The Rebels advance, but they are not able to reach the base of the hill. "From sixteen batteries," says the chaplain of the Fourth Texas, "and from their gunboats they beclouded the day and lit the night with a lurid glare. Add to this the light and noise of our own artillery, which had been brought forward, and, like an opposing volcano with a hundred craters, it gleamed, and flashed streams and sheets of fire,—while long lines of human forms cast their shadows upon the darkness in the background, and each joined with his firelock in hand to contribute to the terrors of the awful scene."[46]
Officers and men, in this contest, go down in one indiscriminate slaughter. They are whirled into the air, torn, mangled, blown into fragments. They struggle against the merciless storm, break, and disappear in the darkness, panting, exhausted, foiled, dispirited, demoralized, refusing to be murdered, and uttering execrations upon the drunken Magruder.[47]
Although the army was upon James River, and in communication with the gunboats, and although the Rebels had been repulsed mainly by the artillery, orders were issued by General McClellan to retreat to Harrison's Landing. At midnight the troops were on the march, stealing noiselessly away, abandoning the wounded.
"Although," says General McClellan, "the result of the battle of Malvern was a complete victory, it was necessary to fall back still farther, in order to reach a point where our supplies could be brought to us with certainty."[48]
There were some officers who were much amazed at this order. They felt that having reached the river and defeated the enemy with terrible slaughter there should be no more falling back.
"It is one of the strangest things in this week of disaster," says Chaplain Marks, "that General McClellan ordered a retreat to Harrison's Landing, six miles down James River, after we had gained so decided a victory. When the order was received by the impatient and eager army, consternation and amazement overwhelmed our patriotic and ardent hosts. Some refused to obey the command. General Martindale shed tears of shame. The brave and chivalrous Kearny said in the presence of many officers,
'I, Philip Kearny, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order for retreat; we ought, instead of retreating, to follow up the enemy and take Richmond. And, in full view of all the responsibility of such a declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or
treason.'"[49]