Existing comment:
A Hollow Victory:
"We murdered them by the hundreds but they again formed & came up to be slaughtered."
-- General E. Hagar, 10th Massachusetts Infantry
At Malvern Hill the weary Army of the Potomac turned around to confront its tormentors. For the first time during the Seven Days battles, the men of the Union army felt in control of their own fate. Their confidence largely stemmed from the awesome power of their position.
On that first morning in July, General McClellan deployed his army in a horseshoe-shaped configuration. Cannon crowned the crest of the hill, while abundant infantry reserves lay in wait. Malvern Hill stood in the midst of a huge swath of farmland. Open fields of fire lay in every direction. Those vistas gave the Union position its great strength.
When the Confederates finally launched direct attacks up the slope of Malvern Hill, generals Fitz John Porter and Darius Couch supervised the Union defense. Whenever the artillery felt endangered, infantry pushed in front of the cannon to repel the Confederate threat. The formula inflicted nearly 6,000 casualties on the Confederate army, and the Union position remained unbroken.
Malvern Hill was a decisive Union victory, ending the week of battles on a high note for McClellan's army and temporarily softening the sting of the tremendous setback suffered outside Richmond.
Powerful warships of the United States Navy on the nearby James River offered support for the Union army at Malvern Hill, and gave its men cause for confidence. |