Day 92. May 31, 1862.
92
he came before long to seem almost supernatural….
Note: Today is the Battle of Seven Pines/Fair Oaks
(note: doodle top of page that, I kid you not, looks exactly like the crossed sticks, the bundles that show up throughout the Blair Witch Project that hang from trees)
May Saturday 31 1862
Quite wet last night and the ground is quite wet and the men had to sleep without blankets. It is not very cool this morning. There is only 7 companys of the 110th in camp at Frountroyal camp.* A. & D were left back to guard the baggage train. At 1’oclock we were taken out to see if there was any of the enemy was near. That is the 4 Brigade went out the 7 Ind 1st Va 84 & 110th Penn V. We crossed the Shannendoah river the 2 branches. The bridges were burnt but the government put them up. We went out some 5 miles onto (note: the word “of” is crossed out in pencil) a hill the enemy fired on us with their cannon. They had 4 pieces of cannon the bomb shell whistled near our heads. There was one bursted some 20 feet from where I was but I am thankful to him the giver of all things for my safety and Preserving me. There was some 10 or 13 shell fell nearly where I was but some 3 only bursted. Our Brigade moved on our cannon soon made them leave their position. There was a Lieut Crawford killed out of the 1st Va (note: Ephraim came back in pencil here to write “out of the 1st Va”) Regt by a bomb shell went in back of his neck and came out on the left hip and there was some 5 of our wounded soldiers retaken again that they had taken last week. There was some 3 of our men wounded them selves by accidental shots. Our men advanced on some new miles and there we came back to our camp. It is not knowen wether there was any of the enemy killed or not. But I think if our cannoneers would have had the same chance they would certainly have killed a grate many. It commenced to rain this evening. There was quite a shower this evening and a very hard one too. The men had no blankets this evening again. Our baggage train did not come in as there was a grate many forces ahead of them. They were McDowells* forces. Our men have but very little to eat and I think we will have something soon. This is the last day of May. We have marched 290 miles in 30 days
*A Regiment consisted of 1,000 men: ten companies with 100 men each. By now, the 110th was likely down to 4-500 men fit for service. “Accidental shots,” 3 men, what are the odds?
Note: Today’s wagons parked at Seven Pines/Fair Oaks: https://www.loc.gov/item/2018667418/
A zoomable map of where everyone is this morning, then after dark today: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3884r.cw0653000 and plan of battle: https://www.loc.gov/item/gvhs01.vhs00292/
Terrible Swift Sword Bruce Catton P. 311-313
“It might be the last struggle in sober truth. At the end of May 1862, it was still possible (and for the last time) to believe that the war might be won, might be lost, might at least be ended, before it became all-consuming. Senator Sumner, in Washington, was musing darkly that “except at New Orleans the real strength of the Rebellion has not been touched,” but now the Federal government had two immense armies placed where they could touch it directly and with decisive effect. Everything depended on what those armies did. They could end everything in a matter of weeks; could end it (and this would not be true much longer) while it was still possible to imagine the men of the contending sections making a peace that would contain saving compromises and evasions– a peace which could relieve the nation from the necessity of redefining its own meaning in the terrible heat of war. It might yet be that this war was an incident rather than absolute.
P. 37
Sometime in May, McClellan wrote Lincoln: “We are quietly closing in on the enemy preparatory to the last struggle” and “The time is very near when I shall attack Richmond.’”
Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War Elizabeth R. Varon P. 80
“For nearly two weeks the Union invaders were within five miles of the rebel capital, the city’s church spires visible in the distance. But McClellan’s army was nonetheless vulnerable, because divided: three of its corps were positioned north of the Chickahominy River, to protect the Federal supply lines, and two corps were south of the river.The swampy Chickahominy was more imposing than usual, due to torrential spring rains that had flooded away some of the bridges spanning the river. Under intense pressure to act, Johnston moved to capitalize on this vulnerability, and on May 31 he ordered his right wing to lunge at the two isolated corps on McClellan’s left, near a plantation called Seven Pines….’”
