Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/330

306 cavalry brigade and the two infantry divisions of Ewell and Winder, only about 12,000 men, but all hardy and well-tested veterans; and on the 27th another 12,000 under A. P. Hill were added to Stonewall's command. Pope's unheard-of orders came to Lee's hands during these preparations. That gentle-mannered man and model soldier characterized such threatenings against "defenseless citizens" as "atrocious," and by direction of his government sent a note to Halleck, the general commanding the Federal forces, protesting that such orders were in violation of the recent cartel entered into for the exchange of prisoners, and characterizing them as beginning "a savage war in which no quarter is to be given." Halleck did not reply to the protest; but it was noticed that Pope, for some reason, changed his behavior.

Lee still had 50,000 men in front of Richmond, watching for any opportunity to strike his enemy that might offer itself. A reconnoissance, on the south side of the James, revealed the fact that Coggin's point, opposite McClellan's camp across the James, and projecting toward its rear, commanded that camp from its bluffs and was within range of field artillery. Taking advantage of this, Lee sent D. H. Hill, secretly, to this point on July 31st, and he, under cover of darkness, startled the Federals in their camp and shipping by pouring into them the fire of forty-three pieces of artillery, doing considerable damage but suffering none, as he retired before an attack could be planned against him. This stung McClellan to seek retaliation, and on August 5th he moved out to Malvern hill, in battle array. Lee promptly advanced to Charles City crossroads, ordering his left to threaten McClellan's rear, while with the brigades of Cobb and Evans, on the right, he drove the Federals behind the guns on the Malvern ridge and waited for the morning, designing to try again for the capture of that formidable position; but when morning came there was nothing there to meet him, as McClellan's courage failed when he found Lee ready to fight him.

Jackson's advance reached Gordonsville on the 19th of July, and he at once marched his veterans to the charming Piedmont region west of the coast range (the "little mountains of Orange," as Light Horse Harry Lee called them), where they luxuriated amid the open groves and in the grassy fields of that charming region, and