Q26 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
-  in  Yorktown,  and  the  place  would  have  fallen 
.  w  days  ;  but  my  orders  were  very  stringent  not 
-.  demonstration. 
General    Barnard,    McClellan's    Chief    of 
oeers,  says  in  his  final  report  of  the  cam- 
i  that  the  lines  ot  Yorktown  should  have 
been  assaulted  : 
m  to  believe  that  they  were  not  held 
'  »rce  when  our  army  appeared  before  them, 
and  we  know  that  they  were  far  from  complete.    .    .    . 
-   toiled  a  month  in  the  trenches,  or  lay  in 
the  swamps  of  the  Warwick.    We  lost  few  men  by  the 
.  but  disease  took  a  fearful  hold  of  the  army,  and 
•  1  hardship,  unrelieved  by  the  excitement  of  com- 
bat, impaired  the  morale.    We  did  not  carry  with  us 
from  Yorktown  so  good  an  army  as  we  took  there. 
The  testimony  of  the  enemy  is  the  same. 
Johnston,  so  soon  as  he  came  to  examine  it, 
led  the  position  of  Magruder  as  clearly 
untenable  :  saw  that  McClellan  could  not  be 
defeated  there;  that  the  line  was  too  long  to 
be  successfully  defended;  that  the  back-water 
was  as  much  a  protection  to  one  side  as  the 
other;  that  there  was  a  considerable  unforti- 
fied space  between  Yorktown  and  the  head 
of  the  stream,  open  to  attack;  and  that 
the  position  could  at  any  time  be  turned  by 
way  of  York  River.  Every  one  seemed  to  see 
it  except  General  McClellan.  He  went  on 
sending  dispatches  every  day  to  Washington 
for  heavier  guns  and  more  men,  digging  a 
colossal  system  of  earth-works  for  gradual  ap- 
proach upon  one  side  of  an  intrenched  camp 
of  no  strategic  value  whatever,  the  rear  of 
which  was  entirely  open;  preparing  with  in- 
finite labor  and  loss  the  capture  of  a  place 
without  a  prisoner,  the  effect  of  which  at  the 
best  would  be  merely  to  push  an  army  back 
upon  its  reserves. 
Even  so  late  as  the  16th  of  April,  an  op- 
portunity to  break  Magruder's  line  was  clearly 
presented  to  McClellan  and  rejected.  He  had 
ordered  General  W.  F.  Smith  to  reconnoiter 
a  position  known  as  Dam  No.  i,  between 
and  Wynn's  Mills,  where  there  was  a 
(  rousing  covered  by  a  one-gun  battery  of  the 
enemy.  For  this  purpose  Smith  pushed 
ks's  Vermont  brigade  with  Mott's  battery 
somewhat  close  to  the  dam,  carrying  on  a  sharp 
fire.  From  this  point  he  examined  at  his  leis- 
ure, and  in  fact  controlled,  the  position  op- 
posite, finding  it  feebly  defended.  A  young 
er  of  Brooks's  staff,  Lieutenant  Noyes, 
■A  the  river  below  the  dam,  where  the 
water  was  only  waist  deep,  and  approached 
within  fifty  yards  of  the  enemy's  works.  Re- 
turning after  this  daring  feat,  he  repeated  his 
rvations  to  General  Smith  and  to  General 
McClellan,  who  had  arrived  on  the  ground 
and  had  ordered  Smith  to  bring  up  his  entire 
division  to  hold  the  advanced  position  occu- 
pied by  Brooks's  brigade.     Smith,  who  per- 
ceived the  importance  of  Noyes's  intelligence, 
obtained  permission  to  send  a  party  across 
the  stream  to  see  if  the  enemy's  works  had 
been  sufficiently  denuded  to  enable  a  column 
to  effect  a  lodgment.  Four  companies  of 
the  3d  Vermont,  numbering  200  men,  under 
Captain  Flarrington,  were  ordered  to  cross  the 
river,  to  ascertain  "  the  true  state  of  affairs." 
They  dashed  through  the  stream,  and  in 
a  few  moments  gained  the  enemy's  rifle- 
pits,  where  they  maintained  themselves  with 
the  utmost  gallantry  for  half  an  hour.  The 
enemy  was  thrown  into  great  confusion  by 
this  bold  and  utterly  unexpected  movement. 
There  were  still  several  hours  of  daylight  left, 
and  another  attempt  was  made  to  cross  at  the 
same  point  with  a  force  no  larger  than  Har- 
rington's, assisted  by  a  diversion  of  an  equal 
force  at  the  dam  above.  But  the  enemy  being 
now  thoroughly  aroused  and  concentrated,  the 
crossing  was  not  made.  It  appears  from  Gen- 
eral Smith's  report  that  "  no  attempt  to  mass 
the  troops  of  the  division  for  an  assault  was 
made  " ;  the  only  intention  seemed  to  be  "  to 
secure  the  enemy's  works  if  we  found  them 
abandoned  !  "    He  adds  : 
The  moment  I  found  resistance  serious,  and  the  num- 
bers opposed  great,  I  acted  in  obedience  to  the  warn- 
ing instructions  of  the  General-in-Chief, and  withdrew 
the  small  number  of  troops  exposed  from  under  fire. 
"  Thus,"  says  General  Webb,  "  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity to  break  the  Warwick  line  was  missed." 
The  importance  of  this  incident  may  be  best 
appreciated  by  reading  General  Magruder's 
account  of  it.  He  calls  it  a  serious  attempt 
to  break  his  line  at  the  weakest  part.  If,  in- 
stead of  two  hundred  men,  Smith  had  felt  au- 
thorized to  push  over  his  entire  division,  the 
Peninsula  campaign  would  have  had  a  very 
different  termination. 
The  little  that  was  done  greatly  pleased 
General  McClellan.  He  announced  the  move- 
ment of  General  Smith  in  a  somewhat  excited 
dispatch  to  the  War  Department,  which  Mr. 
Stanton  answered  with  still  more  enthusiastic 
congratulation.  "  Good  for  the  first  lick !  "  he 
shouts ;  "  Hurrah  for  Smith  and  the  one-gun 
battery" — showing  the  intense  eagerness  of 
the  Government  to  find  motives  for  satisfaction 
and  congratulation  in  McClellan's  conduct. 
But  there  was  no  sequel  to  the  movement; 
indeed,  General  McClellan's  dispatches  indi- 
cate considerable  complacency  that  Smith  was 
able  to  hold  the  position  gained.  General 
Webb  says,  "  Reconnaissances  were  made, .  .  . 
but  no  assaulting  columns  were  ever  organ- 
ized to  take  advantage  of  any  opportunity 
offered." 
No  congratulations  or  encouragements  from 
the  Government  now  availed  anything  with
PLANS   OF   CAMPAIGN. 
927 
McClellan.  Struggling  with  a  command  and 
a  responsibility  too  heavy  for  him,  he  had  fallen 
into  a  morbid  state  of  mind  in  which  prompt 
and  energetic  action  was  impossible.  His 
double  illusion  of  an  overpowering  force  of  the 
enemy  in  his  front,  and  of  a  government  at 
Washington  that  desired  the  destruction  of 
his  army,  was  always  present  with  him,  exert- 
ing its  paralyzing  influence  on  all  his  plans 
and  actions.  In  his  private  letters  he  speaks 
of  Washington  as  that  "  sink  of  iniquity  " ;  of 
the  people  in  authority  as  "  those  treacherous 
hounds";  of  the  predicament  he  is  in,  "the 
rebels  on  one  side  and  the  Abolitionists  and 
other  scoundrels  on  the  other."  "  I  feel,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  depends  upon 
me,  and  I  feel  that  I  have  not  one  single  friend 
at  the  seat  of  government " —  this  at  a  moment 
when  the  Government  was  straining  every 
nerve  to  support  him. 
The  Confederates,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said, 
were  daily  strengthening  their  position  by  for- 
tification and  reenforcement.  On  the  17th  of 
April,  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  took  com- 
mand of  the  army  of  the  Peninsula.  He  says 
that  his  force  after  the  arrival  of  Smith's  and 
Longstreet's  divisions  amounted  to  about 
53,000  men,  including  3000  sick;  he  places 
the  force  of  McClellan  at  133,000,  including 
Franklin's  division  of  13,000  floating  idly  on 
their  transports.*  He  did  nothing  more  than  to 
observe  the  Union  army  closely,  to  complete 
the  fortifications  between  Yorktown  and  the 
inundations  of  the  Warwick,  and  to  hold  his 
own  forces  in  readiness  for  a  movement  to  the 
rear.  He  kept  himself  informed  of  the  prog- 
ress of  McClellan's  engineering  work  against 
Yorktown,  as  it  was  not  his  intention  to  remain 
long  enough  to  spend  an  hour  under  fire.  He 
did  not  expect  to  be  hurried;  he  had  long 
before  that  given  his  opinion  that  McClellan 
did  not  especially  value  time.  Every  day  of 
delay  was  of  course  an  advantage,  but  "  an 
additional  day  or  two  gained  by  enduring  a 
cannonade  would  have  been  dearly  bought  in 
blood,"  and  he  therefore  determined  to  go  be- 
fore McClellan's  powerful  artillery  should  open 
upon  him.  Seeing,  as  we  now  can,  what  was 
occurring  upon  both  sides  of  the  Warwick 
River,  there  is  something  humiliating  and  not 
without  a  touch  of  the  pathetic  in  the  con- 
trast between  the  clear  vision  of  Johnston  and 
the  absolute  blindness  of  McClellan,  in  rela- 
tion to  each  other's  attitude  and  purpose. 
While  the  former  was  simply  watching  for  the 
flash  of  the  first  guns  to  take  his  departure, 
glad  of  every  day  that  the  firing  was  postponed, 
but  entirely  indifferent  to  the  enormous  devel- 
opment of  the  siege-works  going  on  in  his 
sight,  the  latter  was  toiling  with  prodigious 
industry  and  ability  over  his  vast  earth-works 
and  his  formidable  batteries,  only  pausing  to 
send  importunate  dispatches  to  Washington  for 
more  guns  andmore  soldiers,  forbidding  the  ad- 
vance of  a  picket  beyond  specified  limits,  care- 
fully concealing  every  battery  until  all  should 
be  finished,  not  allowing  a  gun  to  be  fired 
until  the  whole  thunderous  chorus  should  open 
at  once,  firmly  convinced  that  when  he  was 
entirely  ready  he  would  fight  and  destroy  the 
whole  rebel  army. 
Nearly  one  hundred  heavy  Parrott  guns, 
mortars,  and  howitzers  were  placed  in  battery 
against  the  town  and  camp  of  Yorktown  and 
its  outlying  works,  only  fifteen  hundred  or 
two  thousand  yards  away.  Against  the  opin- 
ion of  his  ablest  staff-officers,  McClellan  kept 
this  immense  armament  silent  for  weeks  while 
he  was  continually  adding  to  it.  Barnard,  Chief 
of  Engineers,  says,  "We  should  have  opened 
our  batteries  on  the  place  as  fast  as  they 
were  completed."  Barry,  Chief  of  Artillery, 
says: 
The  ease  with  which  the  100  and  200  pounders  of 
this  battery  [Battery  No.  1]  were  worked,  the  extraor- 
dinary accuracy  of  their  fire,  and  the  since  ascertained 
effects  produced  upon  the  enemy  by  it,  force  upon  me 
the  conviction  that  the  fire  of  guns  of  similar  caliber 
and  power  in  the  other  batteries  at  much  shorter 
ranges,  combined  with  the  cross-vertical  fire  of  the 
thirteen  and  ten  inch  sea-coast  mortars,  would  have 
compelled  the  enemy  to  surrender  or  abandon  his  works 
in  less  than  twelve  hours. 
General  McClellan's  only  reason  for  refus- 
ing to  allow  the  batteries  to  open  fire  as  they 
were  successively  finished  was  the  fear  that 
they  would  be  silenced  by  the  converging  fire 
of  the  enemy  as  soon  as  they  betrayed  their 
position.  That  this  was  a  gross  error  is  shown 
by  the  Confederate  reports.  They  were  per- 
fectly cognizant  of  the  progress  and  disposi- 
tion of  his  batteries;  the  very  good  reason 
why  they  did  not  annoy  him  in  their  construc- 
tion was  that  the  Union  lines  were,  to  use 
Johnston's  words,  "  beyond  the  range  of  our 
old-fashioned  ship  guns."  A  few  experimen- 
tal shots  were  fired  from  the  shore  batteries 
on  the  1st  of  May ;  the  effect  of  them  con- 
vinced the  Confederate  general  of  the  enor- 
mous surplus  strength  of  the  Federal  artillery. 
