Glover Chapter 9

War in Earnest

Grim indeed was the sign which greeted the Reserves after they had marched but a short distance from the dock. In big bold letters it read: "For the Embalming of the Dead." A couple of men stood on either side of the column to hand the soldiers leaflets which explained the proffered services. Was this psychological warfare 1862 style? If so, the Reserves would admit no adverse effect. They told the touting morticians to go right ahead and do the job then and there. But, the soldiers added, the embalmers must guarantee that the work would not interfere with their hardtack eating ability nor spoil their good looks.
White House on the Pamunkey was the base of the Army of the Potomac. McCall's Division would now become a part of the Fifth Corps under the command of Brigadier General Fitz-John Porter, a favorite of McClellan. By the time McCall reached the Peninsula, Porter's Fifth Corps was the only corps on the north side of a stream known as the Chickahominy. This muddy, swampy river runs down the western part of the Peninsula in the general direction of northwest to southeast and empties into the James. The Chickahominy, together with White Oak Swamp south of it, was destined to become a very important factor in the forthcoming Seven Days Battles. The Army of the Potomac was astride a river.[1]

Two days after landing at White House found the First and Second Brigades camped at Dispatch Station on theYork River Railroad, which ran from White House toward Richmond. Eight miles down the railroad from Dispatch Station toward White House was Tunstall's Station. It just so happened that Tunstall's had been selected as a good point to hit by Jeb Stuart, who was staging the first of his famous rides around the Northern Army. So back down the railroad went the two brigades under the command of General Reynolds, the only brigade commander who had as yet arrived on the Peninsula. The six companies of Bucktails, now under Major Roy Stone, were advanced as skirmishers. Under a bright moon, the Bucktails started out to find their old Dranesville foe. They were too late. By the time Reynolds' command reached Tunstall's, the Southern Cavalier had left. The small guard had been overpowered. Telegraph lines had been cut, a bridge was burning, so was a car of corn on a siding, and there were two dead civilian laborers. There was nothing for infantry to do but to put out the fires. Shortly, a Northern cavalry unit came along under the command of Stuart's father-in-law, General Philip St. George Cooke. He went on after his relative, but never did catch him. The Reserves turned back up the York River Railroad. By June 19 they reached Porter's Corps at Mechanicsville, on the north bank of the Chickahominy, northeast of Richmond. Just as they had been during the previous winter, the Pennsylvania Reserves were again a part of the right wing of the Northern Army.[2]
Just east of Mechanicsville runs Beaver Dam Creek north and south to the Chickahominy. McCall's Division, on the extreme right of the Fifth Corps, proceeded to dig, in along an elevation on the east side of the small creek. As it was to turn out, it was a good thing they did. After Fair Oaks Mc-

Clellan again decided upon a siege operation to take Richmond. Robert E. Lee, who had been put in command of the Confederate Army after Johnston was wounded at FairOaks, did not propose to submit to any siege. General Lee would bring Stonewall Jackson from the Shenandoah Valley. With Jackson, Lee would throw the bulk of his Army of Northern Virginia against the single Federal corps on the north side of the Chickahominy. Lee would gamble that McClellan would do nothing with his four corps south of the Chickahominy while Lee was concentrating on Porter north of the stream. Southern success against Porter would cut the Army of the Potomac from its supply base at White House.
On the hot morning of June 26 McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves, about ten thousand strong, were in their ,tight little entrenchments. The Bucktails were next to the Second Regiment of the First Brigade, which was the extreme Union right. The Third Brigade, now under Brigadier General Truman Seymour, was on the left. Meade's Second Brigade was in reserve. As usual the Bucktails were advanced on picket duty. When it was learned that Federal cavalry (Eighth Illinois) was being driven in farther up the Chickahominy, the Bucktails and the Fifth,Regiment were ordered in that direction. At Meadow Bridge, about a mile west of Mechanicsville, the Fifth and three companies of the First Rifles were stationed to watch this crossing of the stream. Major Stone with the three remaining companies of Bucktails, pushed on in the direction of Atlee's Station to support the cavalry, While Stone and Companies B, D, and K were thus advanced somebody pulled a boner. The Fifth and the three Bucktail companies at Meadow Bridge were withdrawn. A.P. Hill's Confederate Division started to pour over the Chickahominy. Companies B, D, and K might soon

