“Wilson Small,” Sunday, June 1.
Dear A., — I write amid the distant booming of cannon and the hourly arrival of telegrams from the scene of action. The battle[1] began yesterday afternoon. Up to 11 P.M. the accounts received were not wholly favorable. The attack was made on our weakest point, General Casey’s division, which is the advanced body on the Chickahominy. It was attacked on front and flank, and retreated; but being reinforced by General Heintzelmann, the ground and a lost battery were recovered. The second telegram to Colonel Ingalls was written off by the operator on the envelope of your letter of the 26th; I shall keep it as a souvenir. It says: “General Kearny has driven the enemy a mile at the point of the bayonet. General Heintzelmann is driving back the enemy. Prisoners, General Pettigru and several field and staff officers.” A little later, and we heard: “We are driving them before us at every point;” and now the last word is, “Our victory is complete.”
The wounded are pouring in. All our ships, except the “Spaulding,” are here. Even the “Elm City,” which started with five hundred sick for Yorktown at four o’clock this morning, has just returned, beds made and all, — a triumph for her hospital company! The “Commodore,” a Pennsylvanian boat, the “Vanderbilt” and “Whilldin,” Government boats, are full. The “Knickerbocker” filled up, before we left her, with three hundred men from Casey’s division, — a sad sight. We left her this afternoon, after the men were comfortably settled, in the hands of those who are to take her to Newport News, and came home here,”Wilson Small,” with all our belongings. Mrs. Howland and Georgy went off soon after to fit up the “Daniel Webster No. 2.”
I am writing on our little after-deck by the light of the moon. The shore resounds with cheering; even the wounded are elate. All around me lie hundreds, well-nigh thousands, of the poor fellows. Noble boys!
[1] Fair Oaks, otherwise called Seven Pines.
