第46章

It was fortunate indeed for the Confederates that the right wing of the Northern army did not, while the action was going on, cross the river and march straight upon Richmond; but communication was difficult from one part of the army to another, owing to the thick forests and the swampy state of the ground, and being without orders they remained inactive all day.The loss on their side had been 7,000 men, while the Confederates had lost 4,500; and General Johnston being seriously wounded, the chief command was given to General Lee, by far the ablest soldier the war produced.Satisfied with the success they had gained, the Confederates fell back across the river again.

On the 4th of June, General Stuart-for he had now been promoted-started with 1,200 cavalry and two guns, and in forty-eight hours made one of the most adventurous reconnaissances ever undertaken.First the force rode out to Hanover Courthouse, where they encountered and defeated, first, a small body of cavalry, and afterward a whole regiment.Then, after destroying the stores there they rode round to the Pamunky, burned two vessels and a large quantity of stores, captured a train of forty wagons, and burned a railway bridge.

Then they passed right round the Federal rear, crossed the river, and re-entered the city with 165 prisoners and 200 horses, having effected the destruction of vast quantities of stores, besides breaking up the railways and burning bridges.

Toward the end of June McClellan learned that Stonewall Jackson, having struck heavy blows at the two greatly superior armies which were operating against him in the valley of the Shenandoah, had succeeded in evading them, and was marching toward Richmond.

He had just completed several bridges across the river, and was ahout to move forward to fight a great battle when the news reached him.Believing that he should he opposed by an army of 200,000 men, although, in fact, the Confederate army, after Jackson and all the available reinforcements came up, was still somewhat inferior in strength to his own, he determined to abandon for the present the attempt upon Richmond, and to fall back upon the James River.

Here his ships had already landed stores for his supply, for the river was now open as far as the Confederate defenses at Fort Darling.Norfolk Navy Yard had been captured by the 10,000 men who formed the garrison of Fortress Monroe.No resistance had been offered, as all the Confederate troops had been concentrated for the defense of Richmond.When Norfolk was captured the Merrimac steamed out to make her way out of the river; but the water was low, and the pilot declared that she could not be taken up.Consequently she was set on fire and burned to the water's edge, and thus the main obstacle to the advance of the Federal fleet was removed.

They had advanced as far as Fort Darling and the ironclad gunboats had engaged the batteries there.Their shot, however, did little damage to the defenders upon the lofty bluffs, while the shot from the batteries so injured the gunboats that the attempt to force the passage was abandoned.While falling back to a place called Harrison's Landing on the James River, the Federals were attacked by the Confederates, but after desperate fighting on both sides, lasting for five days, they succeeded in drawing off from the Chickahominy with a loss of fifty guns, thousands of small arms, and the loss of the greater part of their stores.

All idea of a further advance against Richmond was for the present abandoned.President Lincoln had always been opposed to the plan, and a considerable portion of the army was moved round to join the force under General Pope, which was now to march upon Richmond from the north.

From the commencement of the Federal advance to the time when, beaten and dispirited, they regained the James River, Vincent Wingfield had seen little of his family.The Federal lines had at one time been withina mile of the Orangery.The slaves had some days before been all sent into the interior, and Mrs.Wingfield and her daughters had moved into Richmond, where they joined in the work, to which the whole of the ladies of the town and neighborhood devoted themselves, of attending to the wounded, of whom, while the fighting was going on, long trains arrived every day at the city.

Vincent himself had taken no active part in the fighting.

Magruder's division had not been engaged in the first attack upon McClellan's force; and although it had taken a share in the subsequent severe fighting, Vincent had been occupied in carrying messages from the general to the leaders of the other divisions, and had only once or twice come under the storm of fire to which the Confederates were exposed as they plunged through the morasses to attack the enemy.As soon as it was certain that the attack was finally abandoned, and that McClellan's troops were being withdrawn to strengthen Pope's army, Vincent resigned his appointment as aide-de-camp, and was appointed to the 7th Virginian Cavalry, stationed at Orange, where it was facing the Federal cavalry.Major Ashley had fallen while protecting the passage of Jackson's division when hard pressed by one of the Federal armies in Western Virginia.

No action in the war had been more brilliant than the manner in which Stonewall Jackson had baffled the two armies-each greatly superior in force to his own-that had been specially appointed to destroy him if possible, or at any rate to prevent his withdrawing from the Shenandoah Valley and marching to aid in the defense of the Confederate capital.His troops had marched almost day and night, without food, and depending entirely upon such supplies as they could obtain from the scattered farmhouses they passed.