In carrying out Lee's plan, everything miscarried but the movements of Longstreet and A. P. Hill. We have seen how Kershaw and Semmes and Kemper alone carried out Magruder's flank attack on the Williamsburg road. On the 30th he was ordered to the Darbytown road and reached it in time to come into effective battle on Longstreet's right, but Holmes, moving on Malvern hill, saw that he had not force sufficient to attack, sent for aid, and Magruder was sent to him. Neither of these divisions was engaged on the 30th. Huger reported his march obstructed by trees thrown across the road, had an affair with outposts in his front, and was so badly balked in his march that he did not reach the field of battle on the 30th. Jackson, whom Franklin stopped at White Oak, served no other purpose on the 30th than to keep Franklin's division and his artillery too busily engaged to join the five divisions at Frayser's farm. All this reflects the highest credit upon the military genius of McClellan, who directed the details of his masterly retreat.
Longstreet, in advance, came up with the Federal battle line, as above described, on the morning of the 30th. A. P. Hill was closed up on his march. Finding the enemy drawn up across his road, in front of the point where the Charles City road falls into it (Long Bridge road), he put his division in line of battle, with A. P. Hill in reserve, and waited anxiously to hear from Huger on his left, and Magruder and Holmes on his right. He felt sure that Jackson, crossing White Oak, would be in time to fall on the Federal right and rear. General Lee and the President were both at his headquarters when a Federal battery opened in his immediate front. A shell from this battery exploded so near the group as to wound one of the couriers and kill several horses. At this moment (4 p. m.) artillery fire was heard back on the Charles City road, and Longstreet, taking it for the signal of Huger that he was near at hand, ordered one of his batteries to reply, and the battle of Frayser's Farm was opened. The artillery on the Charles City road was Huger's affair with one of Franklin's outposts. R. H. Anderson, the senior brigadier, was assigned by Longstreet to the immediate direction of his front, and Colonel Jenkins commanded the South Carolina brigade, the first engaged in battle. He was ordered to silence the battery in front with his sharpshooters, but he preferred to capture it, and led his brigade forward, charged, drove back McCall's division, and seized Randol's battery. Longstreet's whole division now engaged, the troops in his front being those of McCall's and Kearny's divisions. The battle was forward for a time and McCall and Kearny gave ground, but Slocum reinforced Kearny against the Confederate left, and Sedgwick and Hooker against the right, so that Longstreet's right was pushed back and his left checked and pressed. He was compelled to assume the defensive, and ordered up A. P. Hill to his immediate support. Gregg's South Carolina brigade was thrown into the battle on the extreme left. Hill restored the battle to its first aggressive stage, and McCall's division was forced to retire, and that general fell into Longstreet's hands. Longstreet and Hill, with their twelve brigades, drove one of the Federal divisions from the field, and successfully resisted the attacks of the other four, gaining ground forward and holding in the end of the struggle all that they gained. Gregg, on the left, and Jenkins, in the center, bore their full share of the great contest, the latter capturing the battery of Randol, which, being retaken, was again captured by Hill's advance.
The battle lasted well into the night, the Federal divisions leaving the field under the cover of darkness, followed by Franklin from White Oak, to take their places in McClellan's last line on the James river. There is no report from either R. H. Anderson, Gregg or Jenkins. Longstreet specially mentions Anderson, Jenkins and Captain Kilpatrick of the Palmetto sharpshooters in his report, for distinguished conduct. A. P. Hill reports that Gregg was sent by General Longstreet's request to support the brigades of Pryor and Featherston, and pushed their battle forward. Featherston being wounded and for a time in the enemy's hands, his brigade was driven back and scattered, "when," says Hill, "Colonel McGowan, with the Fourteenth South Carolina, retrieved our ground." Special mention is made by General Hill in his report of Colonels McGowan, Edwards and Hamilton, and Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson, of the Fourteenth. Gregg lost 12 killed and 105 wounded, the heaviest loss falling on the Fourteenth. Jenkins lost over 450, 234 of these from the Sharpshooters, the remainder being nearly equally divided among the other regiments. Longstreet and Hill took fourteen pieces of artillery, thousands of arms, several stand of colors and hundreds of prisoners. The battle that General Lee had planned to be fought by all the divisions of his army was actually fought by two.
The Federal commanders greatly exaggerate the Confederate strength in the battle. Before Gaines' Mill, A. P. Hill had 14,000 troops. He could not have had more than 10,000 in his division at Frayser's Farm. Nor could Longstreet's division have been larger. Kershaw carried only 1,496 into the battle of Savage Station, and his was one of Longstreet's best brigades. In McClellan's five divisions there were fifteen brigades, which, at 1,500 each, would make his force at Frayser's Farm greater than Longstreet's and Hill's by at least 2,500. It must be remembered, too, that A. P. Hill was not put into the fight until very late, when Longstreet had been engaged alone with the five divisions. It was a stubborn battle, and well contested on both sides, but the advantage was clearly with the Confederates.