Civil War Weather in Virginia Robert K. Krick P. 56
“A soldier who fought at Seven Pines on May 31 wrote: “The preceding night had been one of great storm. The streams were flooded.” In the “murky morning” of the next day, musket smoke only slowly “curled up through the damp trees.”
P. 58
7a.m. 62; 2p.m. 70; 9p.m. 60. Drizzly all day.”
Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer Jedediah Hotchkiss P. 50
“Saturday, May 31st. The General came into our room, at 3 P.M., and said to me, first, “I want you to go to Charlestown and bring up the First Brigade. I will stay in Winchester until you get here if I can, but if I cannot, and the enemy gets here first, you must bring it around through the mountains.” He feared that the converging columns of Frémont, Shields, McDowell and Banks might compel him to go out and fight one of them but he was in fine spirits. I rode rapidly to Charlestown and there met Gen. C.S. Winder, just starting out to the front, and informed him of the state of affairs. He got his men and and we went on by the Smithfield Road. I got Maj. Briscoe to burn the R.R. Bridges and destroy the telegraph.”
To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign Stephen W. Sears P. 152-153
“Alexander Boteler* had brought with him a proposal by Jackson to raise the Army of the Valley to 40,000 men so that he might cross the Potomac and invade Maryland and Pennsylvania.
All this talk of Jackson’s future was carried on in the quiet confidence that that general would evade the trap the Federals were laying for him. By Boteler’s report, when he left Winchester On May 31 Jackson had just started to retreat southward, up the Valley. Ahead of him on his right flank was General Frémont with a substantial force. Ahead of him on his left flank was General Shields’s division, newly returned to the Valley from Fredericksburg. Behind him was General Banks, earlier chased out of the Valley by Jackson but now reinforced and returning to the fight.”
My Will is Absolute Law: A Biography of Union General Robert H. Milroy Jonathan Noyalas P. 46
“Jackson’s speed and delays in both Frémont’s and Shields’ commands allowed Stonewall to escape. With the linkup between them a complete failure the two Federal commanders had a new task– to pursue and destroy Jackson. Frémont would march south, up the Shenandoah Valley, and Shields would parallel him in the Luray Valley.”
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Edited by Harold Holzer P. 352-353
THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.
George B. McClellan, Major-General, U.S.A. (Excerpt)
“Well aware of our difficulties, our active enemy, on the 31st of May, made a violent attack upon Casey’s division, followed by an equally formidable one on Couch, thus commencing the battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines. Heintzelman came up in support, and during the afternoon Sumner crossed the river with great difficulty, and rendered such efficient service that the enemy was checked. In the morning his renewed attacks were easily repulsed, and the ground occupied at the beginning of the battle was more than recovered; he had failed in the purpose of the attack. The ground was now so thoroughly soaked by the rain, and the bridges were so much injured, that it was impracticable to pursue the enemy or to move either Porter or Franklin to the support of the other corps on the south bank. Our efforts were at once concentrated upon the restoration of the old and the building of new bridges.”
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era James McPherson P. 461-462
“But from the beginning of Johnston’s planned early-morning attack on May 31, things went wrong. A misunderstood verbal order caused James Longstreet to advance his oversize division on the wrong road where it entangled parts of two other divisions and delayed the attack until midafternoon. When the assault finally went forward it did so disjointedly, one brigade at a time, because of poor staff coordination. The Confederates managed to drive the Union left a mile through the crossroads village of Seven Pines, about seven miles east of Richmond. On the Union right, however, the leather-lunged commander of the 2nd Corps, sixty-five-year old Edwin “Bull” Sumner, got one of his divisions across the Chickahominy on swaying bridges with ankle-deep water coursing over them and brought the rebel left to a bloody halt in the dusk near the railroad station of Fair Oaks. Next day, indecisive fighting sputtered out as additional Union reinforcements from across the Chickahominy forced the Confederates to yield the ground they had won the first day.
Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks, as the Yankees called it) was a confused battle, “phenomenally mismanaged” on the Confederate side according to Johnston’s chief of ordnance. Most of the 42,000 men engaged on each side fought in small clusters amid thick woods and flooded clearings where wounded soldiers had to be propped up against fences or stumps to prevent them from drowning in the muck. If either side gained an advantage it was the Federals, who inflicted a thousand more casualties (6,000) than they suffered. The most important southern casualty was Joe Johnston, wounded by a shell fragment and a bullet through the shoulder on the evening of May 31. To replace him Davis appointed Robert E. Lee, who recognized the futility of further fighting by breaking off the engagement on June 1.”
Terrible Swift Sword Bruce Catton P. 312-313
“The original plan had been to attack north of the river. President Davis, who was most impatient to have the Yankee Army beaten before it could impose siege warfare on Richmond’s defenders, had urged this several days earlier and Lee had agreed with him; and so, for that matter, had Johnston, feeling that it was important to defeat that part of the Federal Army with which McDowell, whose advance was anticipated, would make contact. Then came the news that McDowell was marching to the Shenandoah Valley and not toward Richmond. Johnston quickly revised his plans. He would attack the soft spot, south of the river, and he would do it while the river was still rising. On the morning of May 31 he put his army in motion.
Johnston’s battle plan was excellent, but its execution was sadly bungled. Orders were misunderstood, James Longstreet got his division on a road someone else was supposed to use, Huger’s division ran into this roadblock and was crowded completely out of action, a number of Longstreet’s brigades were unable to reach the firing line, and the pulverizing attack which was to have been delivered by overwhelming numbers turned into a straight slugging match in which much of the Confederate advantage was unused. McClellan ordered Sumner to take his corps across the river and get into the fight, and Sumner– a tough, literal-minded old-timer, who had been an Army officer before McClellan was born and who joined a complete lack of imagination to an unshakeable belief in the overriding importance of obeying orders– got his men across on a bridge that was beginning to float away, and gave the shaken Federal lines the stiffening they had to have. Much of the fighting took place in a wooded swamp, where fighting men stood in water to their knees, and where details went along the firing lines to prop wounded men against trees or stumps to keep them from drowning. The Confederates gained a good deal of ground on May 31, lost most of it the next mornning, and finally accepted a drawn battle which left things just about as they had been before the fighting started. If things had gone well, they might have destroyed a large part of McClellan’s army. Nothing went well. Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks– the battle went by both names– was a victory for no one.
But it had certain effects. Its casualty list was grimly instructive. Union losses ran to slightly more than 5000 and Confederate losses were about 6000– higher totals, for each side, than had been run up at Bull Run and Williamsburg put together. The war was getting tougher, and the hard fighting qualities of Northern and Southern soldiers had been tragically emphasized. Leadership had been defective– neither commander had really put his hand on the battle to exert firm control– but the men in the ranks had met the test magnificently. There had been little of the runaway panic that had marked Bull Run. For the two armies together, the “captured or missing” total, always high when shaky troops are in action, came to hardly more than 1,000.
In addition, this drawn battle served as a definite check on McClellan. He had apparently been nearly ready to begin his final offensive when this battle took place; more than three weeks passed, after it, before he considered himself ready to resume the advance. He did, to be sure, bring Franklin and Sumner south of the river, leaving only Porter’s corps to guard his flank and his supply line, but the whole attitude of his army was defensive. There was no more talk about “closing in on the enemy preparatory to the last struggle.” The battle was a stalemate and it was followed by a more extended stalemate.”
P. 314
“Finally, there was one development of high importance in the story of the Civil War. On the evening of May 31 General Joseph E. Johnston was severely wounded. On the following day, Mr. Davis put Robert E. Lee in command of the Army.
