REAR-GUARD FIGHTING DURING THE CHANGE OF BASE. 369
filled with dense timber, not a gun of the Gaines’s Mill battle was heard bythe troops in our vicinity.
The next morning, the 28th of June, General Smith’s division was movedto the rear and left of the clearing of Golding’s farm; General Slocum’sdivision remaining to the rear and right of Smith, where it had taken positionthe night before. During this retrograde movement the enemy kept up alively cannonade from the left, front, and right, but did remarkably littleharm. A sharp infantry attack, however, was made upon the 49th Pennsyl-vania regiment, Colonel Irwin, and the 33d New York regiment, ColonelTaylor, who were the last to evacuate the position. The time of theattack was about the middle of the afternoon, and the attacking force wasthe 7th and 8th Georgia regiments. It was handsomely repulsed, andColonels Lamar and Towers of the Georgia regiments with 50 officers andmen were takenprisoners, andmore than 100were killed andwounded. [Thisaction of the28th, as also thatof the 27th,—see p. 367,— isknown as Gold-ing’s and Gar-nett’s Farms.]
That eveningthe corps com-manders wereassembled atGeneral McClel-lan ’s headquar-ters at the Trent house. The commanding general announced to us his pur-pose to begin a movement to the James Elver on the next day, and eachcorps commander was furnished with a map on which were laid down the posi-tions that the respective corps were to hold until the next evening, when all thetroops remaining near their present positions were to move across the WhiteOak Swamp en route for the James. The assembly broke up about 2 o’clockin the morning, each corps commander having received all the informationnecessary to determine his action for the 29th, should nothing unforeseen occur.
The relative position of the Sixth Corps was not changed. Smith’s divisionwas still to have its right on the Chickahominy, extending down the river,where it was to touch the left of McCall’s division (that crossed the Chicka-hominy during the night of the 27th), which, however, played no part in hold-ing the line on June 29th, as it crossed White Oak Swamp early in the day.
& Also ou the 28th a detachment of Cobh’s Georgia Legion (cavalry) had a skirmish at DispatchStation with the pickets of the 8th Illinois Cavalry.— Editors.