General John Magruder opened the battle as best he could with the brigades of Wright and Mahone and the half of Armistead’s that were already on the field, something over 5,000 men, none of them his own. He thought he ought to have three times that number, but with “the hour growing late” and his orders imperative, he felt he had no choice.
The experience of Rans Wright’s Brigade would prove all too typical of the Confederate brigades that attacked on July 1st. Raising the Rebel yell, Wright’s men charged out of the woods and into the open and toward the hill. Part of his brigade got too far out ahead of Mahone’s, and Armistead’s regiments were pinned down off to the left, and Wright’s 1500 men found themselves quite alone on the slopes of Malvern Hill. One of these men left us the following description of the experience: “It is astonishing that every man did not fall; bullet after bullet too rapid in succession to be counted...shell after shell, illuminating the whole atmosphere, burst over our heads, under our feet, and in our faces...” The true measure of a man’s courage he would go on to say, was simply answering the call “for the desperate charge” that day.
With the sound of the Rebel Yell on their right, Colonel John B. Gordon leading Rodes Brigade, gave the order to charge the batteries in their front, a distance of seven or eight hundred yards across an open field. “As we came fully in sight of the Federal batteries, not 400 yards in our front, the open space behind them became black with troops, thousands of whom issued from the woods in the rear.”[1]
The whole ground in front of the 3rd, 5th and 26th Alabama Regiments was swept by fire of the Federal artillery, which had, in rapid succession, silenced the Confederate battery in their front. As there was no artillery to attract the enemy’s attention, his batteries from the beginning, and his infantry finally, poured a most destructive fire into their ranks. Colonel Gordon continues, ” Never was the courage of troops more severely tried and heroically exhibited than in this charge. They moved on under this terrible fire, breaking and driving off the first line of infantry, until a little over two hundred yards from the batteries. Here the canister and musketry mowed down my already thinned ranks so rapidly that it became impossible to advance without support.....I therefore ordered the men to lie down and open fire, and immediately sent back to notify Major-General Hill of my position and to ask him to send up support. A Brigade was sent forward, but failed to reach my line. The troops sent up from another division on the right had already fallen back and refused to rally. Nearly one half of the Brigade had been killed or wounded, leaving me about 600 men able to load and fire.”[2]
James J. Hutchison of the 5th Alabama Infantry regiment continues, “It was madness to go on, but our men moved steadily forward until within 250 yards, when the order was given to fire, and they immediately, dropped to the ground and began loading and firing as fast as possible. Just at this moment, Toomb’s Brigade, unable to withstand the terrible fire, broke and retreated from the field. This made matters worse. Maj. Hobson was far in advance, leading the regiment. Several of us kept our feet and strove to lead our men on, but in vain. The 3rd Alabama became mixed with ours. Andrew Melton was in front with our battle flag, cheering the men, when a ball passed through his forehead, and he fell dead, with the shout on his lips, “5th Alabama, rally to your colors!” A braver soldier never bled. Andrew was a Color Corporal, and took the flag when its bearer, Color Sergeant William Kennedy, of Greensboro, was disabled by a falling tree, earlier in the afternoon. Near him fell the Color Sergeant of the 3rd Alabama, shot dead.”[3] The 3rd Alabama, fighting alongside the 5th Alabama, lost six Color Bearers that day.[4]
A soldier in the Union ranks gives us his perspective of the scene. “the rebs poured out of the woods & charged on us....They came within yards of us when they turned & ran, what was left of them.” “Pretty soon they poured out in 4 lines & charging our batterys posted on the brow of the hill.....We murdered them by the hundreds but they again formed & came up to be slaughtered.”
There, out on the field about two to three hundred yards from the muzzle of the Union guns, the men of Rodes Brigade stayed until nightfall. J. J. Hutchison went on to say, “Our battle flag was bourne off with staff shot in two and 28 shot holes in that and the flag! To advance is what the men would not, could not do, to stay where we were was death, and some officer gave the order to retreat, which was slowly and reluctantly obeyed. More men fell by the enemy’s grape and canister as we fell back, than in the advance."[5]
Finally, nightfall came and the sounds of battle drifted away. In the aftermath almost 5,400 Confederate soldiers lay on the field, the Union’s loss in killed and wounded was just over 3,200 men. That night there was a heavy rain and thunderstorm as men went about the solemn duty of removing the wounded and burying the dead. “Night, dark and dismal, settled upon the battlefield of Malvern Hill, and its thousands dead and wounded. The rain began to fall on the cruel scene and beat out the torches of brave fellows hunted their wounded companions in the dark. The howling of the storm, the cry of the wounded and the groans of the dying, the glare of the torch upon the faces of the dead or into the shining eyes of the speechless wounded, looking up in hope of relief, the ground slippery with a mixture of mud and blood, all in the dark, hopeless, starless night; surely it was a gruesome picture of war in its most horrid shape.” [6]
First light on July 2nd, 1862, revealed Malvern Hill obscured by a ground fog, grey against a threatening grey sky. The sounds of wounded men with enough strength to still cry out, echoed eerily through the fog. After a time the fog began to eddy and drift, gradually unveiling a nightmarish scene on the slopes. A Colonel in the Pennsylvania Cavalry, commanding the picket line left behind to guard the Union’s retreat, remembered it as an “appalling spectacle.” of the thousands of Rebel soldiers who had fallen the evening before, “enough were alive and moving to give the field a singular crawling effect.” Near the crest, a row of bodies marked the final failure of the repeated assaults.
Emerging from the woods below came men to aid those who might yet be saved. “I must really be excused from going into detail tis too painful to dwell upon especially now that I have just come from the seen of conflict where I have been all day bringing off wounded and identifying dead men. Of yesterdays fight there is nothing pleasant to recall, as we were murdered awfully by the enemy’s artillery which threw grape, canister, and shell into us at a fearful rate. The whole division was so cut up that we retired in disorder leaving an immense number of dead on the field….Our poor regiment is now reduced to about 150 men.”[7] wrote Captain Eugene Blackford of the 5th Alabama, in a letter home.
The 5th Alabama Infantry Regiment had about 190 men present at the Battle of Malvern Hill. Of these, 25 were killed on the field and 79 were wounded, many of them mortally.[8] Several families would get similar telegrams. “Your son Julius (Bayol) fell gallantly yesterday pierced by three balls death instantaneous. July 2nd 1862 A.S. Jeffress”[9] Only the 3rd Alabama suffered a higher casualty rate in the Brigade. They in fact had the highest casualty rate of any Regiment on the field that day, at 56 per cent.
[1]“The Beacon”, August 8, 1862, Letter of J. J. Hutchinson dated July 14, 1862
[2]“Third Alabama! The Civil War Memoirs of Cullen Andrews Battle, CSA” edited by Brandon H. Beck, page 33
[3] “The Beacon”, August 8, 1862, Letter of J. J. Hutchinson dated July 14, 1862
[4]“Third Alabama! The Civil War Memoirs of Cullen Andrews Battle, CSA” edited by Brandon H. Beck, page 31
[5] “The Beacon”, August 8, 1862, Letter of J. J. Hutchinson dated July 14, 1862
[6]Douglas, Henry Kyd I Rode With Stonewall. St. Simons Island, Georgia: Mockingbird Books, Inc., page 113
[7] Letter of Eugene Blackford dated July 2nd,1862
[8] “The Beacon”, August 8, 1862, Letter of J. J. Hutchinson dated July 14, 1862
[9] Attached Telegram to Letter of J. H. Bayol dated June 28, 1862 – Bayol Family Letters, Virginia Historical Society
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