The  shots  from  their  first  volley  fell  on  the  camp 
of  his  reserve,  a  mile  and  a  half  beyond  the 
village,  t 
*  His  own  force  is  correctly  given.  He  only  slightly 
exaggerates  that  of  McClellan. 
t  On  the  23d  of  April,  McClellan  wrote  to  the  Presi- 
dent: "Do  not  misunderstand  the  apparent  inaction 
here  — not  a  clay,  not  an  hour,  has  been  lost.    Works 
have  been  constructed  that  may  almost  be  called  gigan- 
tic, roads  built  through  swamps  and  difficult  ravines, 
material  brought  up,  batteries  built.  I  have  to-night 
in  battery  and  ready  for  motion  5  100-pounder  Parrott 
guns,  10  4*4 -inch  ordnance  guns,  1 8  20-pounder  Par-
928 
Wow  long  General  McClellan  would  have 
continued  this  futile  labor  if  he  had  been  left 
alone,  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture.  If  there 
was  at  tirsr  a  limit  in  his  own  mind  of  the 
work  to  be  done  and  the  time  to  be  given  to 
it.  it  must  have  been  continually  moved 
forward  until  it  passed  out  of  sight.  Up  to 
the  last  moment  he  was  still  making  de- 
mands which  it  would  have  taken  weeks  to 
till.  The  completion  of  one  work  was  simply 
an  incentive  to  the  beginning  of  another. 
Thus  on  the  2Sth  of  April, —  a  week  after 
Franklin's  arrival, —  at  a  time  when  Johnston 
was  already  preparing  to  start  for  Richmond, 
he  telegraphs  to  •  Washington  as  a  pleasant 
bit  of  news  that  he  "  had  commenced  a  new 
battery  from  right  of  first  parallel,"  and  adds: 
■•  Would  be  glad  to  have  the  30-pounder 
Parrotts  in  the  works  around  Washington 
at  once.  Am  very  short  of  that  excellent 
gun."  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  how 
such  a  dispatch  at  such  a  time  smote  upon 
the  intense  anxiety  of  the  President.  He 
answered  in  wonder  and  displeasure:  "Your 
call  for  Parrott  guns  from  Washington 
alarms  me,  chiefly  because  it  argues  indefinite 
procrastination.  Is  anything  to  be  done  ? " 
But  the  general,  busy  with  his  trenches  and 
his  epaulements,  paid  no  regard  to  this  search- 
ing question.  Two  days  later,  May  1,  he 
continued  his  cheery  report  of  new  batteries 
and  rifle-pits,  and  adds,  "  Enemy  still  in  force 
and  working  hard  " ;  and  these  stereotyped 
phrases  last  with  no  premonition  of  any  im- 
mediate change  until  on  the  4th  he  tele- 
graphed, "  Yorktown  is  in  our  possession," 
and  later  in  the  day  began  to  magnify  his 
victory,  telling  what  spoils  he  had  captured, 
and  ending  with  the  sounding  phrases,  "  No 
time  shall  be  lost.  I  shall  push  the  enemy  to 
the  wall." 
Johnston  had  begun  his  preparations  to 
move  on  the  27  th  of  April,  and  on  the  3d  of 
May,  finding  that  McClellan's  batteries  were 
ready  to  open, —  a  fact  apparently  not 
yet  known  to  McClellan, —  he  gave  orders  for 
the  evacuation,  which  began  at  midnight.  He 
ied  away  from  Yorktown  with  about 
50,000  men.  General  McClellan,  by  his  own 
ing  report  of  the  30th  of  April,  had  in  his 
camps  and  trenches,  and  scrambling  in  haste 
on  board  the  transports  that  they  had  quitted 
the  day  before,  the  magnificent  aggregate  of 
112.392  present  for  fluty,  and  a  total  aggre- 
gate of  130.378. 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
FROM    WILLIAMSBURG    TO    FAIR    OAKS. 
The  evacuation  of  Yorktown  took  General 
McClellan  so  completely  by  surprise  that  a 
good  deal  of  valuable  time  was  lost  in  hurried 
preparation  to  pursue  the  retiring  enemy. 
Franklin's  division,  after  their  fortnight  of  de- 
lay on  the  transports,  had  been  disembarked. 
They  were  hastily  returned  to  their  boats. 
Says  Webb : 
Several  hours  were  consumed  in  having  the 
commands  properly  provisioned  for  the  march. 
The  evacuation  was  discovered  at  dawn,  and  it  was 
noon  before  the  first  column  started  in  pursuit. 
Johnston  by  this  time  had  taken  his  entire  command 
to  Williamsburg.  Knowing  that  McClellan's  advance 
would  soon  reach  him,  he  made  his  dispositions  at  his 
leisure.  He  posted  a  strong  rear-guard  there  under 
Longstreet  to  protect  the  movement  of  his  trains.  The 
Union  cavalry  under  Sherman  came  into  collision  with 
this  force  about  dark  and  was  repulsed,  losing  one  gun. 
The  main  body  of  the  pursuing  army  came  up  during 
the  night,  under  the  command  of  Generals  Sumner, 
Heintzelman,  and  Keyes.  It  is  strongly  illustrative  of 
General  McClellan's  relations  with  his  corps  command- 
ers, that  neither  of  these  generals' had  any  orders  from 
him  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  battle  which  was  inevit- 
able as  soon  as  they  overtook  the  enemy,  and  there 
was  even  serious  doubt  as  to  which  among  them  was 
in  command  of  the  forces.  Sumner  had  been  ordered 
by  the  General-in-Chief  to  take  command  in  his  ab- 
sence, but  these  orders  had  not  been  communicated  to 
Heintzelman,  who  thought  that  he  was  to  take  control 
of  the  movement. 
There  was  some  confusion  of  orders  as  to 
the  roads  to  be  taken  by  the  different  com- 
mands, in  consequence  of  which  Hooker  came 
into  position  on  the  left  of  the  line  and  Smith 
on  the  right.  The  contrary  disposition  had 
been  intended. 
The  morning  of  the  5th  came  with  no  defi- 
nite plan  of  battle  arranged.  General  Hooker, 
following  his  own  martial  instincts,  moved  for- 
ward and  attacked  the  enemy  at  half-past  7 
and  was  soon  hotly  engaged.  He  fought  al- 
most the  entire  rear-guard  of  Johnston  during 
the  whole  forenoon.  Heavy  reinforcements 
thrown  against  him  checked  his  advance  and 
caused  him  to  lose  the  ground  he  had  gained. 
Hooker  speaks  in  his  report  with  much  bitter- 
ness, not  wholly  unjustified,  of  the  manner  in 
which  his  division  was  left  to  fight  an  over- 
whelming force,  "unaided  in  the  presence  of 
more  than  30,000  of  their  comrades  with  arms 
in  their  hands,"  and  we  search  the  reports  of 
General  McClellan  and  the  corps  commanders 
in  vain  for  any  adequate  explanation  of  this 
state  of  things. 
The  whole  day  was  bloody  and  expensive 
Napoleon  guns,  and  6  10-pounder  Parrotts;     essentially  complete  theredoubt  necessary  to  strengthen 
is  not  counting  the  batteries  in  front  of  Smith  and     the  first  parallel  as  far  as  Wormley's  Creek  from  the 
on  his  left  —  45  guns.   I  will  add  to  it  to-morrow  night     left,  and  probably  all  the  way  to  York  River  to-morrow 
5  30-pounder  Parrotts,  6  20-pounder   Parrotts,  from  5     night.   /  will  then  be  secure  against  sorties."  [McClellan 
to  10  13-inch  mortars,  and— if  they  arrive  in  time— one     to  Lincoln,  April  23.  MS.]    With  a  force  of  three  to 
wasting  w( 
ey  arrive 
200-pounder  Parrott.   Before  sundown  to-morrow  I  will     one  he  was  wasting  weeks  In  defensive  works
PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 
929 
and  without  adequate  result.  The  heroism  of 
Hooker  and  Hancock,  and  their  brave  troops, 
was  well-nigh  wasted.  There  was  no  head,  no 
intelligent  director,  no  understood  plan.  Mc- 
Clellan  arrived  late  in  the  day  and  was  unable 
to  contribute  anything  to  the  result,  although 
the  cheers  with  which  he  was  welcomed  showed 
how. fully  he  possessed  the  confidence  and 
affection  of  his  troops.  He  had  not  anticipated 
so  early  an  engagement,  and  was  spending 
the  day  at  Yorktown  to  dispatch  Franklin's 
division  up  the  river. 
Actual  contact  with  the  enemy,  however, 
made,  as  it  always  did,  an  exaggerated  impres- 
sion upon  him.  The  affair,  which  when  he 
heard  of  it  at  Yorktown  seemed  to  him  a  mere 
skirmish  with  a  rear-guard,  suddenly  acquired 
a  portentous  importance  when  surveyed  in  the 
light  of  the  bivouac  at  Williamsburg,  amidst 
the  actual  and  visible  signs  of  a  sanguinary 
conflict.  His  dispatch  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, written  at  10  o'clock  the  night  of  the 
battle,  betrays  great  agitation,  and  his  idio- 
syncrasy of  multiplying  the  number  of  his 
enemy,  as  a  matter  of  course,  asserts  itself.  "  I 
find  General  Joe  Johnston  in  front  of  me  in 
strong  force,  probably  greater  a  good  deal  than 
my  own."  After  a  compliment  to  Hancock  he 
continues,  "  I  learn  from  the  prisoners  taken 
that  the  rebels  intend  to  dispute  every  step 
to  Richmond."  One  can  only  wonder  what 
he  expected  them  to  say.  "  I  shall  run  the  risk 
of  at  least  holding  them  in  check  here,  while 
I  resume  the  original  plan.  My  entire  force 
is  undoubtedly  inferior  to  that  of  the  rebels, 
who  will  fight  well."  *  Thus  while  Johnston 
was  profiting  by  the  darkness  to  prepare  to 
continue  his  retrograde  march  at  daybreak, 
McClellan  was  nerving  himself  to  stand  the 
risk  of  holding  his  ground  at  Williamsburg, 
while  he  "resumed  the  original  plan"  of  a 
movement  by  water. 
The  next  day,  when  he  discovered  that  the 
enemy  had  moved  away,  leaving  their  wounded 
on  the  field  of  battle,  his  apprehension  of  at- 
tack subsided,  but  other  difficulties  rose  before 
him.  He  telegraphed  on  the  7th  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  War  that  "  until  the  roads  improved 
both  in  front  and  rear  no  large  body  of  troops 
could  be  moved."  Johnston  had  apparently 
no  difficulty  in  moving  his  troops,  which  Mc- 
Clellan thought  a  larger  body  than  his  own. 
Reaching  a  place  called  Baltimore  Cross- 
Roads,  Johnston  halted  for  five  days,  and,  af- 
ter receiving  intelligence  of  the  evacuation  of 
Norfolk  and  the  destruction  of  the  Merrimac, 
apprehending  an  attack  upon  Richmond  by 
way  of  the  James  River,  he  ordered  his  f 
to  cross  the  Chickahominy  on  the  15th.  'J  wo 
days  after  this  the  rebel  army  encamped 
about  three  miles  from  Richmond,  in  front 
of  the  line  of  redoubts  that  had  been  con- 
structed the  previous  year.  It  was  a  time  of 
great  apprehension,  almost  of  dismay,  at  Rich- 
mond. The  Confederate  President,  and  most 
of  his  cabinet,  hastily  sent  their  families  to 
places  of  safety.  Mr.  Davis,  whose  religious 
feelings  always  took  on  a  peculiar  intensity  in 
critical  times,  had  himself  baptized  at  home, 
and  privately  confirmed  at  St.  Paul's  Church. 
There  was  great  doubt  whether  the  city  could 
be  successfully  defended;  the  most  important 
archives  of  the  Government  were  sent,  some  to 
Lynchburg  and  some  to  Columbia. t 
But  General  Johnston  had  reason  to  con- 
firm his  opinion  that  McClellon  cared  little 
for  time.  He  remained  several  days  at  Will- 
iamsburg after  he  had  ascertained  that  the 
enemy  had  disappeared  from  in  front  of  him. 
His  visions  of  overwhelming  forces  of  rebels 
were  now  transferred  to  Franklin's  front.  On 
the  8th  he  telegraphed  the  War  Department  a 
story  of  80,000  to  120,000  opposed  to  Frank- 
lin, but  in  full  retreat  to  the  Chickahominy. 
On  the  10th  he  sends  an  urgent  appeal  to 
Washington  for  more  troops,  claiming  that  the 
enemy  "  are  collecting  troops  from  all  quar- 
ters, especially  well-disciplined  troops  from  the 
South."  His  own  army  will  inevitably  be  re- 
duced by  sickness,  casualties,  garrisons,  and 
guards  —  as  if  that  of  the  enemy  would  not. 
He  therefore  implores  large  and  immediate 
reinforcements  in  a  tone  which  implies  that 
the  President  could  make  armies  by  executive 
decree.  "  If  I  am  not  reenforced,"  he  says,  "  it 
is  probable  that  I  will  be  obliged  to  fight 
nearly  double  my  numbers,  strongly  in- 
trenched." In  face  of  a  morning  report  of 
over  100,000  men  present  for  duty  he  says  :  "  I 
do  not  think  it  will  be  at  all  possible  for  me  to 
bring  more  than  70,000  men  upon  the  field  of 
battle."  This  last  statement  was  in  one  sense 
true ;  he  never  did,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed 
he  never  could,  handle  that  many  men  at 
once.  All  his  battles  were  fought  piecemeal 
with  a  part  of  his  force  at  a  time. 
