William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac

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[151] Hill, the Confederate commander now ordered Longstreet, who held the right of the Confederate line, to make a feint on the left of the Union position; but Longstreet soon discovered that, owing to the strength of this point, the feint to be effective would have to be converted into a real attack.¹ While dispositions for this were in progress, Jackson's corps together with D. H. Hill's division arrived; and when dispositions had been completed, a general advance from right to left was made at six o'clock. Previous to this, General Porter, finding himself hard pressed, had called for reenforcements, and in response, General McClellan, at half-past 3, sent him Slocum's division of Franklin's corps, which increased his force to thirty-five thousand men. It was evident, however, that, beyond this, Porter could expect little or no aid, for the troops on the south bank of the Chickahominy had at the same time their attention fully engaged by the demonstrations of Magruder, who by energetic handling of his troops, making a great show and movement and clatter, held the corps commanders on the south side, to whom McClellan appealed for aid in behalf of Porter, so fully occupied that they declared they could with safety spare none.² And thus it happened that, while on the north side of the Chickahominy thirty thousand Union troops were being assailed by seventy thousand Confederates, twenty-five thousand Confederates on the south side held in check sixty thousand Union troops!

When, therefore, Lee, with all his divisions in hand, made a general advance, it was with an overwhelming weight and