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| A Union cannon battery firing at Malvern Hill |
The last action of the
Seven Days Battles took place at Malvern Hill on Tuesday, July 1st, 1862.
No one could fault
McClellan for making his stand at Malvern Hill. It was a strong position.
“Malvern Hill...is a lofty bluff, unapproachable, almost impregnable on the
riverside and the declivity looking down the swamp,” wrote General Fitz-John
Porter. Just outside the opening were woodlands and plantations along Turkey
Creek. One soldier was overheard saying, “Satan himself couldn’t whip us out of
this.”
It was a safe position
and still close enough to Richmond should the opportunity to attack present
itself again. Richmond sat seventeen miles away if you followed along the
river. Fort Darling rested on the opposite side of the river, some ten miles
distant.
Fitz-John Porter moved
his army to Malvern Hill overnight on June 29th. His chief artillery
officer—Colonel Henry Hunt, placed his artillery on a high spot overlooking the
north bank of Turkey Creek, about one mile south of Crews Hill, where he could
cover the army’s trains during their withdrawal to Harrison’s Landing.
“The position was better
adapted for a defensive battle than any with which we had been favored,” said
Porter. “It was elevated and more or less protected on each flank by small
streams or swamps.” The enemy had to crawl through dense, tangled marshes to
attack him from the front. Getting infantry through the woods and marshes would
be tough—moving artillery through them would be damn near impossible.
The roads from Richmond
over which the rebels would have to pass ran directly in front of Crew Hill.
Hunt positioned his reserve artillery on the hills above, where he could easily
rake the clearing within a thousand yards.
He placed thirty-six
guns on the west side of Malvern Hill that overlooked the River Road. Another
battery—Colonel Robert O. Tyler’s, was planted on the elevated ground to the
left of Malvern House so that it could “sweep the low meadow on the left.” A
full complement of infantry supported each of the batteries.
The first attack, on
Monday, June 30th, came along the River Road at 3 o’clock. An hour later, rebel
artillery opened fire on Generals Warren and Sykes on Crew Hill. Union
artillery soon blasted them to pieces.
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| Malvern Hills, an old estate owned by B. F. Dew |
The next day, Tuesday, July 1st, Generals Heintzelman and Summer moved in to reinforce Porter. He placed their forces to the right and rear of Couch’s troops on the western run of Malvern Hill.
Rebel skirmishers began
feeling along their lines about 10 o’clock that morning. Porter said that up
until 1 o’clock, his men rested on their arms, only firing when necessary. He
wanted them to save their ammunition for firing at close quarters where it
would prove more effective.
Private Warren Lee Goss
described the fighting as “a succession of daring attacks and bloody repulses.”
The Thirty-Sixth New York captured the colors of the Fourteenth North Carolina
in fierce hand-to-hand fighting.
The rebels made
localized attacks between one and four; then an ominous quiet overtook the
battlefield. At 5:30, the rebels opened their artillery along the entire front.
Then, the infantry charged forward “as if moved by a reckless disregard of
life.” The infantry watched as Couch’s and Morell’s artillery “mowed them down
with shrapnel, grape, and canister.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Waddy T. James of the Fifty-Seventh Virginia Infantry charged the Union lines at Malvern Hill. At 6 o’clock that night, his troops yelled defiantly and charged the Union artillery. They ran “down a steep bluff, over a ravine, and up a hill.” After all that, they expected to begin the fight, but the Yankees were still a long way off.
“On we sped,” said
James. “Seeing the Stars and Stripes floating defiantly...we poured in a
well-directed fire and had the extreme gratification of seeing the colors
totter and fall to the ground,” as did many of the men around it. Then, the
enemy gave it back—Captain Allen nearly had his arm shot off, Captain Martin
died instantly after taking a ball, and the color-bearer fell, stunned by a shell
that exploded nearby.
Not long after that, the
regiment received orders to pull back. “It was useless for a regiment or even a
brigade to charge against such formidable odds,” said James.
At 9 o’clock, Porter
received orders to withdraw his forces to Harrison’s Landing. The ground in
front of his position was covered with the bodies of the dead and
wounded. Generals Couch, Heintzelman, and Sumner moved their men shortly after
that. Colonel Averell of the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry and Colonel Buchanan of
the Sixty-Seventh New York Regiment protected the army’s rear during its
retreat.
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| General Fitz-John Porter |
July 1st was not a good day for generals. General McCall took a bullet in the shoulder but refused to leave the field. That night, after the battle, his horse was found—dead—but there was no sign of the General. The Philadelphia Inquirer prematurely announced his death on July 3rd, saying, “His staff gathered around him and begged to be allowed to bear his body to a place of quiet and safety. ‘No,’ said he. ‘Let me die on the field.’” It was all very heroic—if untrue. General McCall was imprisoned at the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond and later exchanged for General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who Grant had taken prisoner at Fort Donelson.
General Meade lay
severely wounded in a hospital bed, and General Reynolds was a prisoner in
Richmond. Generals Burns and Brooks received minor wounds but nothing bad
enough to remove them from the battlefield.
(All illustrations are adapted from images published in Century Magazine's Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 1885-1887)
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