The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War

At It We Went Tooth and Nail

85 c h apter 6 At It We Went Tooth and Nail On the morning of June 28 men of the 4th Michigan and other regiments who fought and escaped the battle of Gaines’ Mill with their lives were roused from their sleep on the south side of the Chickahominy. Henry Seage, who had been wounded slightly and separated from his company, found his outfit. Discipline and order were still expected, no matter the losses and the retreat, so soldiers cleaned their rifles and stood inspection. There was a good chance Porter’s Fifth Corps would have to soon fight again as the Army of the Potomac withdrew toward the James River. This was some 13 miles as the crow flew, but for soldiers and wagons the route led across swamps, through woods and over confusing country roads. Dr. Chamberlain spent the morning working on the “walking wounded” like Seage, soldiers who had been hit, but not so badly that they couldn’t march. Around noon their regiment was on the move with the division for a place less than a few miles away called Savage’s Station, where some 2,500 sick and wounded Union soldiers were gathered. Chamberlain called it “nothing but a farm house with a place [for passing trains] to [obtain] wood and water, but now had the appearance of quite a town.” Because McClellan was abandoning the supply line that stretched back to the east, this railroad would soon be cut off by pursuing Confederates. Those sick and wounded who couldn’t accompany the army as it retreated south, or who couldn’t be placed on === c hapter 6 === 86 wagons pulling east, were left to become prisoners, at least temporarily. Some doctors and hospital aides stayed with them. Chamberlain wrote that there “was no time to look up friends” at the station, but Capt. Marshall Chapin of Company F saw Lt. Joseph L. Smith of Hudson, wounded the night before. Smith, about 32, “had just had his leg amputated but was doing well,” Chapin said. He survived.1 The regiment marched on with the First Division, moving about eight miles as other troops fought a rearguard action to the north. The men of the 4th Michigan rested in the rain that night on the banks of the White Oak Swamp. Some mules broke loose that night, causing an alarm that caused soldiers to think for a moment that Rebel cavalry was attacking. Dr. Chamberlain said the men laughed at each other’s reactions when they realized what happened, and went back to sleep. The next day, June 29, the men worked on a corduroy road or causeway through the swamp, wrote Sgt. John Bancroft of Company I. There were long periods of waiting in the suffocating heat, and they moved only a mile and a half. Some said officers moved the column slowly to make sure they didn’t walk into any ambushes. While other regiments bivouacked in the woods that night, the 4th Michigan and the 14th New York kept going, finding the way along the roads, sometimes hearing shots off to their left, sometimes hearing hoofbeats in the distance. “The night was spent in our tramp through roads with the underbrush coming down close to it nearly all the way,” Dr. Chamberlain wrote. He said the soldiers knew the Confederates were pressing close, but in reality Lee was disappointed his generals weren’t making a more aggressive pursuit. The doctor claimed there was never any confusion during this march, but George Millens wrote that they took some wrong turns through the forests, ravines, and hills and did some backtracking. It was exhausting. “May you never experience how tired we were,” Bancroft complained. As light came into the sky on June 30, the men of the 4th Michigan rested. About noon, the rest of their division joined them. The march south resumed.2 After moving another few miles on a route called the Quaker Road, their division passed a large hill or ridge and came within sight of the James River at a place known as Turkey Island Bridge. Here Union gunboats could bring their protective firepower to bear. The soldiers of the 4th Michigan cooked their coffee and ate hardtack for breakfast in a grove of pines on the river. By afternoon they could hear firing as Confederate troops attacked the Union army rear guard to the north. Sergeant Bancroft had been getting sick again, bad enough...