their fearless commander at Frazier’s Farm.  When the signal for battle was given, they leaped to the front, like dogs unleashed, and sprang upon their old enemies, Porter, McCall, Heintzelman, Hooker, and Kearny.  Here again the steady fire and discipline of the Federals had to yield to the impetuosity and valor of Southern troops.  Hill and Longstreet swept the field, capturing several hundred prisoners, a whole battery of artillery, horses, and men.

McClellan brought up his beaten army on Malvern Hill, to make one last desperate effort to save his army from destruction or annihilation.  This is a place of great natural defenses.  Situated one mile from the James River, it rises suddenly on all sides from the surrounding marshy lowlands to several hundred feet in height, and environed on three sides by branches and by Turkey Creek.  On the northern eminence McClellan planted eighty pieces of heavy ordnance, and on the eastern, field batteries in great numbers.  Lee placed his troops in mass on the extreme east of the position occupied by the enemy, intending to park the greater number of his heaviest batteries against the northern front of the eminence, where McClellan had his artillery pointing to the east, and where the Confederates massed to sweep the field as Lee advanced his infantry.  The object of Lee was to concentrate all his artillery on the flank of McClellan’s artillery, then by an enfilade fire from his own, he could destroy that of his enemy, and advance his infantry through the broad sweep of lowlands, separating the forces, without subjecting them to the severe cannonading.  He gave orders that as soon as the enemy’s batteries were demolished or silenced, Armstead’s Virginia Brigade, occupying the most advanced and favorable position for observation, was to advance to the assault, with a yell and a hurrah, as a signal for the advance of all the attacking columns.  But the condition of the ground was such that the officers who were to put the cannon in position got only a few heavy pieces in play, and these were soon knocked in pieces by the numbers of the enemy’s siege guns and rifled field pieces.  Some of the brigade commanders, thinking the signal for combat had been given, rushed at the hill in front with ear piercing yells without further orders.  They were mown down like grain before the sickle by the fierce artillery fire and the enemy’s infantry on the crest of the hill.  Kershaw following the lead of the brigade on his left, gave orders, “Forward, charge!” Down the incline, across the wide expanse, they rushed with a yell, their bayonets bristling and glittering in the sunlight, while the shells rained like hail stones through their ranks from the cannon crested hill in front.  The gunboats and ironclad monitors in the James opened a fearful fusilade from their monster guns and huge mortars, the great three-hundred-pound shells from the latter rising high in the air, then curling in a beautiful bow to fall among the troops,