AMERICA - Joel Cook

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extended his army around to the north, enveloping it upon a line which was the arc of a circle, from seven miles east to five miles north of the city. The Chickahominy flows through a broad and swampy depression in the table-land north and east of Richmond, bordered by meadows, fens and thickets of underbrush. It thus divided McClellan's investing army, and the first great battle near Richmond was begun by the Confederates, who took advantage of a heavy rain late in May which had swollen the river and swamps. They fell upon the Union left wing on May 31st, and the indecisive battle of Fair Oaks, in which the losses were ten thousand men, was fought southwest of the Chickahominy. General Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate Commander, was badly wounded, and General Lee succeeded him, continuing in command until the war closed. Extensive cemeteries now mark this battlefield among the swamps. During June the heat and malaria filled McClellan's hospitals with fever cases, and he had to move the greater portion of his army to higher ground north of the Chickahominy, where he erected protective earthworks. These still exist, with the formidable ranges of opposing Confederate works on the south side of the river.

      One of the most brilliant Confederate movements of the war followed. McClellan's right wing stretched around to the village of Mechanicsville, five miles north of Richmond, and Lee determined to overwhelm this wing. Stonewall Jackson had been driving the Union troops out of the Shenandoah Valley northwest of Richmond, and late in June began a combined movement with Lee's army at Richmond. Longstreet and Hill crossed the Chickahominy above Mechanicsville and attacked the Union right, beginning the "Seven Days' Battles," lasting from June 25 to July 1, 1862. Jackson was to have got down the same day from the Shenandoah Valley, but his march was delayed, and this gave time for McClellan to withdraw his wing and extensive baggage trains across the swamps below, the stubborn defense by his rear guards making the fierce conflict of Gaines' Mill, on the second day, during which Jackson, coming from the northward and joining the others, compelled the Union lines to change front, the contest thus turning into the first battle of Cold Harbor, in which the rear held their ground until the retreat was completed across the Chickahominy, and withdrew, destroying roads and bridges behind them. McClellan then made a further retreat, for which these obstructive tactics gave time, across the White Oak Swamp down the river, moving on a single road, leading to higher ground, which was held by hasty defenses. The Confederate attacks upon this new line made the battles of Savage Station, Charles City Cross Roads, and Frazier's Farm, the pursuit being checked long enough to permit another retreat and the formation of lines of defense on Malvern Hill, fifteen miles southeast of Richmond, adjoining James River. The Confederates again attacked, but met a disastrous check; and, wearied by a week of battles and marches, they then desisted, closing the seven days' fighting, in which both sides were worn out, and the losses were forty thousand men. McClellan's army, having retreated from around Richmond, afterwards withdrew farther down James River to Harrison's Landing, and here they rested. Subsequently they were removed by vessels to Washington for the later campaign which resulted in the second battle of Bull Run, McClellan being superseded for a brief period by Pope. This brilliant Confederate movement against McClellan raised the siege and relieved Richmond, emboldening them to make their subsequent aggressive campaigns across the Potomac, which were checked at Antietam and at Gettysburg.

      GRANT'S SIEGE OF RICHMOND.

      There were no Union attacks directly against Richmond in 1863. The second great movement upon the Confederate Capital began in June, 1864, when Grant came down through the Wilderness, as already described, and attacked the Confederates at Cold Harbor. Lee was entrenched there in almost the same defensive position occupied by McClellan's rear when protecting his retreat across the Chickahominy two years before. Grant made little impression, but in a brief and bloody battle lost fifteen thousand men. He then turned aside from this almost impregnable position to the northeast of Richmond, went south to the James River, and, crossing over, started a new attack from a different quarter. This removed the seat of war to the south of Richmond, and in September, 1864, General Butler's Unionist troops from Bermuda Hundred captured Fort Harrison, a strong work on the northeast side of the James, opposite Drewry's Bluff, and not far from Malvern Hill. The campaign then became one of stubborn persistence. Throughout the autumn and winter Grant gradually spread his lines westward around Petersburg, so that the later movements were more a siege of that city than of Richmond. City Point, at the mouth of the Appomattox, flowing out from Petersburg to the James, became his base of supplies. As the Union lines were extended steadily westward, one railway after another, leading from the far South up to Petersburg and Richmond, was cut off, and Lee was ultimately starved out, forcing the abandonment of Petersburg in the early spring of 1865, and the evacuation of Richmond on April 3d, with the retreat of Lee westward, and the final surrender at Appomattox six days later, causing the downfall of the Confederacy, and ending the war.