He  still  protested  stoutly  against  the  orig- 
inal organization  of  his  army  corps,  and  asked 
that  he  might  be  permitted  to  break  it  up  or 
at  least  to  suspend  it.    He  disliked  his  corps 
*  On  the  6th  of  May  the  veteran  General  Wool  sent 
this  dispatch  to  the  War  Department,  showing  how 
his  elders  regarded  at  the  time  these  jeremiads  of  the 
young  general :  "  The  desponding  tone  of  Major-Gen- 
eral McClellan's  dispatch  of  last  evening  more  than 
surprises  me.    He  says  his  entire  force  is  undoubt- 
edly considerably  inferior  to  that  of  the  rebels. 
If  such  is  the  fact,  I  am  still  more  surprised  that 
they  should  have  abandoned  Yorktown."  [War 
Records.]         ' 
tj.   B.   Jones,  "  A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary,"  en- 
tries  of  May  8,  May  10,  and  May  19.
o>- 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
commanders, and  naturally  wished  his  friends 
to  exercise  those  important  commands.  He 
blamed  the  corps  organization  for  all  the 
trouble  at  Williamsburg,  and  said,  if  he  had 
come  on  the  field  half  an  hour  later,  all  would 
have  been  lost.  The  President  was  greatly 
wounded  by  this  persistent  manifestation  of 
bad  temper,  but  bore  it  after  his  fashion  with 
untiring  patience  and  kindness.  He  sent  an 
official  order,  authorizing  McClellan  to  sus- 
pend temporarily  the  corps  organization  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  to  adopt  any  that  he 
might  see  ht,  until  further  orders.  At  the  same 
time  he  wrote  a  private  letter  to  the  general, 
full  ot  \\  ise  and  kindly  warning.    He  said  : 
I  ordered  the  army  corps  organization  not  only 
(>n  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  twelve  generals 
whom  you  had  selected  and  assigned  as  generals 
of  division,  but  also  on  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
every  military  man  I  could  get  an  opinion  from, 
and  every  modern  military  book,  yourself  alone  ex- 
cepted. Of  course  I  did  not  on  my  own  judgment 
pretend  to  understand  the  subject.  I  now  think  it 
indispensable  for  you  to  know  how  your  struggle 
against  it  is  received  in  quarters  which  we  cannot 
entirely  disregard.  It  is  looked  upon  as  merely  an 
effort  to  pamper  one  or  two  pets  and  to  persecute  and 
degrade  their  supposed  rivals.  I  have  had  no  word 
from  Sumner,  Heintzelman,  or  Keyes.  The  com- 
manders of  these  corps  are  of  course  the  three  highest 
officers  with  you,  but  I  am  constantly  told  that  you 
have  no  consultation  or  communication  with  them  ; 
that  you  consult  and  communicate  with  nobody  but 
General  Fitz-John  Porter  and  perhaps  General  Frank- 
lin. I  do  not  say  these  complaints  are  true  or  just, 
but  at  all  events  it  is  proper  you  should  know  of 
their  existence.  Do  the  commanders  of  corps  disobey 
your  orders  in  anything?  When  you  relieved  General 
Hamilton  of  his  command  the  other  day,  you  thereby 
lost  the  confidence  of  at  least  one  of  your  best  friends 
in  the  Senate.  And  here  let  me  say,  not  as  applicable 
to  you  personally,  that  senators  and  representatives 
speak  of  me  in  their  places  as  they  please  without 
question,  and  that  officers  of  the  army  must  cease  ad- 
dressing  insulting  letters  to  them  for  taking  no  great 
liberty  with  them.  But  to  return.  Are  you  strong 
enough  —  are  you  strong  enough  even  with  my  help  — 
your  foot  upon  the  necks  of  Sumner,  Heintzel- 
man, and  Keyes  all  at  once?    This  is  a  practical  and 
■.rious  question  for  you.  The  success  of  your 
army  and  the  cause  of  the  country  are  the  same,  and 
of  course  I  only  desire  the  good  of  the  cause. 
teral  McClellan  accepted  the  authoriza- 
tion with  alarrity  and  the  sermon  with  indif- 
ference. He  at  once  formed  two  provisional 
army  corps,  giving  Fitz-John  Porter  the  com- 
m   iid  of  one  and  Franklin  the  other. 
After  leaving  Williamsburg  and  joining 
his  army  at  Cumberland,  he  reiterated  his 
complaints  and  entreated  for  reinforcements 
that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  send  him.  His  morbid  apprehension 
had  grown  to  such  an  extent  that  on  the  14th 
of  May  he  telegraphed  his  conviction  that 
he  would  be  compelled,  with  8cvooo  men,  to 
fight  160,000  rebels  in  front  of  Richmond; 
and  begged  that  the  Government  would  send 
him  "  by  water  " — he  did  not  want  them  to 
come  overland  —  '-all  the  disposable  troops," 
"  every  man  "  that  could  be  mustered.  The 
President,  anxious  to  leave  nothing  undone  to 
help  and  encourage  him,  replied  to  these  im- 
portant demands  first  by  a  friendly  private 
note,  in  which  he  said : 
I  have  done  and  shall  do  all  I  could  and  can  to 
sustain  you.  I  hoped  that  the  opening  of  the  James 
River  and  putting  Wool  and  Eurnside  in  communica- 
tion, with  an  open  road  to  Richmond,  or  to  you,  had 
effected  something  in  that  direction.  I  am  still  unwill- 
ing to  take  all  our  forces  off  the  direct  line  between 
Richmond  and  here. 
He  afterwards  sent  a  dispatch  through  the  War 
Department,  of  which  the  essential  points  are 
as  follows : 
The  President  is  not  willing  to  uncover  the  Capital 
entirely,  and  it  is  believed  that  even  if  this  were  pru- 
dent, it  would  require  more  time  to  effect  a  junction 
between  your  army  and  that  of  the  Rappahannock  by 
way  of  the  Potomac  and  York  rivers  than  by  a  land 
march.  In  order  therefore  to  increase  the  strength  of 
the  attack  upon  Richmond  at  the  earliest  moment, 
General  McDowell  has  been  ordered  to  march  upon 
that  city  by  the  shortest  route.  He  is  ordered  —  keep- 
ing himself  always  in  position  to  save  the  Capital  from 
all  possible  attack- — so  to  operate  as  to  put  his  left 
wing  in  communication  with  your  right  wing,  and  you 
are  instructed  to  cooperate  so  as  to  establish  this  com- 
munication as  soon  as  possible,  by  extending  your 
right  wing  to  the  north  of  Richmond,  .  .  .  but  charged, 
in  attempting  this,  not  to  uncover  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton ;  and  you  will  give  no  order,  either  before  or  after 
your  junction,  which  can  put  him  out  of  position  to 
cover  this  city.  .  .  .  The  President  desires  that 
General  McDowell  retain  the  command  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Rappahannock,  and  of  the  forces  with 
which  he  moved  forward. 
Events  as  little  foreseen  by  General  Mc- 
Clellan as  by  the  Government,  and  which  had 
by  him  been  declared  impossible, —  the  defeat 
of  our  forces  in  the  Shenandoah  and  the  move- 
ment of  a  large  rebel  force  to  the  upper  Po- 
tomac,—  prevented  the  execution  of  this  plan. 
But  it  is  v/orthy  of  notice  that  immediately  on 
the  receipt  of  the  President's  instructions,  while 
he  was  waiting  for  McDowell  to  join  him, 
General  McClellan  evinced  no  gratification 
at  this  compliance  with  his  wishes.  On  the 
contrary,  he  lost  no  time  in  making  a  griev- 
ance of  it;  he  wrote  along  and  elaborate  dis- 
patch protesting  against  it,  and  asking  that 
"  McDowell  should  be  placed  explicitly  under 
his  orders  in  the  ordinary  way."  In  his  re- 
port, and  in  all  his  subsequent  apologies  for 
his  campaign,  he  makes  this  positive  assertion  : 
This  order  rendered  it  impossible  for  me  to  use  the 
James  River  as  a  line  of  operations,  and  forced  me  to 
establish  our  depots  on  the  Pamunkey  and  to  approach 
Richmond  from  the  north. 
This  charge  is  an  evident  after-thought,  and 
is  no  less  lacking  in  adroitness  than  in  candor. 
We  will  permit  it  to  be  answered  by  General
PLANS   OF  CAMPAIGN. 
9.31 
Webb,  the  ablest  military  writer  on  the  Pen- 
insula campaign,  who  is  always  the  friend  of 
McClellan,  and  his  partisan  wherever  the  writ- 
er's intelligence  and  conscience  allow  it.  He 
says: 
It  is  but  repeating  the  proper  criticisms  made  by 
other  writers  that  General  McClellan  had  frequently 
mentioned  the  Pamunkey  as  his  prospective  base ;  that 
he  made  no  representation  to  the  Government,  at  the 
time,  that  he  wished  to  be  free  to  move  by  the  James; 
and  that  it  was  within  his  power  during  the  first  three 
weeks  of  June,  when  he  found  that  McDowell  was 
again  withheld  from  him,  to  follow  the  latter  route.  On 
one  point  there  can  be  no  question  —  that  the  position 
of  his  army,  as  already  given,  along  the  left  bank  of  the 
Chickahominy  from  Bottom's  towards  New  Bridge, 
on  May  20,  with  the  White  House,  on  the  Pamunkey, 
as  the  base  of  supplies,  was  one  of  McClellan's  own 
choice,  uninfluenced  by  McDowell's  movements. 
It  required  ten  days  after  the  fight  at  Will- 
iamsburg for  McClellan's  headquarters  to 
reach  Cumberland,  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
Pamunkey,  and  on  the  next  day  he  established 
his  permanent  depot  at  the  White  House,  near 
by.  On  the  21st  the  army  was  brought  to- 
gether and  established  in  line  on  the  Chicka- 
hominy, the  right  wing  being  about  seven  and 
the  left  about  twelve  miles  from  Richmond, 
from  which  they  were  separated  by  two  formi- 
dable barriers  —  the  rebel  army,  and  the  river 
with  its  environment  of  woods  and  swamps, 
its  fever-breathing  airs  and  its  sudden  floods. 
The  latter  was  first  attacked.  General  Mc- 
Clellan began  at  once  with  great  energy  the 
building  of  several  bridges  over  the  stream,  a 
work  of  special  difficulty  on  account  of  the 
boggy  banks,  which  made  long  approaches 
necessary.  In  this  work,  and  in  a  voluminous 
correspondence  with  the  President  in  regard 
to  reinforcements,  which  we  shall  notice  when 
we  come  to  treat  of  those  movements  of  Jack- 
son's in  the  valley  that  caused  the  division 
of  McDowell's  force,  he  passed  ten  days;  he 
pushed  the  corps  of  Keyes  and  Heintzelman 
across  the  river,  and  retained  those  of  Sum- 
ner, Franklin,  and  Porter  on  the  north  side. 
The  monotony  of  camp  life  was  broken  up 
on  the  27th  of  May  by  a  brilliant  feat  of  arms 
performed  by  Fitz-John  Porter  and  his  corps 
at  Hanover  Court  House,  where  he  attacked 
and  defeated  a  rebel  force  under  General 
Branch.  The  chief  value  of  this  battle  was  its 
demonstration  of  the  splendid  marching  and 
fighting  qualities  of  the  troops  engaged.  Gen- 
eral McClellan  was  greatly  annoyed  that  the 
President  did  not  seem  to  attach  sufficient  im- 
portance to  this  action;  but  General  Johnston 
in  his  "  Narrative,"  while  not  diminishing  the 
gallantry  of  Porter  and  his  troops,  or  denying 
the  complete  defeat  of  Branch,  treats  it  merely 
as  an  incident  of  Branch's  march  under  orders 
to  join  Anderson,  which  was  accomplished 
the  same  day  at  the  point  designated  for  this 
junction.  There  was  no  sequel  to  the  fight 
Porter  and  his  victorious  troops  man  bed  back 
to  camp. 
On  the  26th  of  May,  General  McClellan 
informed  the  President  that  he  was  "quietly 
closing  in  upon  the  enemy  preparatory  to  the 
last  struggle,"  and  that  he  would  be  "  free  to 
strike  "  on  the  return  of  Porter.  But  several 
days  elapsed  without  the  blow  being  struck, 
until  the  enemy,  as  usual,  accelerated  matters 
by  himself  striking.  It  had  been  for  some 
time  the  intention  of  General  Johnston  to  at- 
tack the  Union  army  before  McDowell  should 
join  it;  and  learning,  on  the  day  of  the  battle 
of  Hanover  Court  House,  that  McDowell  was 
leaving  Fredericksburg,  he  resolved  at  once 
to  strike  McClellan's  force  on  both  sides  of 
the  river.  When  we  consider  that  the  con- 
solidated returns  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
for  the  31st  of  May  showed  an  aggregate  of 
127,166  officers  and  men,  of  whom  there  were 
98.000  present  for  duty,  with  280  pieces  of  field 
artillery,  and  that  General  Johnston's  force 
amounted  to  about  60,000  effectives,  we  can- 
not but  think  it  was  a  fortunate  circumstance 
for  him  that  he  did  not  attempt  to  carry  this 
heroic  plan  into  effect.  At  night,  when  he  had 
called  his  general  officers  together  for  their 
instruction,  Johnston  was  informed  that  Mc- 
Dowell's force,  which  had  been  marching 
south  ward,. had  returned  to  Fredericksburg. 