be cut off. With D and K farther advanced, Captain Langhorne Wister's' Company B first encountered the advance of Hill from Meadow Bridge. Knowing the position of D and K, Wister held on as long as he could. This was not for very long as a whole confederate division was coming toward him. When Stone learned of the withdrawal at Meadow Bridge he hurried back to Wister's Company to warn it of the plight of the three advanced companies. With retreat by way of Mechanicsville cut off, Company B retired north and by a roundabout course got back to the Beaver Dam Creek line.[3]
Company D, under Captain John Jewett, had become busily engaged with some enemy infantry that had, crossed above Meadow Bridge. As soon as Stone had completed helping extricate B from its plight he then dashed ahead to D. The major naturally was anxious to save as much as possible of his little command. With the aid of some cavalry, Company D also started north and by even a more circuitous route than B had to take finally scrambled back into the line of the Reserves. Edward A. Irvin's Company K had been ordered along a road toward another another bridge farther up the Chickahominy. It had advanced some distance when Irwin was warned of the withdrawal down stream. Captain Irvin had been in the Army little more than a year, but he had learned that orders were to be obeyed, Stone's order to retire did not reach Irvin and without it he stayed. It soon became obvious to Company K that soldiers in gray were all about them. There was nothing to do but retire to the cover of a nearby swamp. Hiding by day and trying by night to find a way past the enemy, the little company finally worked itself back through the swamp nearly to Mechanicsville. Five days without rations this band of Clearfield County lumbermen spent in the hot swamp along the Chickahominy. After a

rainy night on the morning of July 1 they made a desperate, futile effort to break out. Their captors marched them to Richmond. There they were given a half bushel of soda crackers.[4]
By two-thirty the Bucktails minus Company K, were all back in the Beaver Dam Creek line. Their position near the right of the line was close to the road to Cold Harbor. Down the creek near the Union left ran another road from Mechanicsville, the Ellerson's Mill Road. Two companies of U.S. Berdan Sharpshooters were with the Bucktails. The Sharpshooters had a reputation as marksmen and were armed with Sharps breech-loading rifles. The Bucktails, diminished in number as they now were, no doubt were glad to have the Berdan men with them. General Reynolds had personally seen to the placing of the artillery. Back of the rifle pits on the Bucktail portion of the line he had placed four guns of Captain J. H. Cooper's Battery of 12-pounders. As the Bucktails looked out across the creek to the higher ground on the other side they knew a battle was imminent. Companies B and D, still breathing heavily from the chase in, were particularly aware of the situation. The FirstRifles and the Third Brigade had been at Dranesville. The rest of the Reserves had never been under fire. They must have been especially thankful for the stout entrenchments which could so well protect them from the bullets of the gray-clad mass now spilling over the Chickahominy bridges.[5]
Major Roy Stone, a little more than a year before busily engaged in directing lumbering operations in the cool mountains of northern Pennsylvania, was now more busily engaged in directing last minute preparations for his first fight as commander of the regiment near the hot swamps of the Chickahominy. Not yet twenty-six years old, his full beard and hard-bitten demeanor belied his comparative

youth. He was a tough skipper, but the men liked him and had confidence in him. He would leave the war a brevet brigadier general and would live to see service in the Spanish-American War .[6]
Enemy artillery began to appear on the high ground across the stream. At Dranesville the fire of the Rebel guns had not been very accurate, but the Bucktails remembered how disconcerting even inaccurate artillery fire could be. About three o'clock two gray columns started to edge out of Mechanicsville. Then the artillery across the stream opened. Shells were coming from a concealed battery a little upstream. Captain Cooper answered the hidden enemy battery so accurately that it soon had to change position farther down stream. Now the right hand gray column was advancing along the road leading to the ford in front of the Bucktails' position. From some woods directly across Beaver Dam Creek came the fire of a battery of smooth-bores. This fire was low, and the First Rifles hugged the sturdy entrenchments as they watched the Confederates advance toward the ford. Cooper's Battery was giving them trouble, but they kept coming on. Finally came the command to fire and the Bucktails and the Sharpshooters blazed away. As Major Stone wrote the next day the advancing regiments "melted away." The Bucktails with their muzzle-loaders could not match the Sharpshooters with their breech-loading rifles in rapidity of fire, but they were bound to make every shot count. Regiment after gray-clad regiment started across the creek only to be met with the accurate fire of two Union outfits that could handle firearms just as handily as the best of the Rebels. It was an uneven battle. Porter and McCall had selected a most favorable position and the men had been told to dig in. Reynolds had made sure that the batteries were placed as only artillery-experienced Reynolds could

