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“THE SENEN DAYS," INCLUDING FRAYSER’S FARM.

403

him in due season.) Hooker claimed at Glendale to have rolled me up andhurriedly thrown me over on Kearny,—tennis-like, I suppose; but McCallshowed in his supplementary report that Hooker could as well claim, with alittle tension of the hyperbole, that he had thrown me over the moon. Onleaving Frayser’s farm the Federals withdrew to Malvern Hill, and Lee con-centrated his forces and followed them.

On the morning of July 1st, the day after the battle at Frayser’s farm, weencountered the enemy at Malvern Hill, and General Lee asked me to makea reconnoissance and see if I could find a good position for the artillery. Ifound position offering good play for batteries across the Federal left over tothe right, and suggested that sixty pieces should be put in while Jacksonengaged the Federal front. I suggested that a heavy play of this cross-fireon the Federals would so discomfit them as to warrant an assaidt by infantry.General Lee issued his orders accordingly, and designated the advance ofArmistead’s brigade as the signal for the grand assaidt. Later it was foundthat the ground over which our batteries were to pass into position on ourright was so rough and obstructed that of the artillery ordered for usethere only one or two batteries could go in at a time. As our guns infront did not engage, the result was the enemy concentrated the fire of fiftyor sixty guns upon our isolated batteries, and tore them into fragments in afew minutes after they opened, piling horses upon each other and gunsupon horses. Before night, the fire from our batteries failing of execution,General Lee seemed to abandon the idea of an attack. He proposed tome to move around to the left wdth my own and A. P. Hill ’s division,turning the Federal right. I issued my orders accordingly for the two divis-ions to go around and turn the Federal right, when in some way unknown tome the battle was drawn on. We were repulsed at all points with fearfulslaughter, losing six thousand men and accomplishing nothing.

The Federals withdrew after the battle, and the next day I moved onaround by the route which it was proposed we should take the day before. Ifollowed the enemy to Harrison’s Landing, and Jackson went down byanother route in advance of Lee . As soon as we reached the front of theFederal position we put out our skirmish-lines, and I ordered an advance,intending to make another attack, but revoked it on Jackson urging me tow r ait until the arrival of General Lee. Very soon General Lee came, and,after carefully considering the position of the enemy and of their gun-boatson the James, decided that it would be better to forego any further opera-tions. Our skirmish-lines were withdrawn, we ordered our troops back totheir old lines around Richmond , and a month later McClellan’s army -waswithdrawn to the North.

The Seven Days’ Fighting, although a decided Confederate victory, was asuccession of mishaps. If Jackson had arrived on the 26th,—the day of hisown selection,— the Federals would have been driven back from Mechanics-ville without a battle. His delay there, caused by obstructions placed in hisroad by the enemy, was the first mishap. He was too late in entering thefight at Gaines’s Mill, and the destruction of Grapevine Bridge kept him from