He  then  abandoned  his  idea  of  attacking  Mc- 
Clellan on  both  sides  of  the  river,  and  reverted 
to  his  former  plan  of  assailing  with  his  whole 
force  the  two  corps  on  the  south  bank  as  soon 
as  they  had  sufficiently  increased  the  distance 
between  themselves  and  the  three  corps  on  the 
north. 
In  this  plan,  as  in  the  other  one, —  and  we 
shall  see,  farther  on,  that  the  same  was  the 
case  with  General  Lee, —  General  Johnston 
does  not  seem  to  have  taken  into  the  account 
the  possible  initiative  of  General  McClellan. 
He  makes  his  plans  entirely  without  reference  to 
it,  choosing  his  time  for  attack  absolutely  at 
his  own  convenience.  He  takes  it  for  granted 
that  he  will  be  met  with  a  courageous  and 
able  defense —  but  nothing  more.  The  worst 
he  has  to  fear  in  any  case  is  a  repulse ;  there 
seems  no  thought  of  an  offensive  return  in 
his  mind.  The  Northern  general,  on  the  con- 
trary, judged  his  adversary  with  more  courtesy 
than  justice.  He  evidently  had  no  suspicion  of 
Johnston's  intentions.  At  the  moment  that  the 
latter  was  calling  his  generals  together  to  give 
orders  for  the  assault,  McClellan  was  tele- 
graphing to  Washington:  "Richmond  papers 
urge  Johnston  to  attack,  now  that  he  has  us 
away  from  gun-boats.  I  think  he  is  too  able 
for  that."
932 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Johnston's  purpose  was  finally  adopted  and 
put  in  action  with  great  decision  and  prompti- 
tude. On  the  30th  1).  11.  Hill  informed  him 
that  the  Federals  were  in  force  at  Seven  Pines, 
and  that  the  indications  were  that  all  of  Keyes's 
corps  was  south  oi  the  river;  to  which  John- 
ston immediately  responded  by  telling  him  he 
would  attack  the  next  morning.  Within  an 
hour  or  two  his  whole  plan  of  battle  was  ar- 
gjed.  Orders  were  given  to  throw  twenty- 
three  oi  the  twenty-seven  brigades  of  which 
the  Confederate  army  consisted  against  the 
two  corps  of  Heintzelman  and  Keyes.*  The 
rest  were  to  observe  the  river  by  the  Meadow 
and  New  bridges.  After  the  plan  of  battle  was 
arranged,  a  violent  storm  of  rain  came  on  and 
continued  most  of  the  night.  This  was  a  wel- 
come incident  to  Johnston,  as  it  inspired  the 
hope  that  the  river  might  overflow  its  banks 
and  sever  the  communication  between  the  two 
wings  of  the  Federal  army.  He  did  not  per- 
mit the  rain  to  delay  him. 
The  forces  commanded  by  Longstreet  and 
Hill  attacked  Casey's  division  of  Keyes's  corps 
with  great  impetuosity,  and  in  overwhelming 
numbers,  about  1  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Keyes's  corps,  supported  by  those  of  Heint- 
zelman, defended  their  ground  with  gallantry 
and  pertinacity;  but  the  numbers  opposed  to 
them  were  too  great,  and  they  gradually  and 
sullenly  gave  way,  retiring  inch  by  inch,  until, 
as  night  came  on,  they  had  been  forced  more 
than  a  mile  and  a  half  east  of  the  position  that 
they  had  occupied  in  the  morning. 
The  forces  under  G.  W.  Smith,  accompanied 
I  ty  Johnston  in  person,  whose  duty  it  had  been 
to  strike  the  right  flank  of  the  Union  army  as 
soon  as  the  assault  of  Longstreet  and  Hill 
became  fully  developed  on  the  left,  were  de- 
layed for  some  time  on  account  of  a  peculiar 
condition  of  the  atmosphere,  which  prevented 
nind  of  the  musketry  from  reaching  from 
1  Pines  to  the  headquarters  of  Smith 
on  the  Nine-mile  road.  But  about  4  o'clock, 
ton,  having  been  informed  of  the  prog- 
►f  affairs  in  Longstreet's  front,  determined 
to  put  Smith  in  upon  the  Union  right  flank, 
.  by  this  time  relieved  of  all  fear  of  a  re- 
enforcement  from  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
Fort  :t lately  for  the  Union  cause,  the  forces 
immediately  opposite  this  position  were  com- 
led  by  General  Sumner,  an  officer  whose 
strongest  traits  were  soldierly  ardor  and  gen- 
erosity. He  had  been  ordered,  as  soon  as  the 
firing  began,  to  hold  himself  in  readiness  to 
move  to  the  assistance  of  his  comrades  at  Fair 
Oaks;  but  he  gave  these  orders  a  liberal  inter- 
pretation, and  instead  of  merely  preparing  to 
"  In  an  article  in  The  Century  for  May,  1885,  (*en- 
eral  Johnston  changes  this  statement  to  "twenty-two 
out  of  twenty-eight  brigades." 
move  he  at  once  marched  with  two  divisions 
to  the  two  bridges  he  had  built  and  halted  them, 
with  his  leading  companies  at  the  bridges.  In 
this  manner  an  hour  of  inestimable  advantage 
was  saved.  The  swollen  river  soon  carried  away 
one  of  the  bridges,  and  the  other  was  almost 
submerged  when  the  order  came  to  Sumner 
to  cross. 
Without  delaying  a  moment  on  the  west 
bank,  Sumner  marched  through  the  thick  mud 
in  the  direction  of  the  heaviest  firing  and  re- 
pulsed the  attacks  of  Smith.  This  Union 
success  was  the  result  of  Sumner's  straight- 
forward and  unhesitating  march.  His  appoint- 
ment to  the  command  of  an  army  corps  had 
been  bitterly  opposed  and  never  forgiven  by 
General  McClellan ;  he  had  been  treated  by 
his  commander  with  studied  neglect  and 
disrespect ;  and  this  magnificent  service  was 
his  only  revenge.  About  7  o'clock  the  Con- 
federates met  their  severest  mischance  of  the 
day ;  General  Johnston  received  at  an  interval 
of  a  few  moments  two  severe  and  disabling 
wounds. 
The  firing  ceased,  "  terminated  by  darkness 
only,"  Johnston  is  careful  to  say,  before  he 
had  been  borne  a  mile  from  the  field.  The 
command  had  devolved  by  seniority  of  rank 
upon  General  G.  W.  Smith. 
There  was  great  confusion  and  discourage- 
ment in  the  rebel  councils.  Jefferson  Davis 
found  hope  in  the  suggestion  that  "  the  enemy 
might  withdraw  during  the  night,  which  would 
give  the  Confederates  the  moral  effect  of  a  vic- 
tory." Early  on  June  1  the  battle  was  re- 
newed, and  the  Union  troops  reoccupied  the 
ground  lost  on  the  day  before.  At  2  o'clock 
General  Lee  took  command,  and  the  battle 
died  away  by  the  gradual  retirement  of  the 
Confederates. 
A  great  battle  had  been  fought  absolutely 
without  result.  The  Confederates  had  failed 
in  their  attempt  to  destroy  McClellan's  two 
outlying  corps,  but  their  failure  entailed  no 
other  consequences.  The  losses  were  frightful 
upon  both  sides  :  the  Union  army  Jost  5000, 
and  the  Confederate  loss  was  reported  at  some- 
thing over  4000,  which  is  generally  considered 
an  under-statement.  But  there  was  this  enor- 
mous difference  between  the  condition  of  the 
two  armies:  the  Union  troops  south  of  the 
Chickahominy,  though  wearied  by  the  conflict, 
with  ranks  thinned  by  death  and  wounds,  had 
yet  suffered  no  loss  oi  morale;  on  the  contrary, 
their  spirits  had  been  heightened  by  the  stub- 
born fight  of  Saturday  and  the  easy  victory 
of  Sunday.  North  of  the  river  lay  the  larger 
portion  of  the  army,  which  had  not  fired  a 
gun  nor  lost  a  man  in  the  action.  It  is  hardly 
denied,  at  this  day,  by  the  most  passionate  of 
McClellan's  partisans,  that  the  way  to  Rich-
"AS  A   BELL   JN  A    CHIME: 
933 
mond  was  open  before  him  on  Saturday  after- 
noon.   It  was  his  greatest  opportunity. 
Jackson  was  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah detaching  from  Lee  an  army  of  16,000 
men.  The  enemy  had  thrown  almost  his  whole 
force  against  McClellan's  left  wing,  and  had 
received  more  injury  than  he  inflicted.  Our 
right  wing  was  intact;  the  material  for  bridg- 
ing the  upper  Chickahominy  had  been  ready 
for  three  days;  the  Confederate  army  was 
streaming  back  to  Richmond  in  discourage- 
ment and  disorder.  Even  so  ardent  a  friend  of 
McClellan  as  the  Prince  de  Joinville  writes  : 
The  Federals  had  had  the  defensive  battle  they  de- 
sired;  had  repulsed  the  enemy;  but  arrested  by  nat- 
ural obstacles  which  perhaps  were  not  insurmountable, 
they  had  gained  nothing  by  their  success.  They  had 
missed  an  unique  opportunity  of  striking  a  blow. 
If  General  McClellan  had  crossed  his  army, 
instead  of  one  division,  at  the  time  that  John- 
ston's entire  force  was  engaged  at  Seven  Pines, 
*  The  repulse  of  the  rebels  at  Fair  Oaks  should  have 
been  taken  advantage  of.  It  was  one  of  those  "  occa- 
sions "  which,  if  not  seized,  do  not  repeat  themselves. 
We  now  know  the  state  of  disorganization  and  dismay 
in  which  the  rebel  army  retreated.  We  now  know  that 
it  could  have  been  followed  into  Richmond.  Had  it 
been  so,  there  would  have  been  no  resistance  to  over- 
come to  bring  over  our  right  wing.  [General  Barnard] 
Mr.  William  Henry  Hurlbert,  the  translator  of  the 
Prince  de  Joinville's  work,  who  was  in  Richmond 
during  the  battle,  gives  the  following  account  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  Confederates  on  the  morning  of  June  1  : 
They  were  in  a  perfect  chaos  of  brigades  and  regi- 
ments.   The  roads  into  Richmond  were  literally  cov- 
the  rout  of  the  Southern  army  would  have  I 
complete  and  the  way  to  Richmond  would 
have  been  a  military  promenade.4  Put  the 
next  day  and  during  the  week  that  followed 
the  enterprise  assumed  so  many  difficulties  in 
his  eyes  that  he  could  not  have  been  expected 
to  attempt  it.  The  rains  continued;  the  slug- 
gish river  became  a  wide-spreading  flood  ;  the 
ground,  a  mixed  mass  of  clay  and  quicksand, 
afforded  no  sure  standing-place  for  horse,  foot, 
or  artillery ;  most  of  the  bridges  were  carried 
away;  the  army,  virtually  cut  in  two  by  the 
river,  occupied  itself  in  the  arduous  work  of 
intrenching.  General  Lee,  the  ablest  officer 
in  the  Southern  Confederacy,  his  mind  put 
entirely  at  ease  in  regard  to  an  immediate  at- 
tack upon  Richmond,  had  leisure  to  devote 
himself  to  restoring  the  organization  and  mo- 
rale of  his  army,  and  bringing  from  every  side 
the  reinforcements  that  he  was  to  use  with  such 
effect  a  month  later  in  the  bloody  contests  from 
the  Chickahominy  to  the  James. 
ered  with  stragglers,  some  throwing  away  their  guns, 
some  breaking  them  on  the  trees,  all  with  the  same 
story  that  their  regiments  had  been  "  cut  to  pieces  " — 
that  the  "  Yankees  were  swarming  on  the  Chickahom- 
iny like  bees,"  and  "  fighting  like  devils."  In  two  days 
of  the  succeeding  week  the  provost-marshal's  guard 
collected  between  4000  and  5000  stragglers  and  sent 
them  into  camp.  Had  I  been  aware  on  that  day  of  the 
actual  state  of  things  upon  the  field,  I  might  easily  have 
driven  in  a  carriage  through  the  Confederate  lines 
directly  into  our  own  camps.  It  was  not  indeed  until 
several  days  after  the  battle  that  anything  like  military 
order  was  restored  throughout  the  Confederate  posi- 
tions.   Appendix,  p.  113. 
(y*^ 
"AS    A    BELL    IN    A    CHIME. 
///
AS  a  bell  in  a  chime 
Sets  its  twin-note  a-ringing, 
As  one  poet's  rhyme 
Wakes  another  to  singing, 
So,  once  she  has  smiled, 
All  your  thoughts  are  beguiled 
And  flowers  and  song  from  your  childhood  are  bringing. 
Though  moving  through  sorrow 
As  the  star  through  the  night, 
She  needs  not  to  borrow, 
She  lavishes,  light. 
The  path  of  yon  star 
Seemeth  dark  but  afar  : 
Like  hers  it  is  sure,  and  like  hers  it  is  bright. 
Each  grace  is  a  jewel 
Would  ransom  the  town, 
Her  speech  has  no  cruel, 
Her  praise  is  renown; 
'T  is  in  her  as  though  Beauty, 
Resigning  to  Duty 
The  scepter,  had  still  kept  the  purple  and  crown. 