The Southern Confederacy had no gift for statecraft, and the ins and outs of domestic politics were always a snare for its feet, but it had a definite talent of making war which might in the end make up for all other deficiencies. This talent was manifest in various places–in the amazing pugnacity and endurance of the ordinary citizen, for one– but it was most strikingly and powerfully embodies in the person of General Lee.
When Lee took command of the army in front of Richmond—significantly, he immediately began calling it the Army of Northern Virginia, although its chance of ever seeing northern Virginia again seemed remote—he was the unknown quantity in the story of the Civil War: the incalculable, the factor no one could figure on in advance. This gray man in gray rode his dappled gray horse into legend almost at once, and like all legendary figures he came before long to seem almost supernatural, a man of profound mystery; but his basic approach to the war was quite simple. He seems to have worried not at all about the ultimate meaning of the war: he knew that he was a Southerner and he would fight to the end to bring victory to the South, and that was enough. But he understood the processes of war as few men have ever done. He knew, apparently by instinct, the risks that must be taken and the gains that can be won thereby, the way to impose his will on his opponent, and the fact that sooner or later a general must be willing to move in close for a showdown fight regardless of the cost. Because he was what he was, the war lasted much longer and was fought much harder than seemed likely at the beginning of June in 1862.”
The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville Shelby Foote P. 455
“All next day the rain poured down; “our God,” as Stonewall called Him, continued to smile on the efforts of the men in gray.
There was an off chance that Shields, within earshot of Frémont’s guns as he slogged through the mud in the opposite valley, might somehow have managed to rebuild the Luray bridges and thereby have gained access to the road across the mountain.
Meanwhile, far back down the pike, the rear guard was having its hands full. Shields had sent his troopers around though Strasburg to cooperate with Frémont, and they were doing their work with dash and spirit. Several times that day they charged the Confederate rear guard, throwing it into confusion. Late in the afternoon they made their most effective attempt, breaking through the scattered ranks and riding hard up the pike until they struck a Virginia regiment, which had halted to receive them with massed volleys. The result was as if they had ridden into a trip wire. Saddles were emptied and horses went down screaming; all except one of the attackers were killed or captured. That night, reporting the incident to Jackson, the Virginia colonel expressed his regret at having had to deal so harshly with such gallantry. The general heard him out, then asked: “Colonel, why did you say you saw those soldiers fall with regret?” Surprised at Stonewall’s inability to appreciate chivalrous instincts, the colonel said that it was because he admired their valor; he hated to have to slaughter such brave men. “No,” Jackson said dryly. “Shoot them all. I do not wish them to be brave.’”
The Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents Henry Steele Commager P. 121-122 Evander M. Law “The Fight for Richmond”
“General G.W. Smith, an officer of acknowledged ability, succeeded General Johnston in command of the Confederate army on the night of the 31st of May. But during the afternoon of the next day, June 1st, he in turn relinquished the command to General Lee, under orders from President Davis. Our right wind was at once withdrawn from its advanced position, and Smith’s division on the left followed the next day. As I was standing near the Nine Mile road a day or two after the battle, General Lee passed along the road accompanied by two staff officers. I had never seen him before, and he was pointed out by some one near me. I observed the new commander of the “Army of Northern Virginia” very closely and with a great deal of interest. General Johnston was universally beloved and possessed the unbounded confidence of the army, and the commander who succeeded him must be “every inch a man” and a soldier to fill his place in their confidence and affection. General Lee had up to this time accomplished nothing to warrant the belief in his future greatness as a commander. He had made an unsuccessful campaign in Western Virginia the year before, and since that time had been on duty first at Charleston and then in Richmond. There was naturally a great deal of speculation among the soldiers as to how he would “pan out.” The general tone, however, was one of confidence, which was in variably strengthened by a sight of the man himself. Calm, dignified, and commanding in his bearing, a countenance strikingly benevolent and self-possessed, a clear, honest eye that could look friend or enemy in the face; clean-shaven, except a closely-trimmed mustache which gave a touch of firmness to the well-shaped mouth; simply and neatly dressed in the uniform of his rank, felt hat, and top boots reaching to the knee; sitting his horse as if his home was in the saddle; such was Robert E. Lee as he appeared when he assumed command of the army of “Northern Virginia” in the early days of June, 1862, never to relinquish it for a day, until its colors were furled for ever at Appomattox.”