place them. All up and down the Beaver Dam Creek line the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps held firm in well-nigh impregnable entrenchments. The Confederates did not give up until evening. The First and Third Brigades with minor reinforcements had stood off seventeen brigades of the Southern divisions of A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill, and Longstreet. The Battle of Mechanicsville was over. The Seven Days Battles had begun.[7]
That evening the hot, tired Bucktails knew only that they and the rest of the Reserves had stood their ground. What they did not know was that Stonewall Jackson had failed to come up, that A. P. Hill had decided not to wait for him and had gone in anyway, followed by the other Hill and Longstreet, and that Robert E. Lee had become so perturbed when he saw his divisions attacking a position he had studiously sought to avoid that the usually calm "Marse Robert" in effect ordered Jefferson Davis off the field to a place of safety.[8]
General McClellan had stayed close to headquarters during the fighting of June 26. Although the other corps were not involved, he remained south of the Chickahominy all day long and let the Fifth Corps fight its battle. "Little Mac" was evolving a plan which would mean more work for the lone corps north of the river. McClellan was going to change his base from White House on the Pamunkey to someplace on the James River. He had decided to pull out over eighty thousand men who were facing Richmond just a few miIes away and move them over White Oak Swamp across the Peninsula to the James and the protection of Union gunboats. Porter's Fifth Corps would stick it out north of the Chickahominy and cover the retreat. Jackson was now up and in a position to join Lee for the next day's battle. June

27 gave promise of being an interesting day for the command of General Fitz-John Porter.
          Slowly through the after-midnight hours the orders seeped down from the Army commander to the various units. Major Stone had refused relief except for picketing, and the Bucktails were trying to snatch a little sleep in their rifle pits just before dawn, when Stone received his orders. The Reserves were to retire to a new position near Gaines' Mill about three miles to the rear with the remainder of the Fifth Corps. Most of the artillery had already been withdrawn. The First Rifles and the Sharpshooters were to stay, and, with Cooper's Battery, they would defend the road on their front. To the Ninth Regiment a similar order had been
given as to the road nearer the Chickahominy. After the withdrawal had been completed the two covering forces could get back the best way they could.
          After the other units had pulled out Stone extended his men up and down the long line. In back of them a hot, red sun was pushing above the horizon as the Bucktails looked across the creek to batteries now advanced to grape-shot range. A solid column of infantry filled the road. The thin line of Bucktails and Sharpshooters commenced a brisk, defiant fire, Cooper opened with shot, shell, and finally canister. The fire of the Confederate batteries proved much hotter than the previous day. Cooper's men had difficulty serving their guns amid the rain of shot and shell. Their ammunition was running low. So was that of the riflemen. Shortly after 6 A.M. a courier dashed up to the hardworking major with a message that the withdrawal had been com-
pleted that he could get his men back as best he was able.
           By this time an enemy flanking movement was coming from the right. Company A, Captain Phili Holland, was

posted as a rear guard about three hundred yards from the ford. The other companies were ordered to fall back as rapidly as possible, except Wister's Company B, which was directed to destroy a bridge on the way. For half a mile after leaving the entrenchments the retiring regiment had to dodge artillery fire which kept pouring over from the other side of Beaver Dam Creek.[9]
          The Bucktails who reached the Gaines' Mill line found the Fifth Corps in another strong position. Porter's line was in an arc facing west extending from the Chickahominy on the left with the extreme right fronting north. The bridges were in the rear, and some high ground on the left bank of the river would, help in defending the roads in front of the Union line. The division of General George Sykes was on the right and that of George W. Morell was on the left. McCall's Division was placed about, six hundred yards in the rear in reserve.[10]
          With the events of the morning and the day before still vivid in his mind, Major Stone found time to write his report around noon. Of the six companies of the First Rifles, which had been advanced the previous morning, the Major could report that only 6 officers and 125 men had been able to struggle back to the Gaines' Mill line. During the day twenty-five more would find the remnant of their regiment.[11]
          Captain Alanson Niles, with a part of his Company E and a part of Company D, had been, so far separated from the rest of the Bucktails in the thin holding line of the early morning that he did not receive the order to make the dash for the Gaines' Mill line. With all chance of falling back cut off, Niles concealed his men in a swamp. The advancing Rebels, trying to probe the Union line, were annoyed and probably

misled by this little group of surrounded riflemen which persisted in shooting at them from their marshy retreat.[12]
The First Rifles at last were in reserve. They looked forward to getting a little rest, which they so badly needed and so well deserved. The history books correctly record the Battle of Mechanicsville as lasting a few hours of the afternoon and early evening of June 26. As to the Bucktails, this is does not tell the whole story. They had not only fought the battle. They had skirmished before it, and, after trying to catch a few winks of sleep on their arms, they had covered the withdrawal which followed the battle. It had been a tough twenty-four hours for them. The Bucktails were tired out.