Vol.  XXXVI.—  129. 
Robert   Underwood  Johnson.
OUR     NATIONAL    MILITARY    SYSTEM. 
WHAT     THE     UNITED     STATES     ARMY     SHOULD     BE. 
E  FORI-:  submitting  the  fol- 
lowing suggestions  in  re- 
gard to  the  possibilities  of 
the  future  army  of  the 
United  States,  I  will  state 
some  facts  that  pertain  to 
the  army  as  it  exists  to-day. 
The  lawfixingthe  peace 
iblishment  of  the  army,  passed  in  1869, 
limited  the  strength  to  thirty  thousand.  The 
annual  appropriation  bill  has  of  late  years 
contained  a  proviso  that  no  money  thus  ap- 
propriated shall  be  used  for  recruiting  more 
than  twenty-five  thousand  men.  The  cost  of 
keeping  up  this  force  has  always  exceeded 
$30,000,000  and  has  often  amounted  to  $40,- 
000,000.  The  men  enlisted  for  this  force  are 
mostly  recruited  in  the  large  cities,  and  con- 
sist of  a  class  who  in  the  main  have  selected 
to  enlist  from  other  than  patriotic  motives  or 
love  of  the  military  profession.  A  large  pro- 
ion  are  foreigners  who  are  not  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  the  country  to  find  other  em- 
inent. Many  have  found  out  their  inca- 
pacity to  make  headway  in  civil  life,  the  causes 
being  as  different  as  the  characters  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  individuals.  Too  many  be- 
to  that  large  and  unfortunate  class  known 
r  the  generic  name  of  "  tramps,"  who 
arc  wanderers  by  nature  and  who  become  the 
rters  from  the  army.  Many  are  illiterate, 
few  are  educated  and  capable,  and  the  great 
majority  lack  the  necessary  talents  and  capacity 
to  take  care  of  themselves  and  to  advance  in 
life.  The  smart  and  apparently  capable  man, 
when  found  in  the  ranks,  is  generally  suspected 
>me  moral  taint  or  intemperate  habit  not 
tolerated  among  his  friends,  and  the  number 
••  :n  distinction  in  the  army,  or  after 
leaving  it,  are  few  indeed.  There  is  no  oppor- 
tunity afforded  the  enlisted  man  to  become 
qualified  to  command  in  case  of  war,  and  the 
number  who  rise  to  a  commission  is  remark- 
ably small. 
The  law  permits  original  enlistments  from 
en  to  thirty-five  years  of  age.    Reenlist- 
ments  are  not  restricted  by  age,  and  can  take 
■  so  long  as  the  examining  surgeon  finds 
►jection.    The  duration  of  each  enlistment 
is  five  years.    The  number  of  posts  garrisoned 
by  the  regular  army  is  about   125.    They  are 
scattered  throughout  the  territory  ofthe  United 
States,  and  the  duties  ofthe  troops  occupying 
them  are  mainly  confined  to  the  simplest  rou- 
tine of  garrison  life,  such  as  guard  duty,  tar- 
get practice,  and  company  and  battalion  drills. 
Their  time  is  taken  up  in  rehearsing  these  ele- 
mentary lessons  over  and  over,  doing  them 
as  well,  if  not  better,  after  the  first  few  weeks 
of  instruction  as  they  ever  do  afterwards. 
This  is  the  experience  and  attainment  of  the 
larger  portion  ofthe  enlisted  men.  On  the  fron- 
tier there  are  occasional  outbreaks  of  the 
Indians  in  the  vicinity,  but  they  are  yearly 
becoming  less  frequent.  When  an  outbreak 
does  occur  the  troops  have  an  opportunity  to 
learn  a  little  field  service.  This  humdrum  con- 
dition is  less  true  of  the  cavalry  than  of  the 
other  two  arms  ofthe  service,  because  the  care 
and  instruction  of  the  horse  adds  a  material 
task  to  the  duties  of  the  trooper.  But  his  duties 
are  also  confined  to  a  narrow  sphere,  and  the 
training  of  the  enlisted  men  of  the  army  is 
limited  to  taking  care  of  themselves  and  per- 
forming the  elementary  duties  stated  above. 
There  is  no  provision  for  elevating  the  rank  and 
file,  no  means  held  out  to  the  soldier  to  enable 
him  to  rise  in  the  profession  of  arms,  and  the 
longer  he  remains  in  service  the  more  incapable 
he  becomes  of  taking  care  of  himself  out  of  it. 
The  great  majority  go  through  their  first  enlist- 
ment of  five  years  making  little  or  no  progress 
after  the  first  year,  and  when  they  are  dis- 
charged, if  they  do  not  reenlist,  they  settle  down 
on  a  homestead  or  in  some  frontier  village,  and 
are  lost  to  the  country,  so  far  as  any  further 
military  service  to  be  derived  from  them  is  con- 
cerned. The  most  valuable  service  they  have 
rendered  is  the  opportunity  they  have  afforded 
the  commissioned  officers  to  practice  the  ad- 
ministration of  army  affairs  and  to  acquire 
the  care  and  command  of  troops.  Those  who 
reenlist  simply  repeat  this  experience,  and 
make  no  material  progress.  They  may  be 
good  enough  soldiers  in  case  there  is  any  act- 
ual service  in  the  field  to  do,  but  all  that  they 
have  acquired  is  limited  to  the  individual. 
While  military  knowledge  is  fairly  main- 
tained and  practiced  in  the  army,  there  is  no 
provision  for  disseminating  it,  in  order  that  we 
may  have  as  many  men  as  possible  throughout 
the  country  who  are  themselves  instructed  and 
who  are  capable  of  giving  instruction  to  others 
in  the  event  of  a  war.  If  proper  men  were 
selected  at  the  proper  time  of  life,  and  the 
proper  training  furnished  them,  with  such  an 
end  in  view,  they  would  at  the  end  of  five 
years'  service   be   able  to   take    a   company
MAMMY'S  LPV   BOY.  129 
Who  all  time  runnin'  ole  gobble  roun'  de  yard  ? 
Mammy's  liT  boy,  Mammy's  li'l'  boy  ! 
Who  tek  'e  stick  'n'  hit  ole  possum  dog  so  hard? 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Byo  baby  boy,  oh  bye, 
By-o  li'l'  boy! 
Oh,  run  ter  es  mammy 
En  climb  up  en  'er  lap, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Who  all  time  stumpin'  es  toe  ergin  er  rock  ? 
Mammy's  li'l'  boy,  Mammy's  li'l'  boy! 
Who  all  the  time  er-rippin'  big  hole  en  es  frock  ? 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Byo  baby  boy,  oh  bye, 
By-o  li'l'  boy ! 
Oh,  run  ter  es  mammy 
En  she  wipe  es  li'l'  eyes, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Who  all  time  er-losin'  de  shovel  en  de  rake? 
Mammy's  liT  boy,  Mammy's  li'l'  boy! 
Who  all  de  time  tryin'  ter  ride  'e  lazy  drake  ? 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Byo  baby  boy,  oh  bye, 
By-o  li'l'  boy ! 
Oh,  scoot  fer  yer  mammy 
En  she  hide  yer  Pom  yer  ma, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Who  all  de  time  er-trottin'  ter  de  kitchen  fer  er  bite  ? 
Mammy's  li'l'  boy,  Mammy's  li'l'  boy  ! 
Who  mess  'esef  wi'  taters  twell  his  clothes  dey  look  er  sight? 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Byo  baby  boy,  oh  bye, 
By-o  li'l'  boy ! 
En  'e  run  ter  es  mammy 
Fer  ter  git  'im  out  er  trouble, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Who  all  time  er-frettin'  en  de  middle  er  de  day? 
Mammy's  li'l'  boy,  Mammy's  li'l'  boy ! 
Who  all  time  er-gettin'  so  sleepy  'e  can'  play, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Byo  baby  boy,  oh  bye, 
By-o  liT  boy! 
En  'e  come  ter  es  mammy 
Ter  rock  'im  en  'er  arms, 
Mammy's  li'l'  baby  boy. 
Shoo,  shoo,  shoo-shoo-shoo, 
Shoo, shoo,  shoo! 
Shoo,  shoo,  shoo-shoo-shoo, 
Shoo,  li'l'  baby,  shoo  ! 
Shoo,  shoo,  shoo-shoo-shoo, 
Shoo,  shoo,  shoo, 
Shoo     .... 
Deir  now,  lay  right  down  on  Mammy's  bed  en  go  'long  back  ter  sleep, —  shoo-shoo  !  .  .  . 
Look  hyah,  nigger,  go  way  Pom  dat  do'!  You  wake  dis  chile  up  wid  dat  jewsharp,  en  I  '11 
wear  yer  out  ter  frazzles  !  —  Sh-h-h-h  — 
H.   S.  Edwards. 
Vol.  XXXVIL— 19.
A    LAKE    MEMORY. 
/TNHE  lake  comes  throbbing  in  with  voice  of  pain 
1    Across  these  flats,  athwart  the  sunset's  glow. 
1  see  her  face,  I  know  her  voice  again, 
Her  lips,  her  breath,  O  God,  as  long  ago. 
To  live  the  sweet  past  over  I  would  fain, 
As  lives  the  day  in  the  red  sunset's  fire, 
That  all  these  wild  wan  marshlands  now  would  stain, 
With  the  dawn's  memories,  loves,  and  flushed  desire. 
I  call  her  back  across  the  vanished  years, 
Nor  vain — a  white-armed  phantom  fills  her  place; 
Its  eyes  the  wind-blown  sunset  fires,  its  tears 
This  rain  of  spray  that  blows  about  my  face. 
William  Wilfred  Campbell. 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:     A    HISTORY.1 
JACKSON'S    VALLEY    CAMPAIGN,    AND    THE    SEVEN    DAYS'    BATTLES. 
BY    JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
S  we  have  seen,  it  was  the 
intention  of  the  Adminis- 
tration   to    dispatch    the 
whole      of      McDowell's 
corps  to  reenforce  McClel- 
lan,  as  soon  as  the  situa- 
tion in   northern  Virginia 
would  permit.    Franklin's 
so  dispatched,  in  ample  time  to 
have  taken  part  in  the  operations  against  York- 
town,  though  General  McClellan  made  no  use 
whatever   of   that  fine    body  of  troops   until 
Yorktown  was  evacuated.     Preparations  were 
vigorously  made  by  the   Government  for  the 
i  of  M<  Dowel!  towards  Richmond;  and 
Shields's  divi  ion,  one  of  the  best  in  Banks's 
corps,  was  ordered  to  reenforce  him.  The  most 
important  results  were  expected  from  such  an 
attack  as  an  officer  of  .McDowell's  ability  and 
would  have  made  upon  the  left  flank  of 
lonfederate  forces  in  front  of  Richmond. 
It  is  one  of  the   admitted  misfortunes  of  the 
war  that  this  attack  was  never  made,  and  the 
question  as  to  who  was  responsible  for  it  has 
given  rise  to  much  heated  and  more  or  less 
disingenuous  discussion. 
General   Thomas  Jonathan  Jackson,  com- 
monly called  "  Stonewall,"  had  won  great  credit 
at  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  but  his  first  independ- 
ent campaign  resulted  in  signal  defeat.  I  n  April, 
1 862,  he  was  ordered  by  General  Johnston  to  oc- 
cupy the  attention  of  Banks  in  the  Shenandoah 
Valley.  He  advanced  rapidly  in  pursuance  of 
what  he  understood  to  be  the  spirit  of  his  orders, 
and  came  in  view  of  Shields's  division  at  Kerns- 
town,  near  Winchester,  on  the  2 2d  of  April. 
A  brief  skirmish  took  place  that  evening,  in 
the  course  of  which  General  Shields  was 
severely  wounded,  his  arm  being  broken  by 
the  fragment  of  a  shell.  Lie  retired  to  Win- 
chester, and  General  Nathan  Kimball  remained 
on  the  field  in  active  command  of  the  division. 
The  next  day,  although  it  was  Sunday,  Jack- 
son, thinking  he  had  his  enemy  at  a  disad- 
vantage, and  unaware  either  of  his  numbers  or 
of  his  disposition,  attacked  Kimball  with  great 
impetuosity,  but  met  with  a  severe  repulse. 
Kimball,  who  was  ably  seconded  by  Colonels 
Carroll  and  Tyler,  not  only  beat  off  the  attack 
of  Jackson  from  both  his  flanks,  but  at  the 
right  moment  assumed  the  offensive,  and  after 
a  hotly  contested  fight,  lasting  two  hours,  as 
night  was  closing  in  he  completely  defeated  the 
Confederates,  who  were  driven  from  the  field, 
leaving  their  dead  and  wounded  and  several 
guns.     Banks,  coming   down    from    Harper's 
1  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved.
