previous next
[413] to the movement of their munitions of war and camp equipage to their lines at Richmond, and at evening they went in that direction themselves.

On the following morning Heintzelman sent Hooker with a strong reconnoitering party toward the Confederate capital. He went within four miles

Hooker's Headquarters.1

of the city without meeting any armed men, excepting a few pickets. On hearing of this temerity, McClellan ordered him back to Casey's camp,2 where , at the house of George Turner, he established his Headquarters, and fortified it; and orders were given to throw up a line of strong entrenchments in front of Fair Oaks, to protect the army while building bridges over the Chickahominy.3 Hooker established a hospital at a house near Fair Oaks Station, around which the tents of the sick and wounded were soon. grouped. The losses in the battle of Fair Oaks or the seven Pines4 were very heavy, and about equal on both sides, amounting in the aggregate to about seven thousand each.5 This was heavy, when it is considered that not more than fifteen thousand men on either side were engaged in the conflict. Casey's division, that so gallantly withstood the first shock of battle, lost one-third of its number.6 The whole affair was managed on the part of the Nationals without any controlling end, for the Commander-in-Chief was

1 this was the appearance of Hooker's Headquarters when the writer sketched it, at the close of May, 1866. in the foreground, on the right, is seen a part of the fortifications cast up there, and the trees in front of the two buildings, under which was Casey's tent.

2 His order was--“General Hooker will return from his brilliant reconnoissance; we cannot afford to lose his division.”

3 McClellan's Report, page 118. The General gave as a reason for recalling Hooker, that the bad state of the roads would not warrant an attempt to march on Richmond, or hold a position so near it. It was. the opinion of several of his general officers that had Hooker been allowed to press on, with the supports at hand, he could have gone into Richmond, for the Confederates were disheartened by the loss of their chief, and demoralized by the events of the two preceding days. McClellan said on the same day, in a dispatch to the Secretary of War: “The morale of my troops is now such that I can venture much. I do not fear odds against me.”

4 Both titles are correct, and yet the use of them as synonyms in describing the battle would give an erroneous impression. In front of the place known as The Seven Pines, and at Fair Oaks Station-positions but a short distance apart — the heaviest engagements of the great battle were fought on the same day, and partly by the same troops.

5 Among the National officers killed or disabled in this battle were Colonel Bailey and Major Van Valkenburg, of the artillery, and Colonels Riker, Brown, Ripley, and Miller, of the infantry. Among the wounded were Generals Naglee, Devens, Howard, and Wessels, and Colonel Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire.

6 This division, though composed in a large degree of raw troops, performed wonders of prowess, as we have seen; yet, in consequence of misinformation, it was exposed to severe public censure by McClellan's first dispatch to the Secretary of War, in which he said that it “gave way unaccountably and discreditably.” Convinced of his error, the General so informed the Secretary a few days afterward, and, in a degree, made reparation for the injury.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
May, 1866 AD (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: