That night, as had happened often in the valley, the hostile sentinels were within hearing of each other, but they fired no shots. Meanwhile, Lee and Jackson, after the victory, which was called Gaines’ Mill, planned to strike anew.
Harry awoke in the morning to find that most of the Northern army was gone. The brigades had crossed the river in the night, breaking down the bridges behind them. He saw the officers watching great columns of dust moving away, and he knew that they marked the line of the Northern march. But the Southern scouts and skirmishers found many stragglers in the woods, most of them asleep or overpowered by weariness. Thus they found the brilliant General Reynolds, destined to a glorious death afterward at Gettysburg, sound asleep in the bushes, having been lost from his command in the darkness and confusion. The Southern army rested through the morning, but in the afternoon was on the march again. Harry found that both St. Clair and Langdon had escaped without harm this time, but Happy Tom had lost some of his happiness.
“This man Lee is worse than Jackson,” he lamented. “We’ve just fought the biggest battle that ever was, and now we’re marching hot-foot after another.”
Happy Tom was right. Lee and Jackson had resolved to give McClellan no rest. They were following him closely and Stuart with the cavalry hung in a cloud on his flanks. They pressed him hard the next day at White Oak Swamp, Jackson again making the circular movement and falling on his flank, while Longstreet attacked in front. There was a terrible battle in thick forest and among deep ravines, but the darkness again saved the Northern army, which escaped, leaving cannon and men in the hands of the enemy.
Harry lay that night in a daze rather than sleep. He was feverish and exhausted, yet he gathered some strength from the stupor in which he lay. All that day they marched along the edge of a vast swamp, and they heard continually the roar of a great battle on the horizon, which they were not able to reach. It was Glendale, where Longstreet and one of the Hills fought a sanguinary draw with McClellan. But the Northern commander, knowing that a drawn battle in the enemy’s country was equivalent to a defeat, continued his retreat and the Southern army followed, attacking at every step. The roar of artillery resounded continuously through the woods and the vanguard of one army and the rear guard of the other never ceased their rifle fire.
Neither Harry nor his young comrades could ever get a clear picture of the vast, confused battle amid the marshes of the Chickahominy, extending over so long a period and known as the Seven Days, but it was obvious to them now that Richmond was no longer in danger. The coming of Jackson had enabled Lee to attack McClellan with such vigor and fierceness that the young Northern general was forced not only to retreat, but to fight against destruction.
But the Union mastery of the water, always supreme, was to come once more to the relief of the Northern army. As McClellan made his retreat, sometimes losing and sometimes beating off the enemy, but always leaving Richmond further and further behind, he had in mind his fleet in the James, and then, if pushed to the last extremity, the sea by which they had come.
But there were many staunch fighters yet in his ranks, and the Southern leaders were soon to find that they could not trifle with the Northern army even in defeat. He turned at Malvern Hill, a position of great strength, posted well his numerous and powerful artillery, and beat off all the efforts of Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and the two Hills, and Armistead and the others. More than five thousand of the Southern troops fell in the fruitless charges. Then McClellan retreated to the James River and his gunboats and the forces of the North were not to come as near Richmond again for nearly three years.
The armies of Lee and Jackson marched back toward the Southern capital, for the possession of which forty thousand men had fallen in the Seven Days. Harry rode with Dalton, St. Clair and Langdon. They had come through the inferno unhurt, and while they shared in the rejoicings of the Virginia people, they had seen war, continued war, in its most terrible aspects, and they felt graver and older.