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
Ferry  the  next  day,  continued  the  pursuit  up 
the  valley  as  far  as  Mount  Jackson.  Shields's 
division  in  this  action  numbered  about  7000 ; 
Jackson  reported  his  own  force  as  between 
3000  and  4000.  The  losses  reported  on  each 
side  are:  Shields  590,  Jackson  718.  Jackson 
frankly  acknowledged  his  defeat,  saying  to 
Johnston : 
I  engaged  the  enemy  yesterday,  about  3  p.m.,  near 
Winchester,  and  fought  until  dusk;  but  his  forces  were 
so  superior  to  mine  that  he  repulsed  me  with  the  loss 
of  valuable  officers  and  men  killed  and  wounded.  But 
from  the  obstinacy  with  which  our  troops  fought,  and 
from  their  advantageous  position,  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  his  loss  was  greater  than  mine  in  troops,  but  I 
lost  one  piece  of  artillery  and  three  caissons. 
Jackson's  second  campaign  in  the  Shenan- 
doah, which  gained  him  in  full  measure  that 
fame  and  position  which  were  so  near  to  his 
heart,  occupied  about  a  month.  It  may  be  said 
to  have  begun  in  his  attack  upon  General  Mil- 
roy's  forces  at  McDowell  on  the  8th  of  May. 
In  this  affair,  as  in  every  battle  of  this  famous 
campaign,  he  had  much  larger  forces  than  those 
opposed  to  him  —  a  fact  entirely  to  his  credit ; 
there  were  Union  troops  enough  in  the  de- 
partment, if  they  had  been  properly  brought 
together,  to  have  overwhelmed  him.  After  a 
fight  of  several  hours  he  defeated  Milroy,  who 
fell  back  to  join  Fremont  at  the  town  of  Frank- 
lin, while  Jackson  moved  eastward  to  Har- 
risonburg. On  the  way  he  sent  dispatches  to 
Richmond,  detailing  the  position  of  the  Union 
troops,  and  asking  permission  to  attack  them. 
This  was  granted,  and  he  at  once  began  a  swift 
and  stealthy  march  through  New  Market  and 
Luray  to  Front  Royal.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
McClellan  was  daily  clamoring  for  reinforce- 
ments from  Washington ;  and  the  Government, 
yielding  to  his  importunity,  had  promised  that 
McDowell's  corps  should  march  overland  to 
join  him.  The  reasons  why  this  promise  could 
not  be  kept  are  best  set  forth  in  the  following 
dispatch  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  whose  communi- 
cations to  his  generals  were  always  clearer  and 
more  definite  than  any  that  he  received  from 
them.    It  is  dated  May  25  : 
General  Banks  was  at  Strasburg  with  about  6000 
men,  Shields  having  been  taken  from  him  to  swell  a 
column  for  McDowell  to  aid  you  at  Richmond,  and 
the  rt3t  of  his  force  scattered  in  various  places.  On 
the  23d  a  rebel  force  of  7000  to  10,000  fell  upon  one 
regiment  and  two  companies  guarding  the  bridge  at 
Front  Royal,  destroying  it  entirely  ;  crossed  the  Shen- 
anMoah,  and  on  the  24th  pushed  on  to  get  north  of 
Banks,  on  the  road  to  Winchester.  General  Banks 
ran  a  race  with  them,  beating  them  into  Winchester 
yesterday  evening.  This  morning  a  battle  ensued  be- 
tween the  two  forces,  in  which  General  Banks  was 
beaten  back  in  full  retreat  towards  Martinsburg,  and 
probably  is  broken  up  into  a  total  rout.  Geary,  on  the 
Manassas  Gap  Railroad,  just  now  reports  that  Jackson 
is  now  near  Front  Royal  with  10,000  troops,  following 
up  and  supporting,  as  I  understand,  the  force  now  pur- 
suing Banks.  Also  that  another  force  of  10,000  is  near 
Orleans,  following  on  in  the  same  direction.    [In  this 
Geary  was  mistaken.    Jackson's   and  EweH's    \ 
amounted  to  about  16,000.]    Stripped  bare,  as  wc  are 
here,  I   will  do  all   we  can   to   prevent   them   cr< 
the  Potomac  at  Harper's  Ferry  or  above.    McDowell 
has  about  20,000  of  his  force-,  moving  back  to  the  vi- 
cinity of  Front  Royal,  and  I  remont,  who  was  at  Frank- 
lin, is  moving  to  Harrisonburg  ;  both  these  movements 
intended  to  get  in  the  enemy's  rear. 
One  more  of  McDowell's  brigades  is  ordered  through 
here  to  Harper's  Ferry  ;  the  rest  of  his  force  remain 
for  the  present  at  Fredericksburg.  We  are  sending 
such  regiments  and  dribs  from  here  and  Baltimore  as 
we  can  spare  to  Harper's  Ferry,  supplying  their  places 
in  some  sort  by  calling  in  militia  from  the  adjacent 
States.  We  also  have  eighteen  cannon  on  the  road  to 
Harper's  Ferry,  of  which  arm  there  is  not  a  single  one 
at  that  point.    This  is  now  our  situation. 
If  McDowell's  force  was  now  beyond  our  reach,  we 
should  be  entirely  helpless.  Apprehensions  of  some- 
thing like  this,  and  no  unwillingness  to  sustain  you, 
have  always  been  my  reason  for  withholding  McDow- 
ell's forces  from  you.  Please  understand  this,  and  do 
the  best  you  can  with  the  forces  you  have.l 
Later  in  the  day,  the  President,  now  sure 
that  a  large  and  formidable  army  was  draw- 
ing near  the  Potomac,  wrote  a  sharp  dispatch 
to  McClellan  urging  him  either  to  take  this 
opportunity  "  to  attack  Richmond,  or  give  up 
the  job";  to  wThich*  the  general,  who  was  never 
disturbed  by  the  presence  of  the  enemy  any- 
where out  of  his  sight,  replied  calmly  that 
"  the  object  of  the  movement  was  probably  to 
prevent  reinforcements  being  sent  him,"  and 
that  the  time  was  very  near  when  he  would 
attack  Richmond. 
The  campaign,  opened  thus  inauspiciously 
for  the  Union  arms,  went  rapidly  from  bad  to 
worse.  A  series  of  doleful  mischances  suc- 
ceeded, unrelieved  by  a  ray  of  good  fortune  or 
good  conduct.  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  Washington, 
was  exerting  himself  to  the  utmost,  sending  a 
dozen  dispatches  a  day  to  Banks,  Fremont, 
McDowell,  and  McClellan  —  all  admirable  in 
clearness,  intelligence,  and  temper,  always  di- 
recting the  right  thing  to  be  done  and  the  best 
way  of  doing  it ;  but  nothing  seemed  to  avail. 
The  original  surprise  was  inexcusable.  On 
the  20th  of  May,1  Fremont  had  reported  to 
Banks  that  Jackson  was  on  the  way  to  attack 
him,  but  no  proper  preparation  was  made. 
After  the  defeat  at  Front  Royal  on  the  23d, 
and  at  Winchester  on  the  25th,  while  Banks 
was  in  retreat  to  the  Potomac,  the  only  thought 
of  the  President  was  to  stop  Jackson  at  the 
river,  and  to  detain  him  until  a  sufficient  force 
could  be  gathered  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Strasburg  to  destroy  or  capture  him  on  his  re- 
turn. Fremont  was  ordered  to  cross  the  moun- 
tains to  Harrisonburg  and  come  north  down 
the  valley  with  his  force.  McDowell,  with  a 
competent  detachment  under  Shields,  was 
ordered  to  Front  Royal;  a  considerable  army 
met  the  victorious  forces  of  Jackson  at  the 
Potomac.  These  last  were  mostly  of  raw  lev- 
1  War  Records.
A /IRA  HAM  LINCOLN. 
ies,  not  inured  to  marching  or  to  fighting  ;  but 
they  accomplished  their  purpose  of  delaying 
for  the  moment  the  advance  of  Jackson  towards 
Washington.  His  own  intention,  as  well  as  his 
order-  from  Richmond,  were,  in  the  language  of 
era]  Dabney,1  '"to  press  the  enemy  at  Har- 
-  Ferry,  threaten  an  invasion  of  Maryland, 
an  assault  upon  the  Federal  capital."  But 
on  the  29th.  while  at  Halltown,-  preparing  for 
Lttack  upon   Harper's  Ferry,  he  received 
information  of  the  movement  of  troops  that 
had  been  ordered  by  the  President,  which,  as 
Dabney  says,  "imperiously  required  him  to 
up  that  attack  and  provide  for  his  own 
. ."  He  then  began  his  precipitate  retreat 
up  the  valley,  which  by  its  celerity  and  success 
gained  him  even  more  credit  than  did  his  auda- 
cious advance. 
It  ought  not  to  have  been  allowed  to  suc- 
ceed :  it  was  perfectly  feasible  to  prevent  it. 
Had  the  plain  orders  of  the  President  been 
obeyed.  Jackson  could  not  have  escaped  from 
tlic  predicament  where  his  headlong  energy 
and  his  contempt  for  his  adversaries  had  placed 
him.    It  is  idle  to  talk  of  his  invincibility;  he 
generally  whipped,  like  other  men,  when 
the  conditions  were  not  favorable  to  him.  He 
was  defeated  >everely  at  Kernstown  in  March, 
when  he  had  been  confident  of  victory ;  later, 
at  Gaines's  Mills,  he  did  not  particularly  dis- 
tinguish himself  above  others;  Banks,  with  one- 
third  his  force,  gave  him  all  the  work  he  could 
do  at  Cedar  Mountain;  while  at  Malvern 
Hill  and  White  Oak  Swamp  his  inefficiency 
in  large  tactics  was  recognized  and  severely  crit- 
1  by  generals  on  his  own  side.  If  Fremont 
and  McDowell  had  met  him  at  Strasburg, 
and  Banks  had  followed  upon  his  heels,  as  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  clearly  and  explicitly  ordered, 
nothing  could  have  prevented  the  capture  or 
r  iction  of  his  entire  command.  Each  of 
these  generals  had  his  task  assigned  him;  it 
was  in  each  case  perfectly  practicable.  It  in- 
volved only  an  expeditious  march  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Strasburg,  over  roads  more  or  less 
1.  undisturbed  by  the  presence  of  an  enemy 
in  any  considerable  force. 
G  neral  McDowell's  part  of  the  work  was 
performed  with  his  habitual  energy  and 
promptitude,  notwithstanding  the  chagrin  and 
displeasure  with  which  he  received  his  orders. 
On  the  evening  of  the  24th  of  May:!  the  Presi- 
dent sent  him  a  dispatch  informing  him  that 
Fremont  had  been  ordered  by  telegraph  to 
move  from  franklin  on  Harrisonburg,  to  re- 
Banks,  and  to  capture  or  destroy  Jack- 
son'.-, or  EwelFs  forces.    Mr.  Lincoln  continues: 
You  are  instructed,  laying  asule  for  the  present  the 
movement  on  Richmond,  to  put  20,000  men  in  motion 
at  once  for  the  Shenandoah,  moving  on  the  line,  or  in 
1  Dabney,  p.  386.  2  Ibid.,  p.  387. 
advance  of  the  line,  of  the  Manassas  Gap  Railroad. 
Your  object  will  be  to  capture  the  forces  of  Jackson 
and  Ewell,  either  in  cooperation  with  General  Fre- 
mont, or,  in  case  want  of  supplies  or  of  transporta- 
tion interferes  with  his  movements,  it  is  believed  that 
the  force  with  which  you  move  will  be  sufficient  to 
accomplish  this  object  alone.  The  information  thus  far 
received  here  makes  it  probable  that  if  the  enemy- 
operate  actively  against  General  Banks  you  will  not  be 
able  to  count  upon  much  assistance  from  him,  but  may 
even  have  to  release  him. 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  President  saw  the 
situation  with  such  accuracy  the  day  before 
Banks's  defeat  at  Winchester. 
This  order  McDowell,  though  he  called  it 
"  a  crushing  blow,"  3  obeyed  at  once,  directing 
Shields  to  take  up  his  march  to  Catlett's,  a 
station  on  the  Orange  and  Alexandria  road, 
about  half-way  between  Fredericksburg  and 
Front  Royal,  and  reporting  that  he  had  done 
so.  The  President  sent  him  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  alacrity,  at  the  same  time  express- 
ing his  regret  at  the  change  of  his  orders,  and 
adding,  "  Everything  now  depends  upon  the 
celerity  and  vigor  of  your  movements." 3  This 
encouraged  the  general  to  make  an  earnest 
though  respectful  protest,  which  he  sent  the 
same  night  to  the  President,  setting  forth  his 
belief  that  cooperation  between  himself  and 
Fremont  was  not  to  be  counted  upon;  that 
it  would  take  him  a  week  or  ten  days  to  get 
to  the  valley;  that  by  that  time  the  enemy 
would  have  retired.  We  shall  see  later  that 
these  forebodings  at  least  were  not  realized. 
At  the  same  time  he  telegraphed  to  Wads- 
worth,  in  command  at  Washington,  his  deep 
disgust ;  he  did  not  think  the  rebel  force  in  the 
mountains  amounted  to  five  thousand  men. 
But  with  all  this  grumbling  his  deeds  were 
better  than  his  words ;  he  pushed  Shields  for- 
ward with  the  greatest  celerity.  Shields,  who 
was  burning  to  go  to  Richmond,  marched 
obediently,  but  in  very  bad  humor.  The  dis- 
patches of  this  officer  read  like  a  burlesque  of 
those  of  his  superior.  He  is  loud  in  contempt 
of  both  armies  in  the  Shenandoah.  He  thought 
when  the  movement  first  began  that  there  was 
nothing  in  it;  that  the  enemy  would  never 
come  north ;  that  if  they  did,  they  would  be 
hemmed  in  and  destroyed.  As  late  as  the  1  oth 
of  May  he  was  sure  "  they  were  not  there  to 
fight."  3  As  he  went  forward  to  Front  Royal 
his  boasting  spirit  asserted  itself  more  and  more. 
