Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

General W. G. Lewis, in a letter to Mr. D. W. Gilliam, says, after noting a visit paid by himself to General Pender shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg: "He received me most cordially and courteously, and I had a very pleasant visit and one of profit to me, as I saw plainly in his camps the results of true military discipline and careful attention from headquarters. His camp was a model of cleanliness, regularity and good order; his sentinels and guard saluted in strict military style; all officers wore the badges of their rank. I was particularly struck with this, as it was not, by far, universal in the Army of Northern Virginia." Discipline was enforced, as he often said, for the comfort and safety of his men, and because the fiery gallantry of the Southern soldier would be uselessly expended unless it was systematically and scientifically directed; and he used to say that discipline was a protection to the good soldier, in that it forced the doubtful one to the performance of his duty, and thus reduced the work and the peril of the former.

Colonel Pender, with his regiment, was near Suffolk, Va., until after the 15th of August, 1861, when he took command of Fisher's famous Sixth Regiment at Manassas. He was appointed colonel of the Sixth by Governor Clark, on the unanimous petition of its officers. That appointment, at that time, was the highest compliment that could have been paid to a North Carolinian. None but those who are old enough to remember those days can appreciate what honor it was to be accounted worthy to command the men whom Fisher led at Manassas; though that battle was full of all sorts of blunders, strategical and tactical, in the Confederate commanders, and turned out a barren victory, the troops behaved admirably, and this regiment as well as the best.

The Confederate army occupied about its original position near Manassas until March, 1862, when it was transferred, under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, to the Peninsula to meet McClellan's "On to Richmond" from that direction. As the Federals advanced the Confederates retired upon Richmond, taking position on the south side of the Chickahominy, and from two to five miles on the east and north of the city. In the last week in May two Federal corps, Keyes' and Heintzelman's, crossed that stream and entrenched themselves across the Williamsburg stage road, near Seven Pines. General Johnston ordered the attack of the 31st May on the enemy's left. General Keyes, in his report of the battle, says: "The left of my line was all protected by white oak swamps, but the right was on ground so favorable to the approach of the enemy and so far from the Chickahominy that if Johnston had attacked an hour or two earlier than he did I could have made but a feeble defense, comparatively, and every man of us would have been killed, captured or driven into the swamps or river before assistance could have reached us." Owing to misunderstandings and jealousies between the Confederate general officers only five brigades of the twenty-three which were ordered for the attack on the enemy's left were used in that attack, and some of them fought knee and waist deep in mud and water in a white oak swamp trying to get at an enemy entrenched on high ground. There was great gallantry on the part of the Confederates, and the carnage was dreadful. General D. H. Hill, who made the morning attack with his division, after numerous repulses in and around the swamp finally carried the enemy's position from the front—Couch's Division of Keyes' Corps falling back northward to and beyond Fair Oaks, a station on the Richmond and York River Railroad. From a point just outside Fair Oaks, on the north, there is an intersection at right angles of the Nine-Mile Road to Richmond and a road from Grape Vine Bridge on the Chickahominy to the station. On the Grape Vine Bridge road, about a thousand yards from Fair Oaks, Couch's Division halted and formed a line facing toward the south, information having been received that Sumner's Corps had crossed the river at Grape Vine Bridge and was advancing to the assistance of the Union troops. About 5 o'clock in the afternoon Colonel Pender, with his Sixth Regiment, arrived at Fair Oaks from toward Richmond, on the Nine-Mile road, in advance of Whiting's Brigade. Line of battle having been instantly formed facing to the south, the regiment, without support and under direct orders from either General Whiting or General G. W. Smith, went rapidly forward. After an advance of probably a third of a mile without coming up with the enemy, Colonel Pender discovered a large force of Federals in the act of forming a line from column by companies, near the Grape Vine Bridge road and well to his left and rear. They had seen him in his perilous position, and were preparing to capture or destroy him. There really seemed no chance of escape; but as quick as lightning, and with coolness equaling his bravery, the order "By the left flank, file left, double quick!" rang out in as clear and musical a voice as ever was heard on battlefield. The old regiment, the best drilled and disciplined in the army of Northern Virginia, moved as if on parade, and before the enemy had completed their formation it was upon them, pouring volley after volley into their very faces; and under the suddenness and fury of the attack the foe staggered and reeled, while the glorious soldier withdrew his men and rejoined his brigade, which was just coming up. Our hero was here like Jackson in quickness of comprehension and promptness of decision; he was like Soult in his tactical skill; he was like Junot in his fiery onslaught. There never was a more courageous and skillful movement made on any field. In the attack by Whiting's Brigade, which almost immediately followed upon Colonel Pender's affair, the brigade was repulsed and the troops retired in great disorder. Colonel Froebel, of General Whiting's staff, who was present, in his report of the battle says that Colonel Pender reformed the broken regiments and restored the line by his courage and coolness. Mr. Davis was present and witnessed Colonel Pender's behavior, and said to him on the field, "General Pender, I salute you!" General Stephen D. Lee thus writes: "I was on the battlefield of Fair Oaks; saw him (General Pender) and conversed with him before and after the battle. He expressed his great satisfaction to me that he was literally made a general on the field of battle for gallant and meritorious conduct just performed, and said that it reminded him of such cases in European armies, where such recognitions of soldierly conduct were made."

