It was due to the daring and intrepidity of Hill's Light Division at Gaines' Mill, more than to any other, that made it possible for the stirring events and unprecedented results that followed.
Among the greater Generals, Lee was simply matchless and superb; Jackson, a mystic meteor or firey comet; Longstreet and the two Hills, the "Wild Huns" of the South, masterful in tactics, cyclones in battle. Huger, Magruder, and Holmes were rather slow, but the courage and endurance of their troops made up for the shortcomings of their commanders.
Among the lesser lights will stand Gregg, Jenkins, and Kershaw, of South Carolina, as foremost among the galaxy of immortal heroes who gave the battles around Richmond their place as "unparalleled in history."
CHAPTER X
The March to Maryland—Second Manassas. Capture of Harper's Ferry—Sharpsburg.
The enemy lay quietly in his camps at Harrison's Landing for a few days, but to cover his meditated removal down the James, he advanced a large part of his army as far as Malvern Hill on the day of the 5th of August as if to press Lee back. Kershaw, with the rest of McLaw's Division, together with Jones and Longstreet, were sent to meet them. The troops were all placed in position by nightfall, bivouaced for the night on the field, and slept on their arms to guard against any night attack. The soldiers thought of to-morrow—that it perhaps might be yet more sanguinary than any of the others. Our ranks, already badly [139] worn by the desperate conflicts at Savage Station, Frazier's Farm, Cold Harbor, etc., still showed a bold front for the coming day. Early in the morning the troops were put in motion, skirmishers thrown out, and all preparations for battle made, but to the surprise and relief of all, the "bird had flown," and instead of battle lines and bristling steel fronts we found nothing but deserted camps and evidences of a hasty flight. In a few days we were removed further back towards Richmond and sought camp on higher ground, to better guard against the ravages of disease and to be further removed from the enemy. The troops now had the pleasure of a month's rest, our only duties being guard and advance picket every ten or twelve days.
While McClellan had been pushing his army up on the Peninsula the Federals were actively engaged in organizing a second army in the vicinity of Manassas and Fredericksburg under General John Pope, to operate against Richmond by the flank. General Pope from his infamous orders greatly incensed the people of the South, and from his vain boasting gained for himself the sobriquet of "Pope the Braggart." He ordered every citizen within his lines or living near them to either take the oath of allegiance to the United States or to be driven out of the country as an enemy of the Union. No one was to have any communication with his friends within the Confederate lines, either by letter or otherwise, on the penalty of being shot as a spy and his property confiscated. Hundreds of homes were broken up by the order. Men and women were driven South, or placed in Federal prisons, there to linger for years, perhaps, with their homes abandoned to the malicious desecration of a merciless enemy, all for no other charges than their refusal to be a traitor to their principles and an enemy to their country. Pope boasted of "seeing nothing of the enemy but his back," and that "he had no headquarters but in the saddle." He was continually sending dispatches to his chief, General Halleck, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Federal forces in the field, of the "victories gained over Lee," his "bloody repulses of Jackson," and "successful advances," and "the Confederates on the run," etc., etc., while the very opposites were the facts. On one occasion he telegraphed to Washington that he had defeated Lee, that the Confederate leader was in full retreat to Richmond, when, as a [140] fact, before the dispatch had reached its destination his own army was overwhelmed, and with Pope at its head, flying the field in every direction, seeking safety under the guns at Washington. It is little wonder he bore the name he had so deservedly won by his manifestoes, "Pope the Braggart."