"  I  want  no  assistance,"  he  said.  He  promised 
to  "  give  Jackson  a  bloody  reception,"  to  "  drive 
the  enemy  from  the  Shenandoah,"  and  wanted 
to  know  if  there  was  anything  else  he  could 
do  for  the  President  —  the  task  in  question 
being  unworthy  of  his  powers.4 
But  neither  the  chagrin  of  McDowell  nor 
the  gasconading  of  Shields  prevented  them 
3  War  Records.  4  May  26  and  27.
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
from  striving  with  all  their  might  to  do  the 
work  assigned  them.  The  President  kept  Mc- 
Dowell constantly  informed  of  the  condition  of 
affairs,  detailing  the  progress  of  Jackson  north- 
ward, and  urging  the  value  and  importance  of 
the  service  expected  of  the  Union  troops.  Mc- 
Dowell showed  himself,  as  he  always  was, 
worthy  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  him.  In 
spite  of  all  obstacles, —  accidents  by  rail,  bad 
roads,  and  rough  weather, —  he  got  Shields's  ad- 
vance into  Front  Royal  on  the  30th  of  May ; 
that  is,  in  little  more  than  half  the  time  he 
thought  he  should  require  for  the  purpose. 
The  same  day  the  President  sent  him  a  dis- 
patch from  Fremont  saying  that  he  would  be 
at  Strasburg,  or  where  the  enemy  was,  at  4 
p.  m.,  May  31  j  and  another  from  Saxton  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  indicating  that  the  enemy 
was  still  there.  The  President  added,  with  jus- 
tifiable exultation,  "  It  seems  the  game  is  be- 
fore you." 
It  remains  to  be  seen  how  General  Fremont 
executed  his  share  of  the  task.  On  the  24th 
the  President  gave  him  an  urgent  order  to 
move  at  once,  by  way  of  Harrisonburg,  to  the 
relief  of  Banks.  He  promptly  replied  that  he 
"would  move  as  ordered";  but  made  the  un- 
fortunate error  of  choosing  an  entirely  differ- 
ent route  from  the  one  assigned  him.1  Think- 
ing the  road  to  Harrisonburg  was  more  or 
less  obstructed,  and  off  his  line  of  supplies,  he 
moved  northward  by  way  of  Petersburg  and 
Moorefield,  in  the  great  valley  lying  west  of 
the  Shenandoah  Mountains,  and  did  not  even 
inform  the  President  of  this  discretionary  modi- 
fication of  his  orders,  so  that,  on  the  27  th, 
when  they  were  anxiously  expecting  at  Wash- 
ington to  hear  from  him  at  Harrisonburg,  they 
were  astounded  at  receiving  tidings  from  him 
at  Moorefield,  two  good  days'  march  from 
the  line  of  Jackson's  retreat,  and  separated  by 
two  counties  and  the  Shenandoah  range  from 
the  place  where  he  was  desired  and  expected 
to  be.  In  response  to  the  President's  peremp- 
tory question  why  he  was  at  Moorefield  when 
he  was  ordered  to  Harrisonburg,  he  made  an 
unsatisfactory  reply,  alleging  the  necessity  of 
his  choice  of  route,  and  his  assumed  discretion 
as  to  his  orders.  Dropping  this  matter,  the 
President  began  again  urging  him  forward  to 
Strasburg.  There  was  still  time  to  repair  the 
original  error.  Jackson  was  on  the  Potomac, 
much  farther  from  the  rendezvous  than  Fre- 
mont. But  the  latter  could  not  be  made  to  see 
the  vital  necessity  of  immediate  action  —  his 
men  were  weary,  his  supplies  were  deficient,  the 
roads  were  bad ;  Blenker's  corps  was  straggling 
badly.  Finally,  on  the  29th,  his  medical  direc- 
tor told  him  his  army  needed  a  whole  day's  rest. 
1  War  Records. 
a  Swinton,  "  Army  of  the  Potomac." 
He  promptly  accepted  this  suggestion,  and 
wasted  twenty-four  hours  in  this  manner,  while 
Jackson  was  rushing  his  ragged  troops,  who 
had  known  no  rest  for  a  month,  up  the  nar- 
row valley  that  formed  his  only  outlet  from 
destruction  or  captivity.  In  one  day,  says  Ma- 
jor Dabney,  the  Stonewall  Brigade  mar< 
"  from  Halltown  to  the  neighborhood  of  New- 
ton, a  distance  of  thirty-five  miles;  and  the 
2d  Virginia  accomplished  a  march  of  forty 
miles  without  rations,  over  muddy  roads  and 
amidst  continual  showers."  The  race  was  to 
the  swift.  As  Fremont's  advance  entered  Stras- 
burg on  the  1  st  of  June  the  rear-guard  of 
Jackson's  force  was  still  in  sight,  leaving  the 
place.  The  plan  of  the  President,  well  com- 
bined and  reasonable  as  it  was,  had  failed 
through  no  fault  of  his,  and  Jackson  had  es- 
caped. It  is  the  contention  of  General  Mo 
Clellan  and  his  partisans  that  the  plan  could  not 
possibly  have  succeeded.  One  critic2  disposes 
of  the  matter  by  a  sneer  at  the  thought  of 
"  trapping  that  wily  fox,  who  knew  every  gorge 
and  pass  of  the  mountain."  But  an  army  of 
16,000  men  of  all  arms  is  not  a  fox;  it  must 
have  roads  to  cross  mountains,  and  bridges  to 
pass  over  rivers.  If  Fremont  had  obeyed  orders 
and  had  been  where  he  should  have  been  on 
the  30th  of  May,  and  if  Banks  and  Saxton  had 
kept  a  closer  watch  at  Harper's  Ferry  and  fol- 
lowed more  immediately  upon  Jackson's  rear, 
Jackson  would  have  been  surrounded  at  Stras- 
burg by  three  times  his  own  force,  and  would 
have  been  captured  or  his  army  dispersed  and 
destroyed.  This  would  have  been  richly  worth 
all  its  cost,  and  the  most  captious  or  malev- 
olent critic  would  have  had  nothing  to  say 
against  the  President  who  ordered  it. 
There  was  little  prospect  of  defeating  Jack- 
son after  he  had  slipped  through  the  gap  be- 
tween Fremont  and  McDowell  at  Strasburg ; 
but  nevertheless  an  energetic  pursuit  was  begun 
by  Fremont  up  the  Shenandoah  and  by  part  of 
Shields's  division  up  the  Luray  Valley  on  the 
east,  the  former  harassing  Jackson's  rear  with 
almost  daily  skirmishes,  and  the  latter  running  a 
race  with  him  on  a  parallel  line.  There  was 
hardly  a  possibility  now  of  regaining  the  lost  op- 
portunity. No  matter  how  severely  pressed,  it 
was  almost  surely  in  Jackson's  power  to  escape 
across  Brown's  Gap  to  Albemarle  County, 
where  he  would  for  a  time  be  safe  from  pur- 
suit; and  this  course,  says  Major  Dabney.  was 
in  his  mind  as  a  final  resort.3  But  he  was  not 
even  driven  to  this.  There  was  one  last  chance 
of  inflicting  great  damage  upon  him.  One  of 
Shields's  brigades  arrived  at  the  bridge  at  Port 
Republic  before  him,  and  either  should  have 
taken  and  held  or  destroyed  it.4   The  officer  in 
3  Dabney,  p.  404. 
4  War  Records.
"34 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
command  did  neither,  and  the  bridge  imme- 
v  alter  tell  into  Jackson's  hands,  giving 
him  command  of  both  sides  of  the  river.  The 
Confederate  general  and  his  adjutant  and  biog- 
rapher ascribed  the  capture  of  this  important 
m  to  supernatural  means.1 
A.s  -    >n  as  |acks<  n  uttered  his  command  [to  seize 
the  bridge]  he  drew  up  his  horse,  and,  dropping  the 
'■is  neck,  raised  both  his  hands  towards  the 
.  while  the  fire  of  battle   in  his  face  changed 
into  a  look  o\  reverential  awe.    Even  while  he  prayed, 
;'  battles  heard;   or  ever  he  had  withdrawn 
Lifted  hands,  the  bridge  was  gained. 
It  would  perhaps  be  irreverent  to  add  that 
the  bridge  was  not  defended.  On  the  same  day, 
June  S.  he  fought  a  sharp  but  indecisive  battle 
with  Fremont  at  Cross  Keys,  and  retiring  in  the 
night,  he  attacked  and  defeated  Shields's  small 
detachment  at  Port  Republic.  The  misman- 
agement of  the  Union  generals  had  opposed  to 
him  on  both  days  forces  greatly  inferior  to  his 
own.  Before  these  battles  were  fought  the 
President,  seeing  that  further  pursuit  was  use- 
lesSj  had  ordered  Shields  back  to  McDowell, 
Fremont  to  halt  at  Harrisonburg  for  orders, 
and  Banks  to  guard  the  posts  of  Port  Royal 
and  Lurav.  The  orders  came  too  late  to  pre- 
vent two  unfortunate  engagements,  but  they 
showed  that  the  civilian  at  Washington  was 
wiser  than  the  two  generals  at  the  front.  They 
both  passed  thereafter  into  the  ranks  of  the 
malcontents  —  the  men  with  grievances.  Shields 
went  back  to  Washington,  where  he  was  received 
with  open  arms  by  the  habitual  critics  of  the 
President.  Among  them  were  those  of  his  own 
household;  for  we  read  in  Mr.  Chase's  diary 
that  Shields  told  him,  when  he  was  ordered 
back,  that  "Jackson's  capture  was  certain,"  and 
the  general  and  the  Secretary  held  harmoni- 
ous council  together  over  the  "  terrible  mis- 
takes "  of  the  President.2  This  was  the  last 
important  service  of  Fremont.  He  remained 
in  charge  of  his  department  a  few  weeks 
.   r.   until   he  was    placed,  with   others  of 
ar  rank,  under  the  general  command  of 
He-  refused  to  serve  under  his  junior, 
and  was  relieved,  not  appearing  again  in  any 
:a'cuous  position,  except  for  a  moment  in 
the  summer  of  1864,  as  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 
THE    SEVEN    DAYS'    BATTLES. 
I  ER  the  battle  of  Fair  Oaks,  as  well  as  be- 
fore it,  Genera]  McClellan  kept  up  his  contin- 
ual cry  for  re-enforcements.  The  hallucination 
that  theenerm's  force  was  double  his  own  had 
become  fixed  upon  him,  and  all  his  plans  and 
1  Dabney,  p.  413. 
2  Warden,  "  Life  of  Salmon  P.  Chase,"  pp.  444,445. 
3  War  Records. 
combinations  were  poisoned  by  this  fatal  error. 
The  President  did  everything  in  his  power  to 
satisfy  the  general's  unreasonable  demands. 
He  resolved  to  give  him  absolute  control  of 
all  the  troops  on  the  Peninsula ;  and  knowing 
that  General  Wool  would  never  consent  to  be- 
ing placed  under  McClellan's  orders, —  that 
veteran  having  expressed  himself  with  charac- 
teristic severity  in  regard  to  his  junior's  insati- 
able demand  for  troops, — the  President  thought 
best  to  remove  General  Wool  to  Baltimore, 
transferring  General  Dix  to  Fort  Monroe  and 
placing  him  under  the  direct  command  of 
McClellan — a  proceeding  which  greatly  dis- 
pleased General  Dix,  but  to  which  he  yielded 
under  protest.3  His  displeasure  did  not  inter- 
fere with  his  convictions  of  duty.  Immediately 
on  arriving  at  Fort  Monroe  he  sent  to  General 
McClellan  a  reenforcement  of  ten  of  the  best 
regiments  there.3  No  efforts  wrere  spared  to  help 
and  to  encourage  McClellan;  both  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  Secretary  of  War  were  perpetually 
sending  him  kind  and  complimentary  messages 
in  addition  to  the  troops  and  guns  which  they 
gathered  in  from  every  quarter  for  him.  A  few 
days  after  Fair  Oaks,  in  response  to  his  re- 
peated entreaties,  McCall's  division  of  McDow- 
ell's corps,  a  splendid  body  of  about  ten  thou- 
sand men,  was  dispatched  to  him.  He  was 
for  the  moment  delighted  at  hearing  that  these 
troops  were  coming;  and  having  thus  obtained 
the  greater  part  of  McDowell's  corps,  he  was 
quite  gracious  in  his  acknowledgments  to  the 
Government.    He  said,  June  7  : 
I  am  glad  to  learn  that  you  are  pressing  forward 
reinforcements  so  vigorously.  I  shall  be  in  perfect 
readiness  to  move  forward  and  take  Richmond  the 
moment  McCall  reaches  here  and  the  ground  will  ad- 
mit the  passage  of  artillery. 
