By: S. Waite Rawls III
One of my favorite gruesome events of the Civil War happened at the battle of Gaines’ Mill on June 27,1862. Just a day earlier, Robert E. Lee had come out of Richmond, Virginia, with all systems on go and hit Union General McClellan’s isolated right flank at Beaver Dam Creek (some call it the Battle of Mechanicsville), marking the start of the Seven Days Battles. The following day, Lee pushed eastward, probing for McClellan’s position, and found him dug in along the steep slopes of Boatswain’s Creek. Lee attacked in waves—first one brigade, then a division, then another, then a setback, then an additional attack or two. By the end of the day, Lee had attacked with almost 60,000 men. Compare that, for example, with the 12,500 who advanced in Pickett’s Charge a year later. Some historians claim that Lee had this successful attack at Gaines’ Mill in mind when he ordered Pickett’s, Trimble’s, and Pettigrew’s Divisions forward at Gettysburg.
The final breakthrough at Gaines’ Mill came from John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade, when and where their reputation was first made. And that is when and where one of my favorite events happened. You can read all about it in The Haskell Memoirs of South Carolinian John Cheves Haskell. As the battle intensified, young staff officers like Haskell wanted to get into the fight. Spotting General Hood as the Union position was nearing collapse, Haskell expressed his desire to fight. Hood told him that “he was about to charge the battery which was sweeping the level beyond the ravine, where we had just broken the enemy’s first line,” and invited Haskell to join in.
So Haskell joined the charge, and I’ll let him tell his story. “We charged across the plateau about four or five hundred feet. When I got within a few feet of the guns, I marked a gunner fixing his lanyard into the friction primer. I made a run to cut him down before he could fire, but he was too quick. When I was not over ten feet from the muzzle the gun went off. The shot struck my right arm, crushing it and tearing it off at my shoulder. When it hit me, it seemed to knock me up in the air and spin me around two or three times. … When I came to, I found my arm wrapped around my sword in a most remarkable manner. … I unwound the fragments of my arm from my sword blade, which I got back into the scabbard. I succeeded in stuffing my arm into the breast of my coat, got to my feet and started to the rear.”
Confederates advancing to the capture of disabled guns at Gaines' Mills
Public Domain
As he made his way across the battlefield, near the ravine leading down to Boatswain’s Creek, Haskell encountered his friend, Bradfute Warwick, a Richmond native commanding the 4th Texas that day. Warwick was mortally wounded, and, despite his injury, Haskell stopped to seek help for him, his severed arm still stuffed into his uniform.
Okay, come on, it doesn’t get any better than this. Stuffing your severed arm into your coat and calmly walking to the rear?? That’s a story that gets pretty close to the top of all of them that I have ever read. So, if you have the chance, make a special trip to Gaines’ Mill, park by the Watt House, walk onto that plateau that Haskell described, and think about that incident.
John Haskell survived his wound, returned to service, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as Lee’s artillery commander at the surrender at Appomattox, partly because he still had a clean uniform. He later married a daughter of Wade Hampton and lived until 1906. The American Civil War Museum collection in Richmond, Virginia, even includes Warwick’s uniform and the camp chair that Haskell used, designed with a special rest for the stump of his arm!!
