But it was not to be. When the shattered and torn Confederates drew off, like lions at bay, from the horrid slopes of Malvern Hill—leaving them drenched with priceless blood and piled thick with near one-third their number—McClellan declined further battle and withdrew his beaten army to the fleet.
He had made a great retreat. But he had lost his great stake.
When the armies lay at Mechanicsville, both were plainly visible from many points in the city. From the Capitol, miles of encampment could be seen, spreading out like a map; and in the dusk the red flash of each gun and the fiery trail of its fatal messenger were painfully distinct. The evening before Hill's advance, the poet-librarian of the Capitol was pointing out the localities to a company of officers and ladies. Among them was a lady who had suffered much in the flesh and been driven from her home for brave exertions in that cause, which was in the end to leave her widowed spirit with no hope on this side of the narrow house. A terrific thunderstorm had just passed over the hostile hosts; but the dense masses of cloud had rolled away to the river, leaving it in deep shadow, while a bright reflection from the sunset wrapped both camps in a veil of mellow light. Not a shot disturbed the still peacefulness of the scene, to give token of the wild work already shaped out for the next week. Suddenly a glorious rainbow shaped itself in the transparent mist over the Confederate camp, spanning it from end to end. The lady pointed it to the poet.
"I hail the omen!" she said. "It is a token of God's promise that yonder flood will not overwhelm us! That His hand will be raised as of old, to hurl it back from His chosen people!"
And when the omen was accomplished and Richmond was safe, the poet sent the lady those classic lines so well-known in the South—"The Battle Rainbow."
Next afternoon the great fight began. The sharp, quick rattle of small arms, and the dull incessant boom of artillery told of hot work even nearer than "Seven Pines." So sharp and clear were the reports that it seemed the fight must be on the very edge of town; and the windows rattled at every discharge.
Almost every man, worthy of the name, was at the front; but the brave and steadfast women of Richmond collected in groups and—while they listened with blanched faces and throbbing hearts—still tried to cheer and comfort each other.
They spoke of the past; of their faith in the flower of the South at that moment battling for them; and they heard the sound of the cannon growing farther and fainter, only to feel more loving trust in those who, under God, had saved them from that chiefest of ills!
Day by day, as the tide of battle surged farther off, it sent into Richmond cheering news that nerved afresh these brave hearts for the horror to come. Gaines' Mill, Cold Harbor and Frasier's Farm rolled back their echoes of triumph; news came of the strait into which McClellan was driven and that one day more must see him a prisoner in the city he had dared—his splendid host swept away and destroyed. Finally the news of Malvern Hill—the wild shout of battle scarce drowning the death-cry—sent a thrill of mingled agony and pride to their very heart's core.
But day by day, as the red tide rolled back, it swept into Richmond terrible fragments of the wreck it had made. Every conveyance that could follow the army, or could be pressed from the almost stripped country around it, bore in from the River Road its load of misery. Manassas had hinted the slaughter of a great fight; Seven Pines had sketched all the hard outlines of the picture; but the Seven Days put in the dismal shadows, with every variation of grotesque horror.