Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/84

72 ton, and Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson, of the Fourteenth. Gregg lost 12 killed and 105 wounded, the heaviest loss falling on the Fourteenth. Jenkins lost over 450, 234 of these from the Sharpshooters, the remainder being nearly equally divided among the other regiments. Longstreet and Hill took fourteen pieces of artillery, thousands of arms, several stand of colors and hundreds of prisoners. The battle that General Lee had planned to be fought by all the divisions of his army was actually fought by two.

The Federal commanders greatly exaggerate the Confederate strength in the battle. Before Gaines’ Mill, A. P. Hill had 14,000 troops. He could not have had more than 10,000 in his division at Frayser’s Farm. Nor could Longstreet’s division have been larger. Kershaw carried only 1,496 into the battle of Savage Station, and his was one of Longstreet s best brigades. In McClellan’s five divisions there were fifteen brigades, which, at 1,500 each, would make his force at Frayser’s Farm great er than Longstreet’s and Hill’s by at least 2,500. It must be remembered, too, that A. P. Hill was not put into the fight until very late, when Longstreet had been engaged alone with the five divisions. It was a stubborn battle, and well contested on both sides, but the advantage was clearly with the Confederates.

In the battle of Malvern Hill, which followed the day after Frayser’s Farm, but one of Lee s South Carolina brigades was seriously engaged, that of Kershaw. McClellan rapidly and skillfully concentrated his army on the night of the 3oth of June and the morning of July 1st. He thus describes his position and concentration: &quot;The left and center of our lines rested on Malvern hill, while the right curved backward through a wooded country toward a point below Haxall’s, on James river. Malvern hill is an elevated plateau about a mile and a half by three-fourths of a mile in area, well cleared of timber, with several converging roads running over it.&quot;