midable
front. From the enemy's fortified position their deadly fire caused
our already thinned ranks to melt like snow before the sun's warm
rays. The result was a complete repulse along the whole line. But
McClellan was only too glad to be allowed a breathing spell from his
seven days of continual defeat, and availed himself of the opportunity
of this respite to pull off his army under the protecting wings of his
ironclad fleet.

The Confederates had won a glorious victory during the first six days.
The enemy had been driven from the Chickahominy to the James, his army
defeated and demoralized beyond months of recuperation. Lee and his
followers should be satisfied. But had none of his orders miscarried,
and all of his Lieutenants fulfilled what he had expected of them,
yet greater results might have been accomplished--not too much to say
McClellan's Army would have been entirely destroyed or captured, for
had he been kept away from the natural defenses of Malvern Hill and
forced to fight in the open field, his destruction would have followed
beyond the cavil of a doubt. The Southern soldiers were as eager
and as fresh on the last day as on the first, but a land army has a
superstitious dread of one sheltered by gunboats and ironclads.

All the troops engaged in the Seven Days' Battle did extremely well,
and won imperishable fame by their deeds of valor and prowess. Their
commanders in the field were matchless, and showed military talents
of high order, the courage of their troops invincible, and to
particularize would be unjust. But truth will say, in after years,
when impartial hands will record the events, and give blame where
blame belongs, and justice where justice is due, that in this great
Seven Days' Conflict, where so much heroism was displayed on both
sides, individually and collectively, that to A.P. Hill and the brave
men under him belongs the honor of first scotching at Gaines' Mill
the great serpent that was surrounding the Capital with bristling
bayonets, and were in at the breaking of its back at Frazier's Farm.

It was due to the daring and intrepidity of Hill's Light Division at
Gaines' Mill, more than to any other, that made it possible for the
stirring events and unprecedented results that followed.

Among the greater Generals, Lee was simply matchless and superb;
Jackson, a mystic meteor or firey comet; Longstreet and the two
Hills, the "Wild Huns" of the South, masterful in tactics, cyclones