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Updated: May 1, 2025
At the same hour, though I could not see it, White House was wrapped in fire, and the last sutler, teamster, and cavalry-man had disappeared from the shores of the Pamunkey. I tossed through another night of fever, in the captain's tent of the Sturgis Rifles, McClellan's body guard. And somehow, again, I dreamed fitfully of the unburied corpses on the field of Gaines's Mill.
Torbert and Gregg in advance, to secure the crossings of the Pamunkey and demonstrate in such manner as to deceive the enemy as much as possible in the movement, the two cavalry divisions being supported by General D. A. Russell's division of the Sixth Corps.
All this cavalry had joined the army of Northern Virginia and was in position to cover the movements which Lee was making to confront the army of the Potomac. Sheridan's corps, now that it had returned to the army, was once more somewhat dispersed. Wilson was still north of the Pamunkey, covering the transfer of the several infantry corps and guarding the fords.
Torbert started for Taylor's ford on the Pamunkey with directions to demonstrate heavily at that point till after dark, as if the crossing was to be made there, and having thus impressed the enemy, he was to leave a small guard, withdraw quietly, and march to Hanovertown ford, where the real crossing was to be effected.
My young men shall take their guns back to the palefaces to-morrow, and shall bring back fire-water, and we will drink, and forget that the days of Powhatan are past and that Otee fights against us. Also when the Pamunkey is red with to-morrow's sunset, my brothers from the Blue Mountains shall turn their faces homewards. My father is content?" "I am content," said the Governor.
McClellan, deprived of his last hope for the immediate capture of Richmond, by the unexpected strength shown by the Confederates in front and the withdrawal of McDowell under the orders of the government, when within ten miles of effecting a junction with him; McClellan, his forces sadly thinned by the labors and the diseases incident to the long delay amid the swamps of the Chickahominy; McClellan, driven at last from the possibility of even holding his position, by the arrival at Richmond of a large proportion of the rebel army driven from Corinth by Halleck, and by the movement of Jackson with a body of forty thousand men to take his right wing in flank; McClellan had abandoned the White House on the Pamunkey River, on Sunday the twenty-ninth of June, after the terrific conflict of the Friday previous, burning the White House itself and immense quantities of stores and supplies that could not be transported, and was now falling back on the line of the James River, where he could meet the protection of the Union gun-boats and safely await the slow coming of those reinforcements with the aid of which he yet made no doubt of being able to take the rebel capital.
From this party I soon learned that there was no occasion to push our jaded animals, since the crisis, if there had been one, was over and the enemy repulsed, so the increased gait was reduced to a leisurely march that took us late in the afternoon to the north bank of the Pamunkey, opposite Abercrombie's camp.
I looked at him, and thought that he knew, maybe, of some war party between us and the Pamunkey, and would save me from it. A listlessness had come upon me, and I obeyed the pointing finger. So, estranged and silent, with two spears' length of earth between us, we went on until we came to a quiet stream flowing between low, dark banks.
I made Columbia on the 10th, and from there sent a communication to General Grant reporting what had occurred, informing him of my condition and intention, asking him to send forage and rations to meet me at the White House, and also a pontoon-bridge to carry me over the Pamunkey, for in view of the fact that hitherto it had been impracticable to hold Lee in the trenches around Petersburg, I regarded as too hazardous a march down the south bank of the Pamunkey, where the enemy, by sending troops out from Richmond, might fall upon my flank and rear.
The one nearest to and north of the North Anna and Pamunkey was taken by Wright, followed by Hancock. Warren, followed by Burnside, moved by a road farther north, and longer. The trains moved by a road still farther north, and had to travel a still greater distance.
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