Sedgwick’s division is not separately accounted for, but
an average of the divisions reported by General
Heintzelman will give him
6080
Estimate of Couch’s command 2000
Union force against General Smith 8080
Smith’s division, five brigades 10,500
But Hood’s brigade was not engaged 2,100
Of Smith’s division in action 8,400
Union losses on the Williamsburg road 4563
Confederate losses on the Williamsburg road 3515
Union losses on the Nine Miles road 468
Confederate losses on the Nine Miles road 1283

CHAPTER VIII.

SEQUELÆ OF SEVEN PINES.

The Forces under Command of G. W. Smith after Johnston was wounded—The Battle of the 1st—Longstreet requests Reinforcements and a Diversion—Council held—McLaws alone sustains Longstreet’s Opposition to retiring—Severe Fighting—Pickett’s Brave Stand—General Lee assigned to Command—He orders the withdrawal of the Army—Criticism of General Smith—Confederates should not have lost the Battle—Keyes’s Corroboration.

Major-General G. W. Smith was of the highest standing of the West Point classes, and, like others of the Engineers, had a big name to help him in the position to which he had been suddenly called by the incapacitation of the Confederate commander.

I found his head-quarters at one o’clock in the morning, reported the work of the commands on the Williamsburg road on the 31st, and asked for part of the troops ordered up by General Johnston, that we might resume battle at daylight. He was disturbed by reports of pontoon bridges, said to be under construction for the use of other reinforcements to join the enemy from the east side, and was anxious lest the enemy might march his two corps on the east side by the upper river and occupy Richmond. But after a time these notions gave way, and he suggested that we could renew the battle on the Williamsburg road, provided we would send him one of our brigades to help hold his position and make the battle by a wheel on his right as a pivot.

As the commands stood, Smith’s division on our left was at right angles to the York River Railroad, facing east, his right near Fair Oaks Station. Besides his division of ten thousand, he had Magruder’s and other commands of fresh troops near him,—twenty thousand. My left lay near Smith’s right, the line extending parallel to the railroad for a mile, facing north; thence it broke to the rear, and covered the ground from that point to the swamp, the return front facing the enemy’s third intrenched line. Smith’s part of the field was open and fine for artillery practice. The field fronting on the railroad was so shut in by heavy pine forest and tangled swamp that we had no place for a single gun. D. H. Hill’s division was in reserve near the Casey encampment.