It has before been said that the Battle of Malvern Hill was one of the most magnificent artillery duels known to the history of war; and though the most splendid effects of that terrible arm were shown at a later period, when the whole range of McClellan's heavy pieces came into play, yet even now the effects were such as to have satisfied the very Moloch of destructive war. The play of the Union regular batteries was beautiful, (if such a term can be applied to that which defaces the beauty of God's handiwork, in however holy a cause.) Every shot could be seen to tear open the dense masses of the enemy in wide spaces, through which the white background could be distinctly seen until they were closed again by almost superhuman efforts. The volunteer batteries seemed little behind in their practice—their solid shot and bursting shell falling in a perpetual shower and making fearful havoc alternately in the solid masses of the rebels and among the gunners of their artillery.
When the Confederates opened with their batteries, General Porter, accompanied by a part of his staff, was occupying the upper slope of an eminence to the right, from which a tolerably good view of the battle-ground could be obtained. It was not one of those points "from which all the details of the fight could be taken in at a glance," according to the phraseology of many of the graphic describers of modern battles; for no such spot has ever been known, in the neighborhood of any extensive conflict, since the use of artillery covered every field with smoke and destroyed the romantic opportunities for observation which existed in the days of the lance and the cross-bow. But it was the very best position for a general oversight of the field, attainable under the circumstances; and that it was within easy range of the enemy's missiles was demonstrated by one of the very first shot, which struck a tree immediately behind the General, shattering it to pieces and severely wounding one of the aid-de-camps with the flying splinters.
It is impossible to describe, in such form that it can be realized by the reader, this fiercest of battle-fields for the two hours which followed the first attack. Many men felt it, and of those who live to tell the tale, all will remember it; but it may be said that no man saw it. The canvas best depicting it would be deprived of all the essentials of a picture, and merely made a chaos of destruction, with here the glint of a gun and there the flash of a sabre; here a momentary view of a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of belching flame—but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living targets, killing, crippling and intimidating; buck, ball and Minie bullets missed and made their marks; and the rattling volleys of companies and platoons became at length blended in one general and irregular burst of all destructive sounds known to modern warfare.
The Union ranks were of course sadly thinned by the murderous discharges from those of the rebels, even if their own fire was so effective. The odds in point of numbers and weight of fire was heavily against them, and they knew it. The prestige of success was not theirs, for though the enemy had been beaten in almost every trial of arms since the first landing on the Peninsula, yet the irresistible force of circumstances (and what the world will always believe blunders) had prevented their reaping the fruits of those repeated victories, and the great object of the expedition—Richmond—had been daily receding and was now apparently out of reach. The brilliant flank movement which McClellan was executing, seemed to them to be a simple retreat which was to take the remains of the Army of the Potomac to the James River for the purpose of an immediate embarkation and abandonment of the campaign. Men less heroic would have grown disheartened and struck feebly in the midst of so many causes of discouragement; and the able review of the Campaign on the Peninsula, by a true man and a soldier, the Prince de Joinville, shows that even with his past knowledge of their bravery and endurance he would not have been surprised to see the spirit of the whole army sinking under sufferings, wrongs and disasters. Perhaps such would have been the case, had they had less confidence in their leaders; but while that existed there could be nothing like demoralization; and if there has ever been a day since that time, when the same noble body of men and the others who have been joined with or replaced them, have displayed that hopeless deterioration of efficiency as an army, the fault has lain in their being led by men in whom they lacked confidence and men who lacked confidence in themselves! Up to this time no such misfortune had fallen upon them. They had learned to suffer and endure, but they had not yet learned to be permanently defeated. Sumner, Franklin, Kearney, Heintzelman, Keyes and Fitz-John Porter, but above all McClellan, possessed their undivided confidence; and whenever, at any point of the retreat towards the James, either of those great chiefs had appeared in their midst or ridden along their battle-thinned ranks—renewed hope and energy had been always evinced by the heartiest acclamations.
Particularly, it has been said, was this the case with McClellan. His extraordinary popularity has been more than once incidentally adverted to, in the course of this narration; and if it has been so, the cause is not to be found in either partisan spirit or man-worship on the part of the writer, but in the unavoidable necessity of echoing what "everybody says." "Little Mac" was then, he is to-day,[12] the most popular soldier of the age, whether the country has or has not anything to show for the confidence long reposed in him by the government and the immense bodies of troops at one time placed at his disposal. No general since Napoleon has ever so gained the love of his soldiers or so inspired them with confidence in his will and ability to take care of them and to accomplish what he was set to do, if not interfered with. Their favorite reply to any suspicion of danger to any corps, was: "Little Mac will take care of us!" and to any doubt of the success of the campaign: "Little Mac knows what he is about!" Blind confidence, perhaps!—but such confidence, or something approaching it, must be commanded by personal qualities, or great operations in war can never be accomplished.
[12] February 16th, 1863.
At no time during the Peninsular campaign has the commanding General so fully commanded the confidence of the soldiers, as during all those severe battles afterwards to be known as the Seven Days. His calm and collected action had been of the very character to inspire that confidence, and could not have wrought more effectually to that end had it had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted when all their plans are progressing favorably, permit their words to become few and their manner sombre and abstracted when difficulties thicken, creating fear and distrust in the minds of those around them, even when they themselves have not lost confidence and are only absorbed in thought. McClellan, always a silent man, displayed the very opposite. One of his staff officers said of him on that terrible Friday afternoon of the first conflict, when the result certainly seemed a most threatening one for the Union arms: "Little Mac seems to have woke up! I have not seen him look so happy before, since he received the news of McDowell's falling back on Washington." And there had not been wanting those to circulate throughout the army his confident and self-possessed action on the morning before—that of White Oak Swamp, when he sat on horseback at the cross-roads, with aid-de-camps dashing up with unfavorable reports, and heads of divisions a little embarrassed if not dispirited around him. "Gentlemen, take it easy! Only obey me, and I will bring you out of all this without the loss of a man or a gun, God willing!"
Such words had been like the pause of the Bruce to cut his armor-strap when flying before the English enemy—they had inspirited the whole command. He had remained, too, the whole of Monday, in the neighborhood of the White Oak Swamp, personally superintending everything and hastening the passage of the immense trains onward towards the James. Nothing had seemed to discourage him, and no exposure in the terrible heat had seemed to fatigue him beyond endurance. All these facts had crept out to every division of the army, as they will do through the subtle and unaccountable telegraphism of comrade-ry; and when regiment after regiment heard of the incident since made memorable by De Joinville, of his rising from his momentary rest on the piazza of a house near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his soldiers picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty hostess, they had burst out into laughs and cheers more complimentary to the young General's pluck than his devotion to Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he might have been engaged in picking other cherries for himself, that grew on red lips instead of on the tree!
Such were the influences which combatted those otherwise so unfavorable, kept up their spirits even when they could see nothing but defeat and discouragement in every movement, and made every blow they struck at the advancing enemy more deadly than the last. Such were the influences peculiarly active on this day when they were so much needed, and which inspired the army-corps of Fitz-John Porter for the memorable blow struck in the first battle of Malvern. The rebel South will long mourn for its lost children, perished in that sanguinary conflict and in the wider and more destructive but not fiercer one which was so soon to follow at Malvern Hill itself.