capture our army or destroy it by driving it into the river, regiment after regiment rushed at our batteries; but the artillery of both Morell and Couch mowed them down with shrapnel, grape and canister, while our infantry, withholding their fire until they were within short range, scattered the remnants of their columns. The havoc made by the rapidly-bursting shells from our guns, arranged so as to sweep any position far and near, was fearful to behold. Pressed to the extreme as they were, the courage of our men was fully tried. The safety of our army the life of the Union was felt to be at stake.[1]
A portion of Ramseur s regiment slept upon the field with a portion of Lawton s brigade and some other troops, and during the night they heard the movement of troops and wondered what it meant. In the morning, as they surveyed the bloody field of the day before, the enemy was gone. "The volcano was silent. " McClellan had, against the protest of some of his generals, continued his retreat to Harrison s landing.
Both armies were terribly demoralized by this sanguinary conclusion to a protracted and exhausting campaign. On the day of Malvern Hill, General McClellan telegraphed to the adjutant-general, "I need 50,000 men."[2] Draper says: "Not even in the awful night that followed this awful battle was rest allotted to the national army. In less than two hours after the roar of combat had ceased, orders were given to resume the retreat and march to Harrison s landing. At midnight the utterly exhausted soldiers were groping their staggering way along a road described as desperate, in all the confusion of a fleeing and routed army."[3] McClellan seemed not to realize his advantage on that day’s field.
On the Confederate side there was also much confusion. The army was too much paralyzed to make any
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