To See the Ground, To Measure the Rivers

A Walk Through Gaines’ Mill Battlefield

“You must see the ground. You must cover the distances in person; you must measure the rivers and see what the swamps were really like.”

Combat veteran Winston Churchill, “Old Battlefields of Virginia,” October 1929. ¹

Though less than a mile from an interstate highway and a mere ten miles from the city, few clues to modernity were evident on this bright, hot June afternoon, a day and time not unlike a similarly hot and dry day in June 1862. The woodsy lowlands sheltering Boatswain’s Creek were a welcome retreat from the exposed grassland and farmland on the gently rolling hills to the north and south.

Much of the land surrounding historic Gaines’ Mill Battlefield was purchased and set aside by governmental and preservationist groups over the past 100 years. “It is a nearly pristine landscape,” testifies the National Park Service “Gaines’ Mill Confederate Attack Trail” brochure, “one that veterans of the epic battle here surely would recognize if they could return to the scene.”

Though they cannot, we can and should – to see, to walk, and to measure, as Winston Churchill wrote, and to understand, honor, and remember their sacrifices. Gaines’ Mill occurred on the third of the Seven Days’ Battles during the 1862 Peninsula campaign, the horrors of which ten or more Grayson cousins experienced. One was killed at Williamsburg on May 5, another wounded at Seven Pines on June 1, and a third killed in the late afternoon of June 27 when some 32,000 Confederate troops charged down the hills into the tiered Union infantry and artillery defenses at and above Boatswain’s Creek, said to be the largest mass offensive of the Civil War.

The modern road to the trailhead echoes that attack, as it descends from Cold Harbor Road to the north (Confederate convergence and assault) into the creek valley, before progressing back up to the heights on the south (Union defenses). The modest ca. 1820 Watt House overlooks the erstwhile Federal position. It is slowly lost to view as the walking trail drops into the shady coolness of the woods.

It is a disquieting dimness and coolness, and eerily still. Even the buzz of the cicadas, the chirping birds, and the gurgling brook seem restrained, so as not to disturb the solemnity of grounds on which 15,000 men were killed, wounded, or captured. The trail meanders down and alongside the south bank for a quarter mile or so to a simple wooden bridge that crosses the gentle stream. The ground on both sides of the path are strewn with fallen limbs and debris, a smaller-scale natural example of those that were felled in 1862 – as defensive barriers, by artillery and musketry, and by hordes of men crashing through their branches. Climbing the north bank, one can imagine hundreds of scared men, bayonets fixed, stumbling into the dimness on both sides while dozens of equally scared men await at and above the creek, noise deafening, sight lines obscured by smoke and trees, rifles being fired as quickly as shaking hands allow.

Emerging once more into the present and the hot June sun, the Confederate attack lines would have spread out for roughly one mile in each direction. The right wing of the Confederate offensive, behind the padlocked metal barrier on your left as you exit the woods, is protected Federal parkland, mostly cornfields and grassland.

The bulk of the historic left wing to your right is private farmland. Some stretches are open for about one hundred yards, others for as many as 500 yards to the nearest tree cover, protection from both sun and artillery, at least until the attacks began across the open fields. Dragonflies and grasshoppers flit in and around the trail, which also hosts other (somewhat less appreciated) native creatures. A small price nonetheless for the opportunity to see, to walk, and to measure the ground; and to honor and remember those forced to endure agonies very few of us will ever have to face, please God.

¹ Quoted from The Long Road to Preservation: Gaines’ Mill and Cold Harbor, American Battlefield Trust, https://www.battlefields.org/preserve/long-road-preservation-gaines-mill-cold-harbor