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قراءة كتاب Notes of a staff officer of our First New Jersey Brigade on the Seven Day's Battle on the peninsula in 1862

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Notes of a staff officer of our First New Jersey Brigade on the Seven Day's Battle on the peninsula in 1862

Notes of a staff officer of our First New Jersey Brigade on the Seven Day's Battle on the peninsula in 1862

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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this matter is that I do not remember that I ever had occasion to mention this incident in public until the year 1888, when I was Department Commander of the G. A. R. in New Jersey, and at a Camp Fire in Freehold in the Opera House before a very large audience and an attentive one, I related it. Upon stating just as I have now, and saying that I turned those colors over finally to the rallying regiment, a tall, white-haired man with a long, drooping white moustache rising from the centre of the audience said: "That is exactly true, I am the man, and here is the wound," and drawing aside his moustache he showed that his lips had been almost entirely cut off which was the wound of which I have spoken and he was the color bearer of our Second Regiment, who had turned the colors over to me at the Battle of Gaines' Mills. An account of this curious incident was published in the Freehold papers the following day.

As the brigade retreated from the woods we saw a melancholy sight of our guns of the artillery of our division being captured, and we also had a glimpse of the rushing to and fro of a small body of cavalry which is known to be Rush's Lancers, Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry. Twenty-one of those guns were lost right there, and I wish to say that our brigade was not at any time placed in support of these guns directly.

The last I saw of the Union Coffee Mills guns they were in a mass together in a little rise of the ground about two hundred yards back of our line and this was when we were retreating. I have always understood here that Sergeant Dalzell, who was the color bearer of the Third Regiment, was with these guns at that time.

After returning the colors to a group of the Second Regiment which was the nucleus of the new line and which line was forming very rapidly, for the men were not running away in a panic at all, and after Gen. Taylor got in front of them and called them to rally, they did rally and at once. It was then getting quite dusk and on the right of our brigade there came up a brigade from the direction of the Chickahominy and this I found to be Gen. Meagher's Irish Brigade. This brigade went into position of the right of our line, and I want to say that our line was formed before that brigade came up, and of this I am positive.

While our line was forming, men came in from the front and took position, regardless of what regiment they belonged and in that line there were a great many men of other regiments besides the Jersey Regiments. Gen. Taylor told me to go to the left and help anybody form the line down to the river, and this I did. Assisting several general officers whose names I did not know, and about dark there was quite a good line formed. The left of which extended almost to the river if not quite there. There were a few pieces of artillery in this line on the left and some few cavalry. The enemy came out of the woods immediately after the brigade retreated through the woods, a very solid, good formation, but after taking the guns which I have spoken of, for some extraordinary reason they did not come on any farther, and why I have never been able to ascertain from any account of this battle that I have ever read. There was no military reason that any one can see why a charge by the enemy along the line, or at any part of it, after Gen. Porter's line of battle was broken should not have been entirely and absolutely successful.

There is no question that our brigade and others would have fought on that last line, but I think that it would have been a forlorn hope. The battle was totally lost and every man knew it.

The enemy did not advance, and after dark the troops commenced to retire across the bridges in our rear. These bridges were small, frail things not much wider than four men could march abreast.

In the rear of the entire left of the new line of which I spoke, there was only one of them. The orders to withdraw our brigade came to General Taylor about quarter of nine o'clock. The enemy had been firing slowly with artillery and undoubtedly endeavoring to strike the bridges and many of their shot came close to the bridge heads, but I do not think that any of them struck the bridge itself.

Just at nine o'clock as the Third Regiment was going over the bridge and the General and myself were riding with it, just before we came to the bridge head Lieutenant Howell of Company I, of the Third Regiment, who was one of my dearest personal friends, came out of the ranks and shook hands with me saying how glad he was that we were both alive. He walked a few paces and turned there to say something else to me or to some of his company, and a round shot that was fired by the enemy's gun struck him full in the breast and literally tore him to pieces.

The brigade crossed the bridge and returned to its camp which they left in the morning not far from the Fair Oaks battlefield which it reached about ten o'clock that night. This was one of the most sorrowful nights that I ever remember. We had lost a great battle, which every man and officer knew should never have been fought in that way, and at that place, and every one of us lost dear friends and companions and what was worse their mangled bodies were at the tender mercy of the enemy. Only a few wounded men escaped and what few we did get away were taken to the field hospital at Savage Station and fell into the hands of the enemy there. This battle was a stupendous military error from beginning to end. History shows now and our military leaders should have known then, that, after the battle of Mechanicsville, the day before, in which the enemy suffered severe repulse, the right wing of our army should have been withdrawn that night to the south of the Chickahominy River, and under no circumstances should have been allowed to wait, in that false position in which they met the fierce assault of the forty thousand fresh troops of Stonewall Jackson, who was then coming through the valley, and was known to be coming, and who struck us hard in the place where we were without entrenchments and without support, on the afternoon of the 27th of June. Any one who reads history cannot fail to see that General McClellan's fatal mistake in his Chickahominy campaign was that he did not advance with his whole force on Richmond after he had practically won the battle of Fair Oaks.

The next morning the sorrowful duty of burying the knap-sacks of the Fourth Regiment to which I have alluded, was performed, and I was detailed to see that this was done, and I did so and I think I can find the place, although I have never tried to. The next day the brigade moved to Savage Station and after a short halt moved on towards White Oak Swamp. During this halt at Savage Station many of us visited the field hospitals in which were the wounded whom we had been able to bring from the Gaines' Mills fight, and many wounded men who had been in that battle were in tents scattered around the ground of the station house, and here I paid a last farewell to many a dear friend, among them Lieutenant Wm. Evans of Company B of the Third Regiment, one of the most devoted friends of my life, who was shot through the upper part of the left lung and died within twenty-four hours after we left him. I pushed into his jacket as I said good-bye, all the money I had, not more than six or seven dollars except one silver ten cent piece, and this also I parted with near Malvern Hill as I shall relate.

When the brigade reached the first bridge from the White Oak Swamp it was halted and General Taylor was told by an aid of General Slocum's that we were to be the rear division of the army, and that he must keep himself in touch with Division Headquarters wherever they were. This order caused me to

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