TWO DAYS OF BATTLE AT SEVEN PINES.

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able troops brought up quickly. The only troops within reach, not alreadyup, were a brigade and a half of Magruder’s command stationed along theNew Bridge road. I sent General Johnston’s order direct to these brigadecommanders; and seeing that Whiting’s brigade was pressed back on theright, and learning that Hampton and Pettigrew were suffering great lossesin the small wood, 600 or 800 yards north of Fair Oaks, it seemed to me thatthe Federal reenforcements from the north side of the river were likely tobreak through the division and reach Longstreet’s left flank and rear. I there-fore ordered Hatton’s brigade and Pettigrew’s reserve regiment to move intothe woods and aid the troops closely engaged there. Believing that Whitinghad, on the right, as much as he could well attend to, I went with Hatton’sbrigade to the extreme front line of Hampton and Pettigrew in the woods,and soon learned that General Pettigrew had been wounded, it was supposedmortally, and was a prisoner. General Hatton was killed at my side justas his brigade reached the front line of battle; and in a very few minutesGeneral Hampton was severely wounded. In this state of affairs, I sentword to General Whiting that I would take executive control in that wood,which would relieve him, for the time, of care for the left of the division,and enable him to give his undivided attention to the right.

In the wood the opposing lines were close to each other, in some placesnot more than twenty-five or thirty yards apart. The contest continueduntil dark without material variation in the position of either line on thatpart of the field after I reached the extreme front, until the firing hadceased at dark, when I ordered the line to fall back to the edge of the fieldand re-form. In the meantime Whiting’s brigade and the right of Pettigrew’shad been forced back to the clump of trees just north of Fair Oaks Station,where the contest was kept up until night. \

On reaching the open field in rear of the line where Hampton’s andHatton’s brigades had been engaged, I heard for the first time that GeneralJohnston had been very seriously wounded and taken from the field an houror more before. I was second in rank in his army, therefore the command,for the time being, devolved upon me.

In further illustration of views held at that time on the Confederate sidein regard to the events of the first day at Seven Pines, the following extractsfrom a letter dated June 7th, 1862, from Longstreet to Johnston, are notirrelevant, however erroneous the opinions he expresses may be. He says:

“ The failure of complete success on Saturday [May 31st] I attribute to the slow movementsof General Huger’s command. This threw perhaps the hardest part of the battle upon my ownpoor division. . , . Our ammunition was nearly exhausted when "Whiting moved, and I

could not, therefore, move on with the rush that we could had his movement been earlier. . . .I can’t but help think that a display of his forces on the left flank of the enemy by GeneralHuger would have completed the affair and given Whiting as easy and pretty a game as wasever had upon a battle-field.”

It is not deemed necessary to make any comments on this letter. The factsalready stated and proved are sufficient.

\ In the action north of Fair Oaks the four Confederate brigades engaged lost 1061 killed

and wounded.— G. W. S.