous disregard of fire: He was the last of his direct line. His wife and his only son had died since the war began.

  4. Richard H. Anderson had confirmed all that had been said of him in his battle on the right at Williamsburg. Through abatis and forest at Seven Pines, dripping and miry, he had led part of his own command forward and had directed the operations of two other brigades. No performance on the field had been more difficult or more admirably executed. D. H. Hill and Longstreet praised him; Johnston suggested his promotion.

  5. Colonel Micah Jenkins of the Palmetto Sharpshooters, a youngster of twenty-six years, had received command of one column when R. H. Anderson divided the brigade. His conduct had been above all praise. Hill estimated that Jenkins had gone more than a mile beyond the main Federal works at Seven Pines. Jenkins had prepared himself for that day and for the honors that awaited him. Born of high blood on Edisto Island, South Carolina, in 1835, he had been graduated at the head of his class at the South Carolina Military College. His 5th regiment was one of the best as well as one of the first to volunteer in South Carolina. During the operations of First Manassas and through the winter, Micah Jenkins had given every promise of the qualities he displayed at Williamsburg and Seven Pines. “He is highly educated in military matters,” remarked an observer after the battle, “and far surpasses many of those political generals who are incessantly blundering.”27

  6. George E. Pickett, with his Virginia brigade, merited all that Harvey Hill said of his bearing. During the action of June 1, when Pickett detected Federal preparations for a heavy attack on his front, he rode rapidly to D. H. Hill to state his situation. Hill asked Pickett if he could not retire. Pickett answered that he could, but that he did not desire to do so, and that if he did he would have to leave his wounded. Hill thereupon reinforced Pickett, who beat off the attack. It was a staunch performance. “Pickett,” said Hill in his report, “held his ground against the odds often to one … and only retired when the Yankees had ceased to annoy him.”28 Here, evidently, was a stubborn fighter with a mind of his own.

  7. Colonel John B. Gordon of the 6th Alabama, Rodes’s brigade, had attracted attention for the first time by his daring leadership. He was a Georgian of thirty, trained for the bar but engaged on the outbreak of hostilities in the development of coal mines. The admiring mountaineers of the coal district promptly chose Gordon their captain, from which rank, though he had no previous military experience, he rose quickly to colonel. Alt
hough the combination was not demonstrated until that day in the woods east of Richmond, Gordon had the natural instincts of a soldier and the persuasive power of an orator who knew his auditors perfectly. By the honest exercise of these qualities he had inculcated a superior and intelligent discipline. At Seven Pines his regiment went swiftly forward as brigade skirmishers, and a little later formed the right element in the charge on the enemy’s front line. Before they were recalled, the Alabamians pushed straight on into the Federal camp. After a breathing spell, Rodes’s message was received for an attack on the second line. “They moved at double-quick with such impetuosity that the enemy fled from his hiding places before us,” Gordon reported.29 Bullets pierced his coat. His horse was killed. At the end of the action he was untouched, unshaken, and in charge of what was left of Rodes’s brigade.

  To these seven most distinguished at Seven Pines—D. H. Hill, R. E. Rodes, Samuel Garland, R. H. Anderson, Micah Jenkins, George E. Pickett, and John B. Gordon—three captains of artillery might have been added. They were Thomas H. Carter, J. W. Bondurant, and James Dearing, who had given the infantry such support as it received in the tangle of forest-felled trees and water-covered fields.

  The conduct of these officers, the indisputable valor of the troops, and all the rejoicing of the public did not alter the stubborn fact that Johnston’s plan had not been executed, and that the casualties were almost 50 per cent larger than publicly they were admitted to be. President Davis had not been deceived. Before he left the field on the evening of May 31 he asked whether it would not be possible to keep the troops in their positions so that, if the enemy withdrew during the night, a victory might be asserted. Others in high position knew that plans had miscarried and they proceeded immediately to place the blame.30