William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

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[485] held the lower crossings of the Chickahominy and covered the roads to White House. The other cavalry division under Wilson took post on the right flank. The manner of attack ordered was of the kind already so often made in the course of this campaign—a general assault along the whole front of six miles, to be made at half-past 4 in the morning.

Next morning, with the first gray light of dawn struggling through the clouds, the preparations began: from behind the rude parapets there was an upstarting, a springing to arms, the muffled commands of officers forming the line. The attack was ordered at half-past 4, and it may have been five minutes after that, or it may have been ten minutes, but it certainly was not later than forty-five minutes past four, when the whole line was in motion, and the dark hollows between the armies were lit up with the fires of death.

It took hardly more than ten minutes of the figment men call time to decide the battle. There was along the whole line a rush—the spectacle of impregnable works—a bloody loss —then a sullen falling back, and the action was decided. Conceive of this in the large, and we shall then be able to descend to some of the points of action as they individualize themselves along the line.

Hancock held the left of the whole army. His attack was made by the division of Barlow on the left and Gibbon on the right, with Birney supporting. Barlow, formed in two lines, advanced, and found the enemy strongly posted in a sunken road in front of his works. From this, after a severe struggle, the enemy was dislodged and followed into his works, where several hundred prisoners, a color, and three guns were taken. The guns were immediately turned upon the enemy, forcing him to retreat in confusion from that part of the line. But this partial success was speedily turned into a reverse; for not only did Barlow's second line fail to come up to the prompt support of the first,¹ but the enemy, speedily reenforced, forced Barlow's troops out of the captured works.