the others.”  Jackson turned in a rage to the servant:  “Put back that food into the chest, have that chest in the waggon, and that waggon moving in two minutes.”  I suggested, very humbly, that he had better at least take some food himself.  But he was too angry to eat, and repeating his orders, flung himself into the saddle, and galloped off.  Jim gave a low whistle, saying:  “My stars, but de general is just mad dis time; most like lightnin’ strike him!"”

July 4.

With the engagement on the Evelington Heights the fighting round Richmond came to an end.  When Lee came up with his advanced divisions on the morning of the 4th, he found the pickets already engaged, and the troops formed up in readiness for action.  He immediately rode forward with Jackson, and the two, dismounting, proceeded without staff or escort to make a careful reconnaissance of the enemy’s position.  Their inspection showed them that it was practically impregnable.  The front, facing westward, was flanked from end to end by the fire of the gunboats, and the Evelington Heights, already fortified, and approached by a single road, were stronger ground than even Malvern Hill.  The troops were therefore withdrawn to the forest, and for the next three days, with the exception of those employed in collecting the arms and stores which the Federals had abandoned, they remained inactive.

July 8.

On July 8, directing Stuart to watch McClellan, General Lee fell back to Richmond.

The battles of the Seven Days cost the Confederates 20,000 men.  The Federals, although defeated, lost no more than 16,000, of whom 10,000, nearly half of them wounded, were prisoners.  In addition, however, 52 guns and 35,000 rifles became the prize of the Southerners; and vast as was the quantity of captured stores, far greater was the amount destroyed.

But the defeat of McClellan’s army is not to be measured by a mere estimate of the loss in men and in materiel.  The discomfited general sought to cover his failure by a lavish employment of strategic phrases.  The retreat to the James, he declared, had been planned before the battle of Mechanicsville.  He had merely manoeuvred to get quit of an inconvenient line of supply, and to place his army in a more favourable position for attacking Richmond.  He congratulated his troops on their success in changing the line of operations, always regarded as the most hazardous of military expedients.  Their conduct, he said, ranked them among the most celebrated armies of history.  Under every disadvantage of numbers, and necessarily of position also, they had in every conflict beaten back their foes with enormous slaughter.  They had reached the new base complete in organisation and unimpaired in spirit.* (* O.R. volume 11 part 3 page 299.)

It is possible that this address soothed the pride of his troops.  It certainly deluded neither his own people nor the South.  The immediate effect of his strategic manoeuvre was startling.