1912] 07t to Richmond 



visited the battlefields of Fair Oaks and Seven Pines, 

 picturesque suburbs of the capital. At Seven Pines 

 I was shown a lower jaw with false teeth, shot away 

 in battle, a slight detail in the harvest of death but 

 giving a touch of personal tragedy which haunts the 

 memory. 



We also motored northward to the fatal Chicka- TheChkk- 

 hominy, a small, sluggish river flowing through ^^"'"^"y 

 alternations of soft sand and fever-laden swamps be- 

 set by mosquitoes which took heavier toll from 

 General McClellan than the fierce conflicts about its 

 banks. Indeed, more were killed by mosquitoes than 

 by bullets. One third of both armies were aflflicted 

 with ague, and 80,000 out of 143,000 of McClellan's 

 men were down with fever, scattered all the way 

 from Cold Harbor to Harrison's Landing on the 

 Potomac. But nobody then knew that the malady 

 was borne by mosquitoes, or that petroleum poured 

 upon the little stream and its swamps would have 

 abated the scourge. 



Leaving the Chickahominy, we pushed through Coid 

 loose, soft sand — which nearly smothered the wheels ^'^'^°' 

 of our automobile — to Cold Harbor, the scene of 

 two bloody battles in both of which Lee was success- 

 ful. Victory for him was in fact almost a foregone 

 conclusion because of the mile of knee-deep sand 

 over which the Union soldiers had to march to attack 

 their opponents ranged in the woody borders of the 

 Chickahominy. General Grant, who commanded 

 during the second battle of Cold Harbor, spoke of it 

 as his one great strategic mistake. But the Chicka- 

 hominy battles should never have been fought at all, 

 for on that side Richmond was defended by swamps 

 and mosquitoes, while on the south lay the open 



C 435 3 



