Notes of a Staff Officer
of our
First New Jersey Brigade
on the
Seven Day's Battle on the
Peninsula in 1862
by
E. Burd Grubb
Brevet Brigadier General U. S. Volunteers
Moorestown, N. J.
Moorestown Printing Co.
1910.
[Pg 5]
The Seven Day's Battle on the Peninsula
as Seen by a Lieutenant on the Staff
Camille Baquet, Esq.,
Historian of First New Jersey Brigade,
Elizabeth, N. J.
Dear Sir:
In accordance with your request I give you herewith my recollections ofthe Battle of Gaines' Mills. In order to give a minute description ofthis battle, it may be well to describe where the New Jersey Brigadestarted from to go into it, and how it came to be where it did startfrom.
The Brigade had been at the village of Mechanicsville about three and ahalf miles from Richmond on the northern side of the Chickahominy duringthe latter part of the month of May. It was moved up from Mechanicsvilleabout a mile and a half west up the Chickahominy near the Meadow Bridge,but was not on picket at that bridge when Fitzhugh Lee's cavalryattacked the picket of the United States Cavalry commanded by CaptainRoyal and killed a number of his men and desperately wounded thatofficer. Captain Royal was well known in Burlington, New Jersey, hehaving married a sister of Admiral John Howell of that city.
The brigade was withdrawn soon after that and moved down theChickahominy taking the road on top of the northern ridge and stoppingnear Dr. Gaines' house.
On the 31st of May the brigade was under orders to move at a moment'snotice and the Battle of Fair Oaks was in progress on the southern sideof the river. Part of it could be seen and a good deal of it heard.
On the morning of the first of June the brigade moved down across theChickahominy and out on the battle field of Fair Oaks. General Taylorinformed me that we had been held in reserve through the morning andwere considered the support of the second line. We were not engagedbecause the fight was practically[Pg 6]over before we reached the field, butCaptain George Wood, whose mother lived next to my father's house inBurlington and who was captain in a Pennsylvania regiment, was carriedby and spoke to me while I was sitting on my horse with General Taylorat the edge of the battle field. Captain Wood was shot through the leg.The brigade was encamped on this battle field along the eastern side ofthe road running to Richmond, having crossed on what was known as theGrapevine Bridge, across the Chickahominy, and while there I visited theSecond Brigade, many of whom, particularly in the Fifth Regiment, camefrom Burlington. George Burling, afterwards Gen. Burling, commanded aregiment. They had had a very desperate fight and many of them had beenkilled and wounded. They were camped directly on the spot where they hadfought, and for many reasons it was the most disagreeable camp I eversaw, dead men and dead horses having been only covered with perhaps sixinches or a foot of earth and the stench and the flies exceeded anythingI ever saw before or since. We remained here until the morning of the27th of June. All through the afte