Glover Chapter 10

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"But the Field Was Not the Battle"

The Reserves' respite from fighting would be short. The battle of the previous day had not gone to the liking of R. E. Lee. Today he would have another opportunity. Before the setting of the sun the Southern commander's great military reputation would be well started.
During the hot, still morning the Bucktails were able to snatch a little rest in the comparative coolness of a little woods which separated McCall's Division from the front line. Early afternoon brought to the weary men the sound of the beginning of another battle. A. P. Hill was at it again. This time it was with the full blessing of Lee. Attacking across difficult terrain, which included a stream known as Boatswains Swamp, Hill tried for two hours to break the Federal line without success. About four o'clock Longstreet was advanced against the Union left. A little later Stonewall Jackson and D.H. Hill started in on the right. The greater part of the Army of Northern Virginia was pitted against the divisions of Morell and Sykes. Only General Henry W. Slocum's Division was on its way from south of the Chickahominy. The Pennsylvania Reserves were in reserve no longer. These seemed to be needed all along the Union line.[1]
The Bucktails, the First, Fifth, and Eighth were sent to the center of the line where the divisions of Morell and Sykes joined. The Fifth was to the left of the 150 remaining

Bucktails. These two outfits had liked each other ever since their little expedition to Cumberland the previous summer, when, they now knew, they had been only playing war. Now, side by side, they lay behind some hastily dug entrenchments and slugged it out for a couple of hours with the enemy infantry concealed in woods and a Rebel battery plainly visibIe only five hundred yards away. Tired as they were, the Bucktail fire was accurate. After changing position several times, the enemy battery became silent. Ammunition was now running low both in the Fifth and First Rifles. As the Union fire slackened, the gray-clad troops came out of the woods and formed for a charge. At the command of their doughty major, almost a solid sheet of flame shot from the Bucktail rifles. Immediately the Fifth rushed forward to within 150 yards of the Confederates and poured another volley into the Rebels before they could recover from the accurate Bucktail fire. The enemy staggered back into the woods. However, this was about the end.
The threat to the immediate front of the two little Union regiments was at least temporarily thwarted. But on both sides the badly sagging Federal line was giving way. .Lee's concentration of troops was about to pay a rich dividend. To the left of the Fifth the Union line was falling back. To the right of the Rifles there came an enfilading fire which caught both Union outfits. Stone tried to change his front to meet it, but it was of no use. His men were now exactly in range of Union batteries. With one last defiant volley, the two regiments fell back with the general retreat. The Bucktails later found out that a Texas regiment of General John B. Hood had broken through on the Union left and that after that, the battle had been as good as over.[2]
The sun was going down as the Battle of Gaines' Mill was ended. There was nothing for Porter to do but to get his

battered corps across the Chickahominy. Two more brigades had come up from south of the river, but they were too late now.[3] The various units of McCall's Division had been sent in piecemeal, a regiment or two here or there, wherever a gap had to be plugged. For this reason the Reserves regiments struggling back in the early twilight had difficulty in finding each other. The fighting had been confused. The confusion was to continue.
Wagons, ambulances, guns, and caissons were all in a jumble at the approaches to the bridges. Walking wounded, stragglers from a score of regiments, remnants of detached units milled around in an unorganized mass of humanity. General Reynolds had been cut off. He would be captured the next morning. Stone and Captain Wister set about the chore of collecting as many of the Reserve Corps as could be rounded up. The Bucktail chaplain, W. H. D. Hatton, could offer a good rousing prayer when necessary. He was also handy at passing the ammunition. On this occasion be bent his efforts to helping open the traffic jam at the bridge approaches. No doubt wincing as much at the curses of the mule drivers as at the cries of the wounded in the ambulances, Hatton persisted until the wagons were at last moving over the Chickahominy in some semblance of order. Meanwhile Stone and Wister had succeeded in bringing together about two thousand of the Pennsylvania division. About 2 A.M. the next morning they too crossed south side of the river.[4]
Comparative calm prevailed on June 28. McClellan had his Army of the Potomac headed for the James. Harrison's Landing was to be the new base The Northern Army was beginning to stretch out the entire distance between the Chickahominy and Harrison's Landing, much handicapped in its retreat because of the poor condition of the roads and

ignorance of the existence of alternate routes that would speed the movement. Of the thousands of wagons that had to be gotten over White Oak Swamp and on to the new base some were started by the afternoon of the 28th. Among the vehicles left was a park of reserve artillery under the command of General H. T. Hunt. McCall's Division was assigned the job of seeing to it that this artillery got through the swamp. There were guns, caissons, battery wagons, thirteen batteries in all. The column was put in motion a little after dark. The night was black and rainy. The slow march lasted all night long. In the morning Savage Station was reached. Behind a row of little white buildings in a field enclosed by a white picket fence was a field hospital. It was full of wounded who did not know that they would be left behind when the Army moved on. The Bucktails searched anxiously among the wounded for missing comrades. Then it was on again across White Oak Swamp, where the artillery was left on firm ground south of the swamp. Relieved of the artillery burden McCall was alerted by McClellan as to a possible Confederate attack from the west. The Reserves spent the afternoon waiting for this attack which never came. At 5 P.M. the march was resumed and continued on into the night. At midnight the column halted near a little crossroads. The rest of the Fifth Corps had gone on to the James. McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves remained to fight another battle. They never could quite get the names of those little cross-roads straightened out. But they would never forget the place.[5]
Gaines' Mill had been a smashing victory for Lee against Porter. However, McClellan was getting away but in which direction Lee did not at first know. By the early morning of June 29 the Confederate commander was practically certain that "Little Mac" was making for James River and not back

down the Peninsula. Lee wanted to smash the Northern Army while it was strung out across the swampy neck of land. While McCall's Division had been on the alert south of White Oak Swamp during the afternoon of the 29th, a battle had been fought north of the swamp near Savage Station. It was a part of Lee's plan to roll up the Army of the Potomac. Things had not gone as the Southern commander had hoped. There was still time to try again. For June 30 R. E. Lee had another ambitious plan for the convergence of all his forces to wipe out the Northern Army on its retreat. Although the plan would not work, the remnant of Bucktails and the rest of the decimated Pennsylvania Reserves, at their little cross-roads bivouac, would feel the effects of that ambitious plan.[6]
The morning was calm and cloudless when McCall received his orders. Stay where you are, protect the vast train of wagons hurrying toward the James, repel any attack. The retreating train was moving south along the Quaker (Willis Church) Road. From the northwest led the Charles City Road which joined the Quaker Road at Riddell's Shop. The two roads formed an obtuse angle. Running nearly due east at this point from the direction of Richmond was a third road, known as the Long Bridge Road, which bisected the angle, and continued on to the northeast. The country to the west was mostly flat, except to the south of the Long Bridge Road where it became very uneven. On both sides of the road were woods, bogs, and underbrush. Here and there were small farmhouse clearings, the largest known as Frayser's Farm.[7]
The hot calm of the morning was broken by heavy cannonading back in the direction of White Oak Swamp. McCall had advanced some cavalry up the Long Bridge Road. When Meade and Seymour informed him of the discovery

of enemy pickets on this road, the First and Third Regiments were advanced in that direction. The artillery fire in the rear kept up until noon, but McCall was satisfied that the enemy would come from the west.[8]
The men in the ranks had fully expected to follow the bulk of the Army down the Quaker Road to the James, and rest a little. But there was to be no rest today for the battle tired Reserves. Facing West in a line perpendicular to the Long Bridge Road, McCall's Division, now reduced to less than six thousand formed a line of battle. The Second Brigade was placed on the right, the Third on the left, and the First, now commanded by Colonel Seneca G. Simmons, slightly in the rear in reserve. Enough Bucktails had now found their way back to their outfit so that Stone still had 150 men after his losses at Gaines' Mill. With the Bucktails were their comrades of a few days before at Mechanicsville, the Berdan Sharpshooters now numbering only eighty -four. In front of the infanty batteries were placed from right to left: Lieutenant Alanson Randol's and Captain James Thompson's (U.S. Artillery), all twelve-pounders, then Cooper's, and then Lietitenant Frank P. Amsden's with four extra guns. On the extreme left were two "Dutch" batteries of Morell's Division (Captains Otto Diedericks and John Knieriem), each four guns of twelve-pounder Parrotts.[9]
On each side of McCall were other Union divisions. After the Battle of Savage Station the day before, the Third Corps (Samuel P. Heintzelman), the Sixth (William B. Franklin), and the Second (Edwin V. Sumner) had all succeeded in withdrawing over White Oak Swamp. General Philip Kearny's Division (Third Corps) was to the right of McCall across the Long Bridge Road. John Sedgwick's Division of the Second Corps was to the rear of McCall and Kearny. Over to the far left, west of the Quaker Road, was another

