While the battle yet raged darkness came on to force a truce. General Johnston ordered his troops to sleep on their lines to be ready for the morning. Shortly after seven he was slightly wounded by a musket shot. A little later he remarked to one of his Colonels who dodged a shell:
"There is no use in dodging like that, Colonel. When you hear the things they have passed."
At that moment a shell exploded, striking him in the breast. He fell unconscious into the arms of Drewry L. Armistead, one of his couriers. On regaining consciousness he missed his sword and pistols, and said:
"My father wore that sword in the Revolutionary War and I would not lose it for ten thousand dollars. The pistols Colonel Colt, the inventor, gave me."
Both sword and pistols were recovered and General Johnston, the natural magnet for bullets, an officer of the highest soldierly qualities, of military skill and sagacity equalled by few and surpassed by none, was carried off the field severely wounded. General Robert E. Lee was appointed to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, to become the idol of his people and one of the greatest military leaders of the world; greater than will ever be known, because of the restrictions laid upon his power. Though he was the General in command he was under the direction of the War Department, which exercised its authority to the utmost. Perhaps our Confederacy might have been longer lived if Lee had adopted the policy of Stonewall Jackson who, when ordered to recall General Loring from Romney, obeyed like a soldier and promptly sent in his resignation like a mere human.
If I could bring before you the picture of the Richmond I saw after the battle of Seven Pines you would say that it was the most powerful peace argument ever penned. But no words could give you the faintest shadow of the Richmond of those days of anguish. Could Dante have looked upon our Capital in that opening June he would have needed no Virgil to unlock for him the gates of Inferno, no Beatrice to lead him through the midnight corridors of a lost world to the torture chamber of condemned souls. He would have turned his gaze upon our streets, dipped his pen in his heart's blood and written, and mankind would have shuddered through all the ages to come.
Richmond was shaking with the thunders of the battle and the death-sounds thrilled through our agonized souls. The blood of the field was running in rivers of red through the hearts of her people. For days the dead-wagons and ambulances wended their tragic way from the battlefield to the Capital City and every turn of their crunching wheels rolled over our crushed and bleeding hearts. The wretched loads of wounded were emptied before the doors of the improvised hospitals until they overflowed with maimed humanity and all hearts and hands were full of grief for the dead and work for the wounded.
There was not a home in the city that held not some ghastly offering from the battlefield. Every possible space was converted into a temporary hospital and all was done that unwearied nursing and gentle care could effect, for the roughest in the ranks as tenderly as for those who wore the stars. Women, girls, and children stood before the doors with wine and food for the wounded as they passed. It was not unusual to see half a dozen funeral processions at the same time on their way to the City of the Dead.
The Capitol square was filled with officers, privates and citizens, seeking information of the battle. From all the Southland poured in letters from friends and relatives, with the sacred charge to care for their loved ones. From all quarters of the Confederacy wives followed their husbands, mothers their sons.