Three days afterwards he was put in command of Pettigrew's Brigade (Pettigrew having been wounded and captured), which he led through the Seven Days' fight around Richmond. His commission as brigadier-general was handed to him July 22, 1862, to date from June 3. His brigade was composed of North Carolinians, the Thirteenth, Sixteenth, Twenty-second, Thirty-fourth, and Thirty-eighth Regiments, and General Pender commanded it until he was promoted.

General Johnston having been severely wounded in the battle of the 31st, the command of the army was given to General Lee. Within less than a month he concentrated around Richmond the largest army the Confederacy ever had in the field, composed of the very pick and flower of the South. There was little discipline in that army, but there were the highest personal courage and the greatest individuality of character among the men. Its antagonist, the Army of the Potomac, under General McClellan, though possibly a little inferior in numbers, was thoroughly organized, drilled, and equipped. On the 23d of June General Jackson arrived at General Lee's headquarters, having left his troops on the route from the Valley to join General Lee in a contemplated attack upon McClellan's right. It was agreed between the two generals that at sunrise on the morning of the 26th Jackson's forces should attack the rear of the Federal position at Mechanicsville and Beaver Dam, while a part of Lee's army should make the attack there in front. On the 25th, the divisions of the two Hills moved out, A. P. Hill's down the Meadow Bridge and D. H. Hill's on the Mechanicsville road. Jackson was waited for until about 3 o'clock of the afternoon of the 26th, when, not being heard from, A. P. Hill impetuously began the attack from the front, General Pender with his brigade being the first to engage. He brushed back the enemy's advanced line to their main one just behind and along Beaver Dam creek. The position was entrenched and fortified with siege-guns, as well as light artillery, while the creek just in front was made hopelessly impassable by all manner of obstructions placed there for that purpose. The approach was over an exposed plain about three-quarters of a mile wide and down the slope to the creek, with no cover or protection. General Pender and his brave North Carolinians swept over the plain and down the bottom under a murderous fire of artillery and musketry to the brink of the creek; nothing could live under that fire. The line wavered and staggered back. Mr. Davis, who was on the field, seeing the charge and the terrible repulse, ordered General D. H. Hill to send one of his brigades to his assistance, and Ripley was sent. About dark, Pender's lines having been reformed and joined by Ripley, a second advance was made. Though General Pender and his brave Carolinians knew what was before them, and had seen with their eyes that the position could not be carried, yet they went forward with a yell, many to their deaths, and many more to suffer from their bloody wounds and broken limbs. There was no chance for Pender to show his skill here, it was simply a forlorn undertaking. He obeyed orders. General D. H. Hill, in his article, "Lee's Attack North of the Chickahominy," in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, writing of Pender's attack on Beaver Dam, uses the following language: "The result was as might have been foreseen, a bloody and disastrous repulse. None of us knew of the formidable character of the works on Beaver Dam. Our engineers seemed to know little of the country and nothing of the fortifications on the creek. The maps furnished the division commanders were worthless. The lack of knowledge of the topography was inexcusable. They had plenty of time. The Federals had been preparing for the movement all the winter, and McClellan's movements up the Peninsula indicated what position he would take up. The blood shed by the Southern troops was wasted in vain. They could have been halted at Mechanicsville until Jackson had turned the works on the creek, and all that waste of blood could have been avoided. Ripley's Brigade was sent by me to the assistance of Pender by the direct order of both Mr. Davis and General Lee. The attack on the Beaver Dam entrenchments or the heights of Malvern Hill and Gettysburg were all grand, but of exactly the kind of grandeur the South could not afford."

The next morning only a line of skirmishers occupied the works on Beaver Dam, the scene of yesterday's slaughter, the main line, upon discovering Jackson's near presence on the night of the 26th, having retreated to another strongly entrenched position extending from Gaines's Mill to near Cold Harbor. The Confederates followed, Pender hugging the Chickahominy, and then turning off by the mill to one-half mile beyond Cold Harbor. Here Porter's Corps, being well entrenched and supported by two other divisions sent to his assistance, made one of the finest battles of the war, repulsing the Confederates many times, holding Longstreet and the two Hills and Jackson at bay until about night, when the lines were broken. A. P. Hill's Corps was the first to attack. General Pender and his brave soldiers did their full part there on that day, forgetting their terrible experience of the day before. He was also at Frazier's Farm—Glendale—on the 30th.

From Beaver Dam to Malvern Hill, inclusive, these battles were one continuous series of Confederate assaults upon entrenched Union positions with unparalleled slaughter of the attacking columns. The Southerners lost, in killed and wounded, nearly twenty thousand men, the Federals not much more than half that number. General Longstreet, in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, writes: "General Lee's plans in the seven days' fight were excellent, but very poorly executed." General E. P. Alexander, Chief of Artillery of Longstreet's Corps, in an article in the Southern Historical Society Papers on the battle of Frazier's Farm, writes: "As no one can go through the details of this action without surprise at the fatal want of concert of action which characterized the many gallant and bloody assaults of the Confederates, it is best to say beforehand that it was but the persistent mishap of every offensive battlefield which the army of Northern Virginia ever fought, and that its causes were not peculiar to any one."

General Pender in his official report of these battles, while paying full tribute to the memory of the dead, did not fail to confer honor on the meritorious survivors. He says of one of our townsmen, now a distinguished lawyer, "Lieutenant Hinsdale, my acting Assistant Adjutant-General, deserves the highest praise."