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Chapter 12: McClellan's change of base.
The Seven day's retreat.
For several days speculation had been rife as to when the army would enter
Richmond.
Soon the news came of the disaster on the right.
The enemy had turned the right flank, supplies and trains were in danger and an immediate change of base must be made.
On Saturday, June 28, orders were given to prepare for a forced march.
Some of the men were told to throw away everything but gun and equipment, haversack, canteen and one piece of shelter tent, rubber or woolen blanket, and, in whatever they chose to carry, to wrap a change of underclothing.
Part of the tents were to be left standing and slit so that they would be of no use to the rebels.
Everything not carried was to be destroyed in some way. Everyone knew that this meant ‘retreat,’—where, they did not know.
At night the men lay down behind the breastwork, fully equipped for march or fight.
Although they had kept their spirits up and had been cheerful under the inspiring cry of ‘On to
Richmond,’ the hardships and exposures had been almost beyond human endurance.
Forced to live with their bodies bound up in military trappings day and night, constantly on duty, either on picket or in building fortifications in the rain or hot sun, with food of an inferior quality, much poorer than they ever got before or after, water that a beast would scorn to drink in
New England (always the color of a mud puddle in a northern road after a shower) and never cool, hundreds had been taken sick and carried to the general hospital.
For two weeks or more the air had been polluted by the hundreds of putrid corpses interred in shallow graves.
Now, at the end of the
