Where Jackkson's men scored: Gaines' Mill.
From this old ruin,
Gaines' Mill, the momentous battle of June 27, 1862, took its name, and on the ridge known as
Turkey Hill, a mile to the southeast, the men of the First Maryland Confederate regiment won glory for them-selves and their cause.
“
Stonewall”
Jackson's corps at the end of a rapid march had arrived in the middle of the afternoon.
After a brief rest, it was hurled against the
Federal center on
Turkey Hill.
A battery defending the position poured a rapid fire upon the ranks of the attackers.
The Confederates wavered, broke, and “regiment after regiment rushed back in utter disorder.”
General Winder was then ordered to send his brigade forward and he found, as he advanced, several regiments waiting to join him, among them the First Maryland Infantry headed by
Colonel Bradley T. Johnson.
The new line swept forward.
The Federal battery on
Turkey Hill, which
Johnson was ordered to take, limbered up and fled.
The Union troops were finally driven from their lost position.
Meanwhile on
Jackson's extreme right
General Whiting's division was making what proved to be the fiercest charge of the Seven Days Battles.
The Southern troops came on with tremendous impetus, scattering some of their own regiments that were retreating in disorder.
The Texan brigades of
Hood and Law bore the brunt of the desperate and vain effort of the
Federals to drive
Whiting back.
Finally
General Hood and the Fourth Texas broke the line in the center of
Morell's division and seized the guns.
