A. P. Hill's steady attack at Mechanicsville, though at great cost, drove the enemy's right wing back; to be struck next morning on the flank by Jackson and sent, after a sullen and bloody resistance, to the works near Gaines' Mill. Still on the barefooted boys press with resistless rush, leaving dead or mangled brothers and writhing foemen in their gory track! Never pausing to look back, but each successive day driving the enemy at the bayonet's point from works frowning with cannon.
Cold Harbor has told its brilliant story. Frasier's Farm is fought and won!
With ranks fearfully thinned, scant of food and pausing not to rest, the struggling men press on—ever on! Weary and faltering on the march, the first sharp crack of the rifle lights a new fire in every eye; and drinking the hot breath of the battle,
"Stalwart, they court like Anak's sons
The rapture of the fight!"
The tide of the battle swung round and the retreating army of McClellan—fighting steadily by day and retreating noiselessly in the night—fronted from the city which now lay on its left flank.
The Federals were neither demoralized, nor panic struck, as has been sometimes believed; and such an error, while it has bloody refutation in the nameless graves that make the track of these fights precious to the southron—does less than justice to the constancy and enduring valor of the little army that wrung the victory from them at such fearful cost.
Their retreat was orderly and steady. Driven each day from works on which they relied—marking their path with untold destruction of munitions, supplies and even of food on which they depended—the soldiers of the North were well held together; never refusing to turn and face the resistless foe that hurled itself against them, careless alike of cannon and steel, weariness and death!
There can be little doubt now of the consummate tact of McClellan's retreat. It is the bright page in the northern annals of strategy. Beaten each day and driven from his well-chosen strongholds—clearly chosen with a view to such necessities—he still held his army thoroughly in his grasp and carried it off in such order as no Federal force had yet preserved in the face of retreat. Only the resistless impetuosity of the southern troops drove all before them; and though careful analysis may prove in theory that, but for the blunder of a subordinate, Lee could one day have utterly destroyed him, this fact should not detract, in the impartial mind, from the great ability of McClellan which really prevented it.
Still, up to the last bloody day at Malvern Hill, the city lay open to the Federal general had he known the truth. Between him and the coveted prize was a mere handful of men, who could have offered but slight resistance to his overwhelming numbers; the main army of defense was in his front, further away than many points of his retreat; and, had he fully understood the position, a bold and dashing stroke of generalship might have turned the scale, spite of all the red successes of southern arms. More than once in the "Seven Days" a rapid march by the flank would have put McClellan in possession of the Capital and secured him in its strong defenses; from which the wearied troops of Lee could scarcely have ejected him.