      From the top of Libby Hill in Richmond the route is still pointed out by which the swiftly moving Union troops, after that fateful Sunday of the evacuation, advanced over the level lands from Petersburg towards the burning city. The bridges across the James were burnt, and acres of buildings in the business section were in flames when they came to the river bank and found that the greater portion of the affrighted people had fled. The Yankees quickly laid a pontoon bridge, crossed to Shockoe Hill, rushed up to the Capitol, and raised the Union "Stars and Stripes" on the roof, replacing the Confederate "Stars and Bars." Then they went vigorously to work putting out the fires, and the new infusion of life given the city by its baptism of blood imparted an energy which has not only restored it, but has given it an era of great prosperity. It is a curious fact that the nearest approach any Northern troops made to Richmond during the progress of the war was in March, 1864. A precursor to Grant's march through the Wilderness was a dashing cavalry raid from the northward, the troopers crossing the Chickahominy, then unguarded, and advancing to a point about one mile from the city limits. Here they met some resistance, and, learning of defensive works farther ahead, General Kilpatrick, who commanded the raiders, retreated. General Lee's troops were then fifty miles away from Richmond, guarding the lines along the Rappahannock.

      PIEDMONT AND THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

      In the great strategic movements of the opposing armies of the Civil War they repeatedly traversed a large part of Virginia and Maryland to the northwest of the route between Washington and Richmond. Like the general coastal formation east of the Alleghenies, Virginia rises into successive ridges parallel with the mountains. The first range of low broken hills stretching southwest from the Potomac are called in different parts the Kittoctin, Bull Run and other mountains extending down to the Carolina boundary. From these, what is known as the Piedmont district stretches all across the State, and has a width of about twenty-five miles to the base of the Blue Ridge, being a succession of picturesque valleys and rolling lands, the general elevation gradually increasing towards the northwest, where it is bordered by the towering Blue Ridge and its many spurs and plateaus, with passages through at various gaps. The Blue Ridge is elevated about fifteen hundred feet at the Potomac, but Mount Marshall, at Front Royal, rises nearly thirty-four hundred feet, and the Peaks of Otter, farther southwest, are much higher. Beyond this is the great Appalachian Valley, which stretches from New England to Alabama, the section here being known as the "Valley of Virginia," and its northern portion as the Shenandoah Valley. This is a belt of rolling country, with many hills and vales, diversified by streams that wind among the hillsides, and having a varying breadth of ten to fifty miles in different parts. Beyond it, to the northwest, are the main Allegheny Mountain ranges. The opposing troops marched and fought over all this country in connection with the greater military movements, and here was the special theatre of Stonewall Jackson's exploits and his wonderful marches and quick manœuvres which made his troops proudly style themselves his "foot cavalry." The memory of Jackson is cherished by the Southern people more than that of any other of their leaders in the Civil War, and his brilliant exploits and inopportune death have made him their special hero.

      In the Piedmont region, to the southeast and in front of the Blue Ridge, are the towns of Leesburg, Manassas, Warrenton, Culpepper, Orange and Charlottesville, all well known in connection with the opposing military movements. Charlottesville, about sixty-five miles northwest of Richmond, in a beautiful situation, was an important Confederate base of supplies. Here are now about six thousand people, and the town has its chief fame as the seat of the University of Virginia and the home

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