Heintzelman's command was doubled, both the Third and the Fifth corps being now assigned to him. The bloody week of battles soon came. The retreat to the banks of the James River began with the repulse at Gaines's Mills, and ended with Malvern Hill. At Gaines's Mills the right of the army received a severe check, and was ordered to commence a flank movement on the James. The rebel opinion of Gaines's Mills may be gathered from the following extract from an account of the Peninsular campaign, written by a Prussian officer in the rebel service: "Already had two generals of the four hostile brigades been left by their men, and it was believed that all was over with McClellan's entire army, when at this perilous crisis General Heintzelman appeared with his division, and again brought the battle to a stand. With great ability and gallantry he repulsed the onset of our troops, and at once ordered the organization of the beaten and fugitive brigades. But it was found impossible to restore order to those confused and intimidated masses. They bore their officers along with them, and rushed on in wild disorder and flight. General Heintzelman saw himself compelled to abandon his position, and, like an ox, with head down, ready to receive an attack at any moment, he drew slowly back to the Chickahominy." Following this came the seven days' fighting. Heintzelman was at Savage Station; at Glendale, where he was wounded in the leg, but retained his command; at Malvern Hill and others; and wherever his troops were engaged they fought successfully and well. Upon the arrival of the army at Harrison's Landing, its painful retreat being over, Heintzelman was promoted to a Major-Generalship, and when he arrived at Yorktown he was ordered with his corps to report to General Pope in the Department of Virginia. On the twentieth of August he embarked, and on the twentysixth his troops were already in position, protecting the railroad to the Rappahannock. But a little later, the right of Pope's army having been turned by the rebels and his line of communication having been cut off, Heintzelman was ordered to reopen the line with Hooker's division. The rebels were formed in force at Kettle Run, and were falling back on the plains of Manassas, when they were overtaken by Heintzelman on the twenty-ninth of August, and he immediately engaged them, being then in command of the left wing, and toward the close of the day succeeded in driving them from their first strong position. The thirtieth arrived, and he still held his position, but the centre at length gave way, and he was ordered to fall back on Centreville, as he had fallen back on the same place more than a year previous. On this retreat, a part of General Hooker's command-General Philip Kearny's division-distinguished itself at Chantilly. Thereupon Heintzelman's corps marched back to the capital, but when he arrived at Fort Lyon, his former winter headquarters, only about five thousand out of the original twenty thousand men of the old force on the Potomac answered to their names; the rest had melted away in the trials under this fighting General. Not long after, Heintzelman was assigned to the command of all the forts south of the Potomac; McClellan being in command of the defences of Washington itself. At the beginning of the Maryland campaign McClellan was succeeded by Banks, and when Banks commenced the organization of his Gulf expedition, Heintzelman succeeded to the defences at Washington, where he still remains. The complimentary epithet which shortens the name of General Hooker, in the mouth of the people, into the familiar "Fighting Joe," belongs in at least an equal degree to General Heintzelman. If he has not the dash and impetuosity of the former, he is yet in the completest sense of the word, a fighter. Though an old soldier, whose life was given to the military service in the beginning, it happened that he, as well as too many others, realized the mingled sarcastic humor and pathos of the couplet which says that "the army is hard service, boys-promotions very slow." They were slow to him, for in twenty years of hard service he rose no higher than captain. Yet his work in California was of a highly important character, and certainly indicated in him an ability for planning for which the present war has as yet given him no opportunity. In this he has not so much directed as executed, and in the fighting positions, and again in the most hotly-contested spots of those, his corps and himself have always been found. History sometimes brings out and emblazons for ever some whom the laurel of the day has never crowned; and so she will do for Heintzelman, without snatching a single leaf from the leaders under whom he fought; for, honoring the heads that planned, she will honor also the hands that fought. The rough name of this General, and his very appearance— rugged, virile, and wiry declare him a soldier trained in all severe and masculine experiences. Perhaps rude in his phrase and little blessed with the set forms of speech; perhaps not a soldier in the chivalric idea, which, however, hardly belongs to our day. No one would dream of likening him to Philip Sidney, in the qualities which have made the name of the latter a perpetual lingering fragrance in the pages of history, though he did nothing; nor was Heintzelman gifted with much in common with Bayard, the soldier and likewise the first gentleman in France, although, like Bayard, he was without fear and without reproach. Who does not love and admire a rose for smelling sweet? Yet who thinks of praising the rose on that account? Sweetness is an essential characteristic of its life, which it cannot avoid or produce. And the graceful accomplishments, the sweet and gentle temper, the courtly and polished manner of Sidney were things which history takes note of in a passing way and marks as illustrative of the original meaning in the term "gentleman;" yet the world at large knows Sidney only by the cup of water which he denied himself, when wounded on the field, and gave to the soldier who needed it more. There is not that to be recorded of Heintzelman ; but it cannot be forgotten how he found a band of music, and with the first notes of the "Star-Spangled Banner" reïnspirited, for another charge, our scattered and broken troops at the battle of Williamsburgh, May fifth, 1862, which begun the Peninsula campaign. It was a happy thought of the moment, but was also a touch of nature which might have befitted Sidney or Bayard. The rough soldier whom war had battered and owned all his life, showed here, by a genuine act of the heart, that he was a man still, and would be always. |