Note: Saturday, May 31st the Army of the Potomac is 120,000 within 12 miles of Richmond. Other accounts have them 5 miles out. Other accounts have them at 100k maximum men.
*Briefly National Secretary of the Know Nothing Party, Boteler later (1860) became National Secretary of the Constitution Union Party & was present at the Harper’s Ferry raid. He helped design the Confederate seal. Was a Colonel & also on JEB Stuart’s staff.
Note: Battle of Cold Harbor 5/31/64-6/12/64
Note: See June 13 General Keyes’ testimony re May 31 battle.
Note: Johnston is hurt while riding at dusk. Today the Confederacy lost 6k, the Union 5k. Many say Richmond would have fallen in June or July 1862 had Johnston not been wounded & Lee taken over. The war would be finished. Meanwhile, today’s battle was the largest thus far in the eastern theatre of the war thus far. And only Shiloh, so far, has lost more men fighting. Battle depicted by Currier & Ives: https://www.loc.gov/item/90714946/ and images at Getty: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/battle-of-fair-oaks-virginia# and NY State Library: https://www.nysl.nysed.gov/mssc/sevenpines/
Note: May 31 Yankees are 5 miles from Richmond & see church spires, hear bells. McClellan’s still vulnerable because 3 of his Corps are north of the “raging” flooding Chickahominy while they there to protect Federal supply lines. His other two corps are south of the river. “The time is very near when I shall attack Richmond” is one of the most well-known lines out of the war, if, for no other reason, than its evergreen comic appeal.
Note: some 3 of our men wounded them selves by accidental shots: 3 men in one day seems less accidental than deliberate. Wounding– even killing– oneself was not a rare occurrence when men had had enough. Our men have but very little to eat: on top of dangerous combat, severe marching, homesickness, they’re starving. The 110th started with 1,200 men in all. By now, the 110th was likely down to 4-500 men fit for service. (A Regiment generally consisted of 1,000 men: ten companies with 100 men each.) Sometimes I stop & think of what it was like for these men waking up each morning, the physicality of that, & the sounds & motion around them. Hungry, sore, worn out. Homesick, scared, some thinking constantly of leaving, if they could get away & not get caught.
Note: It’s Walt Whitman’s birthday today. 
1819, Long Island. 1892, Camden, NJ.
Note: Lee takes over late tonight. Here we go. In the interim, May 31, 1862, Richmond citizens ride out to Johnston’s lines to wait & watch for what might go down. I guess every dog has his day. Except this dog is still having his day.
taken out to see if there was any of the enemy was near….
We can walk in circles in a place without landmarks, we can curve around in circles as small as 66 foot circles in a hard wind whining through future power lines, a whine sound amplified a thousand times only there’s no wind & no power lines. It’s the sound when you blew across the top of a glass Coke bottle and it made a whistle sound only there’s a thousand miles of them going off a thousand miles from nowhere because right now it’s going down. McClellan’s Army– the Army of the Potomac– is still divided by the “raging” Chickahominy. However, the entire Rebel army gets across the river in one night. McClellan sits & decays on his ass five weeks before he mosies across the Chickahominy to try to get at Richmond. He will leave Porter behind with his 5th Corps with just a tarp, bleach, an axe. A Fisher-price buzz saw.
Tonight the war turns fatefully yet again with an unforeseen event: Lee takes command.
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