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| Hospital at Fair Oaks.2 |
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not near the field, and scarcely knew what was going on there until all fighting had ceased on the second day.
For nearly a month after the battle just recorded, the Army of the Potomac lay along the line of the Chickahominy, a few miles from Richmond, in a very unhealthful situation,1 quietly besieging the Confederate capital, and apparently preparing to take it by storm.
In the mean time the Confederates concentrated their forces there for its defense.
“Stonewall Jackson,” having accomplished his purpose in the Shenandoah Valley, crossed the Blue Ridge, and, by a series of quick and inexplicable movements, made himself and his troops appear almost ubiquitous, and so puzzled the authorities at Washington
and the Generals in the field, that it seemed to them that he was as likely to be then sweeping down the Shenandoah Valley as to be moving toward Richmond.
That he was somewhere between the Rappahannock and Shenandoah, and the city of Richmond, with thirty or forty thousand troops, no one could doubt.
“Neither McDowell, who is at Manassas, nor Banks and Fremont, who are at Middletown,” the Secretary of War telegraphed to McClellan, so late as the 24th of June, “appear to have any accurate knowledge on the subject.”
The fact was, that on the 17th Jackson commenced a march of his main body to ward Richmond, leaving a brigade of cavalry and a battery at Harrisonburg, to watch the movements of the Nationals in the Valley, and on the 25th he arrived at Ashland, sixteen miles from Richmond, with about thirty-five thousand men, preparatory to a blow on McClellan's right.
Robert E. Lee had succeeded Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, and was now concentrating his troops to resist McClellan.
The posit ion of the Army of the Potomac was now peculiar and unfortunate, and required great skill andy caution in its management.
So long as it was inactive, it was necessary to hold a large force behind the Chickahominy, for the protection of its line of communication with its supplies at the
1 The troops on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy were soon strongly intrenched in the vicinity of Fair Oaks and the Seven Pines. Keyes was on the extreme flank, by the White Oak Swamp. On his right was Heintzelman, and still further to the right Sumner occupied ground on both sides of the railway. Still farther to the right was the division of Franklin, that crossed on the 5th of June. The line presented nearly four miles of front. The line of entrenchments was at an average distance from Richmond, in a direct line, of about five miles. The country was mostly level. In wet weather a greater portion of it was a swamp, and in dry weather it was dotted with stagnant pools.
Fitz-John Porter's corps remained behind the Chickahominy, his right resting near Meadow Bridge, well up toward the Central Virginia railway-crossing, with Stoneman's cavalry scouting on his flank, to watch the approaches between him and the Pamunkey to the line of communication with the depot of supplies at the White House.2 in this picture a good representation is given of the army wagon, used by thousands during the war.
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