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division of the Third Corps under General Joseph Hooker. On the extreme right faced up the Charles City Road was Henry W. Slocum's Division of the Sixth Corps. As on the day before, McClellan was not present. No one had overall command. There was much confusion. Even the locations of the other commands were not known to all of the division commanders. It was under these conditions that McClellan's divisions awaited the big push of General Robert E. Lee along those sandy roads where the marine shells which the men called coral seemed to be more abundant than elsewhere on the Peninsula.[10]
Through the morning hours, each one becoming hotter than the one before, the Bucktails waited for their third battle within less than a week. Tired now almost to numbness they waited. Noon passed, but still no sign of the inevitable struggle. In the woods in front there must be gray coated troops. They seemed almost reluctant to start anything. Finally, late in the afternoon, the skirmishers came in and artillery on both sides started to bark. It was Longstreet's men this time who were advancing on both sides of the Long Bridge Road. On McCall's left was the Twelfth Regiment. Seymour had placed six companies of this outfit in a log house and behind a rail breastwork, where they would command the enemy approach. Back of the six companies were the "Dutch" batteries, attached to McCall no one quite knew how or why. The remaining four companies of the Twelfth were to the rear of the batteries. In a little ravine still farther to the rear, Colonel James H. Childs had two squadrons of his Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry dismounted. Rebel artillery had found the range and shot and shell were being poured into the Twelfth. Out of the underbrush near the Long Bridge Road came Kemper's Virginians. The Twelfth tried to pick them off but on they came

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on the double-quick. The "Dutch" batteries had been firing with little effectiveness. Suddenly the "Dutch" abandoned their guns and made for the rear. With the Rebel yell on every lip, the advancing infantry took three volleys from the six barricaded companies. One column headed toward the ravine in the rear. They had the house and barricade nearly surrounded. It was either run or be captured. These Virginians could not be stopped. So the Twelfth ran.
Back in the ravine Childs' cavalry was encountering some of the musketry fire. Childs gave the order to mount, but before this could be done the men of the Twelfth came scrambling back so fast that they frightened the horses. Before the troopers could get their mounts under control they found that they, too, had joined the rapid rearward movement. With the animals finally calmed down, it was a disgusted cavalry colonel who vainly searched for a superior who could give him orders.[11]
McCall soon discovered that there was serious trouble on the left. The Fifth, together with the little Bucktail-Sharp-shooter Battalion, was ordered up diagonally to the left, picking up a part of the Tenth. With Stone's little force in the rear, the Fifth and Tenth charged into the flank of the Confederates. For a while they met with some success, but the Union ranks, too, had become broken, and before they could be reformed, another gray line was tearing in upon them. Stone, still in the rear, could see the Fifth and Tenth buckle and start to give way The Bucktail major, who had led his men somewhat farther to the left, now turned them to the front. To the rear was a crowded, confused group of Union soldiers, of what outfits Stone did not know. Ahead of him were the Fifth and the Tenth being swiftly driven back. Caught in this position, Stone ordered his men to lie flat on their bellies. As the badly battered regiments ran

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over his own men, Stone shouted to the retreating soldiers to reform back of the Bucktail Sharpshooter line. It was no use; all that was left to face the oncoming Rebels was Stone's thin line. Young Philip Holland, erstwhile school teacher and now senior Bucktail captain, was steadying his own men and shouting to the confused mass in the rear to come up in support. He caught a rebel ball and died instantly. Bucktails and Sharpshooters, this time without any stout entrenchments, were giving out volley after volley. Stone looked about. He knew he could not hold out. If they stayed they would be taken, and that soon, assuming that there were any left in the face of the murderous fire. He gave the order to fall back. The Confederates did not bother to pursue such an insignificant, albeit stubborn, little force but immediately turned to their left for bigger game.[12]
While his left was being driven back on Hooker's Division, General McCall was having serious trouble elsewhere. His point of the Union line seemed to be the target for all of the initial Confederate assaults. The Third Reserves started the battle well enough with an impetuous advance, but they came under the fire of their own artillery. Changing position, they next encountered fire from a Union regiment behind them. This was too much for the exhausted men. They bolted for the rear. The Fourth, which was in support of the Third, repulsed the first attack in nice shape. Then the Rebels started to drive them, but they rallied, only to be forced back again by the determined enemy. Suddenly the Fourth gave way entirely. Their honest colonel, Albert L. Magilton, had to report that it was not until the next morning that he could collect about two hundred of them.[13]
With the evaporation of the Third and Fourth Regiments, Captain Randol had no support for his battery. Randol had kept up a stubborn fire from the very first. His guns

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became masked by Federal soldiers and the Rebels were on top of them. Rallying a few companies, Randol charged his own battery now in enemy hands .Soldiers clubbed each other with rifle butts and ran each other through with bayonets. This animal-like fighting recovered the battery, but a fresh wave of gray soldiers was coming on. Randol withdrew, carrying off as much of the battery as the few men left with him could handle. This artillery captain on McCall's right was probably just as disgusted with the conduct of foot soldiers as a certain cavalry colonel on the left had been. Thompson's Battery had been previously ordered to leave the field when it was found impossible to move up the limbers of the caissons.[14]
McCall also was having a trying time with his center. Here, too, the artillery ammunition situation had been bungled. Amsden had opened a good fire with his own and the four extra guns of Kerns. Shortly it was discovered that all caissons had been sent to the rear. Frantically the lieutenant, time and time again, sent his buglers back to find them. They could not be found. With his limbers empty, Amsden took his battery to the rear by order of McCall himself. The Ninth Regiment, in support of Cooper's Battery, early in the fight had been ordered toward the left when McCall learned that things were going to pieces there. While the Ninth was probing for the enemy, Cooper's Battery was taken. Back came the Ninth and drove the Rebels off into some woods, recovering Cooper's guns. The Ninth followed the Confederates into the woods where the fighting at once became confused. C. F. Jackson, the Ninth's skipper, became separated from his men, who floundered around in the woods apparently completely losing their identity as a fighting unit. Another wave of Southern soldiers overran Cooper's guns.[15]

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As McCall's right and center gave way the burden of filling up the wide gaps in the line fell upon Sedgwick's Division. The brigade of General William W. Burns was sent in and later two other brigades. The Confederate charges appeared to concentrate on Kearny for a time Then it seemed to General Sumner, who had been watching the battle closely, that the Southern attacks would alternate between Hooker and Sedgwick.[16]
Major Stone with his Rifles and Sharpshooters found a regular melee about four hundred yards to the rear of the spot they had tried to hold until overpowered by the sheer force of the advancing Rebels. The major saw parts of six regiments milling around. All the men seemed to want was someone to take charge of them. Whatever panic they had previously felt was now gone, and they were just a beaten-up mass of soldiery, still with some fight left in them, looking for a leader. Bearded, grizzled Colonel Seneca Simmons, whose features always had borne a warlike cast, was dead, killed leading the charge. Meade, soon to be wounded, and Seymour had their hands full elsewhere. So Stone took it upon himself to provide the leadership which the men seemed so earnestly to crave. Major Stone was only of medium height, but his erect carriage, crop of jet black hair, and dark eagle eyes gave him a commanding appearance. Using the Bucktails and Sharpshooters as a nucleus, the doughty major set about the task of rounding up the men. Luckily Stone came upon Lieutenant Charles B. Lamborn. Lamborn was Reynolds' aide. After his general was captured, the lieutenant had attached himself to Meade. He had been able to keep an eye on the confused fighting and knew where the various units were.
Stone's only remaining officers were Captain Wister and Lieutenants William Allison Company B and Charles Bit-

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terling, Compan F. These men, with Lamborn, set to work to help Stone bring some organization out of the confusion. It took some time, but as the sun was sinking behind the woods toward Richmond, Stone started his column up the Long Bridge Road. Six regimental colors were in the line. Enemy shot and shell was still coming over. Soon they were back among the wrecked batteries on the original line. There General McCall came up, wounded and alone. It must have warmed the proud old soldier's heart to see this remnant of his command, whipped as they had been, back on the old line ready for more of the same if necessary. It was now nearly dark. The artillery fire having stopped no one knew where the enemy was or, in fact, if he was still
there. McCall and Stone rode ahead up the road. Rounding a bend, they almost ran into a column of Confederates which filled the road ahead of them. Brigadier General George A.
McCall ended this most bitter of all days by becoming a prisoner. Not so Major Roy Stone. At the command, "Halt dismount," he wheeled his horse and galloped back down the road. A Rebel ball struck him in the hand as he turned. The major formed a company across the road and started looking for a cannon to sweep the front. But it was too dark to fight. The Battle of Frayser's Farm was over.[17]
The Army of Northern Virginia had won the field. "But the field was not the battle . . ." Now McClellan would have the night-time hours in which to get the rest of his army to the James. A sad George McCall was headed for a Richmond prison. Robert E. Lee must also have been sad. His grand scheme of convergence had again failed. Most of the blame would have to go to his own generals, Jackson, Magruder, and Holmes. Sad George McCall could have taken
some consolation, if he had then known that the next morn-

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ing General Longstreet would put a goodly portion of the blame for Lee's failure on the Union so iers who bore the brunt of Longstreet's initial attack, the division of General George A. McCall.[18]