Today in History:

897 Series I Volume XI-I Serial 12 - Peninsular Campaign Part I

Page 897 Chapter XXIII. BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS, OR SEVEN PINES.

Colonel Cochrane, on the road leading from Seven Pines to Fair Oaks Station and nearly in the rear of the First Ling Island Regiment; Thirty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Williams, near the railroad, on the road leading from the station to Richmond; Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Rippey, near the railroad, on the road leading from the depot to the Chickahominy-Trent's. The duty assigned to the last two regiments was to guard the crossing at the depot.

I received orders at 1 o'clock to take position with the First Chasseurs, Thirty-first and Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, and Brady's battery of First Pennsylvania Artillery, near the camp of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, to prevent the enemy from turning our right flank. Shortly afterward the Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers was placed in position near the Twenty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers, then already engaged. I was by the falling back of Casey's division entirely cut off from the regiments of my brigade engaged in the center, and have to refer to the reports of the regimental commanders.

The annexed lists* of casualties show that they fought well, and from my position on the right of the railroad I could judge by the report of their guns that they fell back gradually and in good order. I have no doubt that if I could have been permitted to leave my position and closed in nearer to the right and re-enforced them with the balance of my command the enemy would have been checked. As it is, the dead of the enemy on the portion of the battle-field occupied by First Long Island Volunteers, Twenty-third and Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers are the proofs I have of the gallantry displayed by those regiments. The Sixty first Pennsylvania Volunteers mourn the loss of all their field officers, the colonel killed, lieutenant-colonel and major wounded and missing.

The cavalry outposts came in from the front, reporting that the enemy was approaching in large numbers-infantry, cavalry, and artillery-and being cut off entirely from Keyes' army corps I, with the sanction of General Couch, commanding division, sent an officer of my staff, Captain Van Ness, brigade quartermaster, to inform General Sumner of the state of affairs. Finding my position untenable, I fell back on the road from the depot to Trent's house as far as Courtney's house, about half a mile, and there formed line of battle, the Thirty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers nearest the house, behind a low rail fence, in the rear of a piece of woods. Two companies of the Sixty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers and First U. S. Chasseurs were posted on the right of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers. The other troops on the ground at the time were the Sixty-second New York and Seventh Massachusetts Volunteers and a section of Brady's battery, formed on the left of the road. The other section of Brady's battery was placed on the right of my command, near the First Minnesota Regiment, as soon as that regiment, with the rest of the troops under General Sumner, arrived on the ground.

In concluding this report it would be an act of great injustice not to mention Captain Brady and my staff, Captain Gustavus Urban, assistant adjutant-general, and Captain Van Ness, brigade quartermaster, Lieutenants Adams and Appleton, aides, who were, owing to the divided state of my brigade, kept constantly under fire in passing from one portion to the other of it. I must also mention among the list of my

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*Embodied in revised statement, p. 761.

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57 R R-VOL XI


Page 897 Chapter XXIII. BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS, OR SEVEN PINES.