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‘When Gen. Lee came back, he told me that Gen. Johnston proposed, on the next Thursday, to move against the enemy as follows: Gen. A. P. Hill was to move down the right flank and rear of the enemy; Gen. G. W. Smith, as soon as Hill's guns opened, was to cross the Chickahominy at the Meadow bridge, attack the enemy in flank, and by the conjunction of the two it was expected to double him up. Then Longstreet was to cross on the Mechanicsville bridge, and attack him in front.
From this plan the best results were hoped for by both of us.’
The ‘next Thursday’ was May 29.
In the Records appear no signs of battle until May 27.
On that day came news that
McDowell was starting south from
Fredericksburg.
Johnston immediately ordered troops into position for the attack at dawn on the 29th.
But, as has been told, on the 28th he received news of
McDowell's recall north.
That night he countermanded the battle orders, and had the troops withdrawn under cover of darkness from all advanced positions.
The President's narrative goes on :—
‘On the morning of the day proposed, I hastily despatched my office business and rode out toward the Meadow bridge to see the action commence.
On the road I found Smith's division halted, and the men dispersed in the woods.
Looking for some one from whom I could get information, I finally saw Gen. Hood, and asked him the meaning of what I saw. He told me that he did not know anything more than that they had been halted.
Riding on to the main road, which led to the Mechanicsville bridge, I found Gen. Longstreet, walking to and fro in an impatient, it might be said, fretful manner.
Before speaking to him, he said his division had been under arms all day waiting for orders to advance, and that the day was now so far spent that he did not know what was the matter.
Thus ended the offensive-defensive programme from which Lee expected much, and of which I was hopeful.’
But two days afterward, May 31, the
President rode out again late in the afternoon, and when on the Nine Mile road, heard firing in the direction of
Seven Pines.
Mr. Davis writes: —
‘As I drew nearer I saw Gen. Whiting with part of Gen. Smith's division file into the road in front of me; at the same time I saw Gen. Johnston ride across the field from a house before which Gen. Lee's horse was standing.1 I turned down to the house and ’