In the battle of Malvern Hill, which followed the day after Frayser's Farm, but one of Lee's South Carolina brigades was seriously engaged, that of Kershaw. McClellan rapidly and skillfully concentrated his army on the night of the 30th of June and the morning of July 1st. He thus describes his position and concentration: "The left and center of our lines rested on Malvern hill, while the right curved backward through a wooded country toward a point below Haxall's, on James river. Malvern hill is an elevated plateau about a mile and a half by three-fourths of a mile in area, well cleared of timber, with several converging roads running over it." In front of this position there was a good range for artillery, and on its left (west) the plateau falls off abruptly into a ravine. Expecting attack from the front and left of his position, McClellan made those points strongest and massed his artillery there, sixty pieces of artillery and ten siege guns being "so disposed on the high ground that a concentrated fire could be brought to bear on any point in his front or left." Commodore Rodgers placed his flotilla to command both flanks. The general line faced north and was nearly at right angles to the line of McClellan's retreat from Frayser's farm and distant about 3½ miles from that battlefield.
Before this unassailable position General Lee brought up his whole army. He resolved to attack with Magruder, Holmes and Huger, holding A. P. Hill and Longstreet in reserve. To Magruder was assigned the attack on Porter's position—the strongest on Malvern hill—supported by Holmes, whose small division was in line on Magruder's right, facing east. The attack was planned by Lee to be general along his whole line; Holmes, then Magruder, then Huger, then Jackson. In spite of McClellan's artillery, if this attack could have been made by noon, and made by the whole line in a grand charge for the batteries, the Federal army, already so terribly shaken, would have been unable to resist it, and Lee's antagonist would have been literally driven to his gunboats. Instead of all this, no attack was made until late in the evening. Holmes did not attack at all, deeming it "perfect madness;" Magruder and Huger, from the difficulty of communication with their commands, and the wooded character of the country, put in their brigades one after another, to charge across the open and up Malvern hill against nearly one hundred guns, supported by the Federal army, in full view, with the field and the woods swept by the gunboat batteries. Jackson sent D. H. Hill and Whiting forward, in order, and supported them with brigades from his own and Ewell's division, and they met a bloody repulse; but they did not make the attack until after Magruder's and Huger's brigades had been successively repulsed, some of them from the very crown of the hill.
It was 6 o'clock before Kershaw was ordered forward. His description of his advance will indicate what doubtless happened to other gallant brigades. Being in McLaws' line, on the farm adjoining Crew's farm, he was ordered by one of Magruder's staff to "advance and attack the enemy's battery." Having no other instructions, in total ignorance of the country, or the position of the foe, Kershaw marched half a mile forward in a wood, nearing the sound of battle and moving really immediately against Porter's front, his artillery sweeping the open and the woods through which Kershaw was marching. Reaching at last the open, passing "three lines of troops" who had preceded him in the attack, he moved up a ravine to the slopes of Malvern hill. The artillery and infantry fire in front and flank was thinning his ranks, when his friends in rear (Twenty-sixth Georgia) by mistake opened fire upon him. At this crisis he ordered the whole brigade to retire and reform further to the right. While reforming on the Second South Carolina, General Ewell called him to support immediately a brigade he was about to lead against "the enemy's battery," and was so urgent, that without waiting for the rest of his brigade, he led the Second in support of Ewell's gallant and useless charge, and with this affair, night having fully come, Kershaw's brigade had done the part assigned to it at Malvern hill. The long march to this point, after the battle of Savage Station, with its losses, had reduced the strength of the brigade. Kershaw took into the advance on Malvern hill 956 men and lost 164. The attack on Malvern hill failed of its purpose, but one thing it did accomplish; the repeated assaults were so gallant and determined, and pressed so near the enemy's guns, and inflicted so great a loss upon him, and so many brigades rested at night so close up to his defense, that he lost confidence in his ability to continue his successful defense on Malvern hill, and gave up the position during the night, leaving his dead unburied, his wounded in Confederate hands, and property and stores of great value on the field. His retreat was to a strong camp at Harrison's landing, immediately under the protection of Commodore Rodgers' flotilla.
With Malvern Hill, Lee's battles with McClellan in front of Richmond practically ended. McClellan reported his total losses, from June 26th to July 1st, inclusive, at 15,249. Lee, for the same time, reported his total loss at 18,351. In McClellan's report he acknowledges the capture of 5,958 of his army, under the head of missing; but clearly he is wide of the mark according to the actual count in Richmond. As General Lee reported: "More than 10,000 prisoners, including officers of rank, 52 pieces of artillery, and upward of 35,000 stand of small-arms were captured. The stores and supplies of every description which fell into our hands were great in amount and value, but small in comparison with those destroyed by the enemy."
[A] The loss of Jenkins' brigade was 10 killed and 75 wounded (including Lieut. W. J. Campbell, mortally).
[B] While waiting for Jackson, Lee ordered Longstreet to make a feint on the right, which became an assault, Whiting coming up in time to join on Longstreet's left.