Throughout the day of
the 26th and until nine o'clock at night the battle raged with unabated
fury. The losses on both sides were frightful and neither had gained a
victory. But at nine o'clock the Federal Commander ordered his right
wing to retreat five miles to Gaines Mill and cover his withdrawal of
heavy guns and supplies. They were ordered at all hazards to hold
Jackson's fresh troops at bay until this undertaking was well under way.
It was a job that called for all his skill in case of defeat. It
involved the retreat of an army of one hundred thousand men with their
artillery and enormous trains of supplies across the mud-scarred marshy
Peninsula. Five thousand wagons loaded to their utmost capacity, their
wheels sinking in the springy earth, had to be guarded and transported.
His siege guns, so heavy it was impossible to hitch enough horses to
move them over roads in which they sank to the hubs, had to be saved.
Three thousand cattle were there, to be guarded and driven, and it was
more than seventeen miles to the shelter of his gunboats on the James.
During the night his wagon trains and heavy guns were moved across the
Chickahominy toward his new base on the James.
The morning of the 27th dawned cool and serene. Under the cover of the
night the silent grey army had followed the retiring one in blue.
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