Of course this success could not be followed up, the object of the battle having been to secure an uninterrupted line of march to the James River. And of course the Union generals were well aware that while the rebels possessed any remaining strength, they would not give up their cherished object of crippling or destroying the main body before it could reach the shelter of the river and the gun-boats. Fresh troops would be brought up; and but little time would be allowed the Federal troops to recover from the fatigue and excitement of that arduous morning. The rebel plan evidently was to give the Federal forces no rest--to precipitate fresh masses of their own troops continually upon them, when weary and exhausted with previous fighting; and when they were at last fairly worn out and incapable of further exertion, to "gobble them up" (to use an expressive, though not elegant phrase) or destroy them in detail and at leisure. The theory was admirable, and both brain and heart were necessary to prevent its being carried out in successful practice.
The Federal dead were buried on the field where they had so bravely fallen; the wounded were sent on to Harrison's Landing; the slaughtered rebels were left to the tender care of their approaching comrades; the prisoners were gathered together and put properly under guard; and then the army-corps of General Fitz-John Porter fell back under previous orders to the strong position of Malvern Hill proper, where McClellan was certain he would at once be attacked by the rebels in force, its possession being the most important point in their plan of action, and its triumphant retention one of the most important in his own.
The first battle of Malvern was ended; but the curtain was soon to rise on a still more fearful scene of slaughter and one yet more uneven in its character as regarded the losses of the Union army and the rebels.
The main position occupied by McClellan was a splendid one for defence; and, thanks to what De Joinville calls the "happy foresight of the General, who, notwithstanding all the hindrances presented by the nature of the soil to his numerous artillery, had spared no pains to bring it with him"--the preparations for holding that position were magnificently adequate. The extreme right flank was comparatively narrow, and as it was a point liable to a determined attack, strong earth-works had been hastily thrown up entirely across it, and it had been further protected by a thick, impenetrable mass of abattis, the materials for which were so plentifully furnished by the Virginia woods and in the construction of which the quasi-mechanical army was rapidly efficient. The left was protected by the James River and the terror-inspiring gun-boats. In front the hill sloped gently down to the Charles City and Richmond road, and other points by which the enemy must debouch to begin the attack. On this natural plateau not less than three hundred pieces of artillery--a number fabulous in any preceding struggle in the history of the world--were placed in battery; so arranged that they would not interfere With the fire of the infantry along the natural glacis up which the assailants would be obliged to advance unsheltered. In the skirts of the woods lying beyond the foot of the hills, long lines of rifle-pits had been dug--these, and the woods beyond, occupied by a brigade of Maine and Wisconsin infantry and a portion of Berdan's celebrated regiment, to act as sharp-shooters.