the infantry and artillery fire that met them from the Federal right. At that very time Jackson was still north of the Totopotomoy, engaged in repairing the bridge which the retiring Federals had destroyed.
On the morning of the 27th, Jackson was advancing Ewell from Hundley's corner, where he had spent the night, eastward along the Shady Grove road, in obedience to Lee's general instructions. McClellan, advised of Jackson's presence on the field of action, and also, doubtless, of his being in force on his rear, fell back from his position on Beaver Dam creek to the central one held by Porter's corps, a short distance down the river road to Cold Harbor, where a second and still stronger position had been selected and strongly fortified. This retrograde movement, which had been brought about by Jackson without the firing of a gun, placed McClellan's troops, on opposite sides of the Chickahominy, in a line extending nearly north and south and facing westward. His right was again behind a swampy stream, running from the north into the Chickahominy, crossed by the road leading from Mechanicsville to Cold Harbor, with a pond and Gaines' mill above and beside it. The topographic conditions and the Federal preparations were much the same as those at Ellison's mill.
Jackson, rightly expecting to be supplied with maps of a locality so near to Richmond where the engineers had had ample time to survey and map the country, had sent his own topographical engineer and his assistants back to the Valley to continue the work of preparing an accurate map of that important military field; but no maps were furnished him except some that were imperfect and unreliable, and the guides sent to lead him were not well informed as to the field of action. The same was true in reference to other portions of Lee's command and of General Lee himself; consequently there was a clash in the ordered movements of troops based on unreliable maps, and it was very difficult to secure concert of action where so much of the country was covered with forests and cut up by deeply trenched watercourses.
Lee promptly ordered an attack on the new Federal position. A. P. Hill was sent along the main road from Mechanicsville to Cold Harbor, by way of Gaines' mill, while Longstreet was moved along a private road between the main road and the Chickahominy, nearly parallel to
