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[152] pressure. The right1 held its ground with much stubbornness, repulsing every attack. The left, too, fought stoutly, but was at length broken by a determined charge, led by Hood's Texan troops. This, however, would not have sufficed to entail any great disaster; and Porter was withdrawing his infantry under cover of the fire of fifty guns, when the artillery on the height on the left was thrown into great confusion by a mass of cavalry rushing back from the front; and the batteries, being without support, retired in haste, overrunning the infantry, and throwing the whole mass into most admired disorder. The explanation of this is as follows. The cavalry had been directed to keep below the hill, and under no circumstances to appear on the crest, but to operate in the bottom land against the enemy's flank: nevertheless its commander, General Philip St. George Cook, doubtless misinformed, ordered it to charge between the infantry and artillery upon the enemy on the left, who had not yet emerged from the woods.2 This charge, executed in the face of a withering fire, resulted, of course, in the cavalry's being thrown back in confusion; and the bewildered horses, regardless of the efforts of the riders, wheeled about, and dashing through the batteries, convinced the gunners that they were charged by the enemy. Jackson, following up, carried the height on the left by an impetuous rush of Longstreet's and Whiting's divisions, capturing fourteen pieces of artillery; and the Union division under Morell, which held that wing, was driven back to the woods on the banks of the Chickahominy.3 The right continued
1 The right wing was held by Sykes' division of Regulars and Griffin's brigade, and was subsequently re-enforced by Bartlett's brigade of Slocum's division.
2 Porter: Report of Gaines' Mill.
3 Stonewall Jackson, in his official report of the battle of Gaines' Mill, gives the following spirited description of the decisive charge by Hood's and Law's brigades of Whiting's division, which resulted in carrying the fortified crest on the Union left: ‘Dashing on with unfaltering step in face of those murderous discharges of canister and musketry, General Hood and Colonel Law, at the head of their respective brigades, rushed to the charge with a yell. Moving down a precipitous ravine, leaping ditch and stream, clambering up a difficult ascent, and exposed to an incessant and deadly fire from the intrenchments, these brave and determined men pressed forward, driving the enemy from his well-selected and fortified position. In this charge—in which upwards of a thousand men fell, killed and wounded, and in which fourteen pieces of artillery and nearly a regiment were captured—the Fourth Texas, under the lead of General Hood, was the first to pierce the stronghold and seize the guns.’— Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia, vol. i., p. 133.
1866.
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