Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 130.djvu/600

592  observes, suits well the American character, which can at times combine the strangest daring with its ordinary prudence and hesitation.

Unfortunately for MacClellan's reputation his movements were not as prompt as his designs. Perhaps this was inevitable with so large a mass of comparatively raw troops to deal with; but the fact might have been put with more plainness in the narrative before us, which at this one point seems to fail in precision. He expected that the combined Confederate attack would be made on the 28th, but this estimate did not allow sufficiently for the eagerness and speed of his adversaries. On the eve of the 26th they began to fall upon his exposed wing, and on the 27th the apparently decisive battle of Gaines' Hill found Jackson turning the Federal right and driving it back over the Chickahominy, crushed in numbers and spirit, and abandoning a large part of its guns to the victorious foe, whilst Magruder's false attack along the southern bank had kept the main body of the Federals too fully occupied to support it.

It was no wonder that the Confederates asserted their victory, and even hoped for such a crowning triumph as might close the war at a blow. The passages of the stream were in their hands; the country between it and the James was, as before explained, a difficult one, better known to them than their adversary. And he had, to all appearance, lost his proper communications beyond hope of recovery. Destruction or surrender might have seemed the only alternative, judged by the ordinary precedents of war. But it was precisely here that such precedents failed. Although the "strategic change of base" had now become a flight for safety, to be executed in the very face of a victorious enemy whose vigor and skill had just been so signally displayed, MacClellan lost not his confidence in himself, and, what is far more surprising, his men showed as much trust in his leadership, and as much faith in their own defensive power, as though they were the victors instead of the vanquished in the struggle at the Chickahominy. The history of European warfare may be ransacked in vain to find a parallel to the events of the six days that followed. Through the White Oak Swamp one hundred thousand men took their retreating way, carrying with them their provisions and stores. On their rear and on either flank pressed the pursuers flushed with recent victory. From the east Jackson sought to complete his late success by intercepting them wherever there seemed an opening to thrust his troops between them and the road to the James. From the west Magruder, burning to take a more distinguished part than had yet been his lot, pressed the other flank. But the Federals never lost heart, nor yielded any decisive point till it could serve no longer to cover their retreat. From the very difficulties of the swamp and forest, which had seemed to threaten them with destruction or shame, their unfailing nerve and steadiness drew safety and honor. The dangers of the ground to be traversed turned to their advantage when it ceased, and having made good their retreat through the White Oak to the open ground on the James, where their gun-boats lay waiting to cover their retreat, they rested and turned fiercely to face the pursuers in the first position suited to form line. Desperate at the thought of their coming escape, Magruder threw his eager regiments on the foe before him, prepared at any sacrifice to push it in panic rout back on the James; and the bloody counterstroke of Malvern Hill, which drove his corps back shattered from an untouched position, covered the close of this extraordinary campaign with a halo of success for the Federals which threw for the time into the shade their late defeat and the long hesitancy that had preceded it. At Malvern Hill they first taught the Confederates the truth which the world is slowly realizing, that the American soldier is most formidable when apparently defeated, and least subject to panic when retreating before a victorious enemy. 