McCall  and  his  perfectly  appointed  division 
of  ten  thousand  men  and  five  batteries  of  ar- 
tillery began  to  arrive  on  the  nth,  and  were 
all  present  for  duty  on  the  13th;  and  as  if 
Providence  were  uniting  with  the  Government 
to  satisfy  both  the  general's  requirements,  he  was 
able  to  telegraph  on  the  12th  that  the  weather 
was  good  and  the  roads  and  the  ground 
were  rapidly  drying.  The  weather  continued 
remarkably  fine  for  several  days ;  General 
Keyes  on  the  1 5th  reported  White  Oak  Swamp 
dried  up  so  as  to  be  fordable  in  many  places.3 
But  the  dry  spell  did  not  last  forever,  and  on 
the  night  of  the  15th  General  McClellan  sends 
to  Washington  a  note  of  lamentation3  say- 
ing that  the  rain  has  begun  again,  which  will 
"  retard  his  movements  somewhat."  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  him  that  he  always  regarded  bad 
weather  as  exclusively  injurious  to  him,  and 
never  to  the  other  side.  The  President  once 
said  of  him  that  he  seemed  to  think,  in  defiance 
of  Scripture,  that  Heaven  sent  its  rain  only  on
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
the  just  and  not  on  the  unjust.  To  an  ener- 
getic general  all  kinds  of  weather  have  their 
uses.  Johnston  had  embraced  with  alacrity  the 
opportunity  afforded  by  the  terrible  storm  of 
May  30,  and  made  it  his  ally  in  his  attack  on 
the  31st. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  although  Mc- 
Clellan  and  his  apologists  have  been  for  years 
denouncing  the  Government  for  having  with- 
held from  him  McDowell's  corps,  the  best  part 
of  that  corps  was  actually  sent  to  him.  Frank- 
lin's magnificent  division  went  to  him  in  April, 
and  no  use  whatever  was  made  of  it  for  several 
weeks ;  McCall's  equally  fine  division  was  dis- 
patched to  him  before  the  middle  of  June.  In 
each  case  he  said  he  only  awaited  the  arrival 
of  that  division  to  undertake  immediate  active 
operations;  and  in  each  case,  on  the  arrival 
of  the  eagerly  demanded  reinforcements,  he 
did  nothing  but  wait  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
enemy.  His  own  official  reports  show  that  he 
received  by  way  of  reinforcements,  after  his 
arrival  in  the  Peninsula  and  prior  to  the  15th 
of  June,  not  less  than  39,441  men,  of  whom 
there  were  32,360  present  for  duty.1  Yet  all 
this  counted  for  nothing  with  him;  he  let 
hardly  a  day  pass  without  clamoring  for  more. 
He  was  not  even  inclined  to  allow  the  Admin- 
istration any  discretion  in  regard  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  was  to  be  reenforced.  He 
insisted  that  McDowell  should  be  sent  to  him 
by  water,  and  not  by  land,  so  that  he  should 
come  in  by  his  rear  instead  of  by  his  right  flank; 
and  when  he  was  informed  that  McCall's  force 
was  expected  to  be  restored  to  McDowell's 
corps,  when  that  army  joined  him,  he  bitterly 
resented  it.  He  said  it  did  not  show  a  proper 
spirit  in  McDowell ;  and  added  sullenly,  "  If 
I  cannot  fully  control  all  his  troops,  I  want 
none  of  them ;  but  would  prefer  to  fight  the 
battle  with  what  I  have,  and  let  others  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  results."  2  These  selfish  and 
petulant  outbursts  were  met  with  unwearied 
patience  and  kindness  on  the  part  of  the  Presi- 
dent.   On  the  15th  of  June  he  wrote: 
The  Secretary  of  War  has  turned  over  to  me  your 
dispatch  about  sending  McDowell  to  you  by  water, 
instead  of  by  land.  I  now  fear  he  cannot  get  to  you 
either  way  in  time.  Shields's  division  has  got  so  terri- 
bly oul  of  shape,  out  at  elbows,  and  out  at  toes,  that  it 
will  require  a  long  time  to  get  it  in  again.  1  expect  to  see 
McDowell  within  a  day  or  two,  when  I  will  again  talk 
with  him  about  the  mode  of  moving.  McCall's  division 
has  nearly  or  quite  reached  you  by  now.  This,  with 
what  you  get  from  General  Wool's  old  command,  and 
the  new  regiments  sent  you,  must  give  you  an  increase, 
since  the  late  battles,  of  over  twenty  thousand.  Doubt- 
less the  battles,  and  other  causes,  have  decreased  you 
half  as  much  in  the  same  time;  but  then  the  enemy 
have  lost  as  many  in  the  same  way.    I  believe  I  would 
1  War  Records.       2  McClellan's  Report,  June  14. 
3  Lincoln,  MS. 
4  "  As  I  did  not  think  it  probable  that  any  reenforce- 
ments  would  be  sent  me  in  time  for  the  advance  on  Rich- 
come  and  sec  you  were  it  not  that  I  fear  my  pr< 
might  divert  you  and  the  army  from   more  important 
matters. :; 
From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  McClellan  had 
no  right  to  delay  operations  an  hour  after  Mc- 
Call's arrival  from  any  pretended  expectation 
of  the  immediate  coming  of  McDowell ;  and, 
indeed,  he  admits  in  his  report  4  that  as  early 
as  the  7th  of  June  he  had  given  up  any  such 
expectation.  With  no  reason,  therefore,  for 
delay,  but  with  every  conceivable  incentive  to 
action,  with  an  army  amounting,  after  McCall 
joined  him,  to  the  imposing  figure  of  156,838, 
of  whom  an  aggregate  present  of  127,327  is 
reported  by  McClellan  himself  as  of  the  20th 
of  June, —  though  he  makes  a  reduction  to 
1 14,691  of  those  "  present  for  duty  equipped," 
—  he  wasted  the  month  of  June  in  a  busy  and 
bustling  activity  which  was  in  its  results  equiv- 
alent to  mere  idleness.  He  was  directly  invited 
to  attack  by  the  fine  weather  of  the  middle  of 
the  month,  which  he  describes  as  "  splendid  " 
in  a  dispatch  of  the  17th,  and  by  the  absence 
of  Stonewall  Jackson  in  the  valley  with  his 
16,000  veterans,  reenforced  by  10,000  troops 
from  Lee's  army,  as  McClellan  himself  believed 
and  reported  on  the  18th.  The  President,  by  a 
dispatch  of  the  same  date,  urged  him  to  take 
advantage  of  this  opportunity,  saying : 
If  this  is  true,  it  is  as  good  as  a  reenforcement  to 
you  of  an  equal  force.  I  could  better  dispose  of  things 
if  I  could  know  about  what  day  you  can  attack  Rich- 
mond, and  would  be  glad  to  be  informed,  if  you  think 
you  can  inform  me  with  safety. 
The  terms  in  which  General  McClellan  an- 
swered this  inquiry  are  worthy  of  quotation  as 
an  illustration  of  that  false  air  of  energy  and 
determination  which  he  so  often  introduced 
into  the  expression  of  his  intentions,  while  leav- 
ing, as  in  the  last  lines  of  this  dispatch,  a  loop- 
hole for  indefinite  delay  :  5 
Our  army  is  well  over  the  Chickahominy,  except 
the  very  considerable  forces  necessary  to  protect  our 
flanks  and  communications.  Our  whole  line  of  pick- 
ets in  front  runs  within  six  miles  of  Richmond.  The 
rebel  line  runs  within  musket  range  of  ours.  Each 
has  heavy  support  at  hand.  A  general  engagement 
may  take  place  any  hour.  An  advance  by  us  involves 
a  battle  more  or  less  decisive.  The  enemy  exhibits  at 
every  point  a  readiness  to  meet  us.  They  certainly 
have  great  numbers  and  extensive  works.  If  10,000 
or  15,000  men  have  left  Richmond  to  reen force 
Jackson,  it  illustrates  their  strength  and  confidence. 
This  is  a  singularly  characteristic  view.  The 
fact  of  a  large  detachment  having  left  Lee 
affords  him  no  encouragement;  it  simply  im- 
presses him  all  the  more  with  the  idea  of  his 
enemy's  strength. 
mond,  I  stated  in  the  foregoing  dispatch  (of  June  7)  that 
I  should  be  ready  to  move  when  General  McCall's  di- 
vision joined  me."    War  Records. 
5  lune  18.
I36       %  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
I  r  to-morrow  we  shall  fight  the  rebel  army  as  soon 
as  Providence  will  permit  We  shall  await  only  a  favor- 
able condition  of  ihe  earth  and  sky,  and  the  eomple- 
tion  of  some  necessary  preliminaries.1 
With  these  vague  platitudes  the  President 
►reed  to  be  content,  and  to  wait,  with  the 
general,  to  see  what  Providence  would  ordain 
lay  after  to-morrow  —  or  the  next  day. 
A-  usual,  it  was  the  enemy  that  startled  Mc- 
Clellan  out  of  his  procrastination.  On  the  13th 
of  J  une,  General  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  with  some  1200 
Confederate  cavalry  and  a  few  guns,  started 
to  ride  around  McClellan's  army;  touching 
on  his  way  the  South  Anna  Railroad  bridge, 
Hanover  Court  House,  Tunstall's  Station 
on  the  York  River  Railway,  and  thence  to 
Jones's  Bridge  on  the  Chickahominy,  which  he 
stopped  to  repair,  crossing  it  on  the  15th,  and 
entering  Richmond  by  the  river  road  the  next 
daw  It  has  rarely  been  the  fortune  of  a  gen- 
eral to  inflict  such  an  insult,  without  injury, 
upon  an  opponent.  General  McClellan  did 
not  seem  to  feel  that  any  discredit  attached  to 
him  for  this  performance.  On  the  contrary  he 
congratulated  himself  that  Stuart  had  done  so 
little  harm. 
The  burning  of  two  schooners  laden  with  forage, 
and  fourteen  Government  wagons,  the  destruction  of 
some  sutlers'  stores,  the  killing  of  several  of  the  guard 
and  teamsters  at  Garlick's  Landing,  some  little  damage 
done  at  Tunstall's  Station,  and  a  little  eclat,  were  the 
precise  results  of  this  expedition.2 
McClellan  had  for  some  time  been  vaguely 
meditating  a  change  of  base  to  the  James 
River,  and  this  raid  of  Stuart  seems  to  have 
somewhat  strengthened  this  purpose.  Fitz  John 
Porter,  who  more  than  any  other  possessed 
his  confidence,  says  that  he  desired  to  effect 
this  movement  as  soon  as  he  gave  up  look- 
ing for  McDowell  to  join  him,  which,  we  have 
from  his  report,  was  in  the  first  week 
of  June.  "  As  early  as  June  18,"  Porter  says, 
"  he  sent  vessels  loaded  with  supplies  to  the 
James  River."-'5  It  is  not  intended  to  intimate 
that  he  was  fully  resolved  upon  this  course; 
but  he  appears  to  have  kept  it  constantly  be- 
:im,  in  his  undecided,  irresolute  way,  all 
through  the  month.    His  communication  with 
tmodore  John  Rodgers,  who  commanded 
on  the  James,  indicates  a  purpose  to  move  to 
point  on  that  river.    He  says  on  the  24th: 
In  a  few  days  I  hope  to  gain  such  a  position  as  to 
enable  me  to  place  a  force  above  Ball's  and  Drewry's 
bluff-.,  so  that  we  can  remove  the  obstructions  and 
place  ourselves  in  communication  with  you  so  that  you 
can  cooperate  in  the  final  attack.  In  the  mean  time 
ome  gun-boats  as  near  Drewry's  Bluff 
as  prudence  will  permit.l 
1  War  Records. 
2  McClellan'-.  Report.     War  Records. 
3  "  Rattles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  Vol.  II., 
P-  325- 
4  Webb,  "The  Peninsula,"  pp.  119,  120. 
On  the  25th  he  pushed  forward  his  picket 
line  in  front  of  Seven  Pines  to  within  four  miles 
of  Richmond,  a  point  farther  in  advance  than 
he  had  yet  reached.  At  the  same  time  he  is- 
sued orders  to  his  corps  commanders  south  of 
the  river  that  they  were  not  to  regard  these  new 
positions  as  their  field  of  battle,  but  were  to 
fall  back,  if  attacked,  to  their  old  intrench- 
ments. x  He  had  by  this  time  heard  of  the  ar- 
rival of  Jackson's  corps,  and  also  credited  a 
false  and  impossible  rumor  of  the  arrival  of 
Beauregard  and  his  troops  from  the  West.  He 
was  fully  informed  of  the  attack  threatened 
within  a  few  hours,  and  yet  he  sent  to  Wash- 
ington for  more  troops. x  "  If  I  had  another 
good  division  I  could  laugh  at  Jackson," x  he 
said,  while  he  knew  that  Jackson  was  march- 
ing upon  his  right.  He  made  his  usual  com- 
plaint and  threat  of  putting  the  responsibility 
where  it  belonged.  These  wanton  accusations 
at  such  a  time  moved  the  President,  not  to 
anger,  but  to  genuine  sorrow.  Yet  he  answered 
with  almost  incredible  patience  : 
Your  three  dispatches  of  yesterday  in  relation  to  the 
affair,  ending  with  the  statement  that  you  completely 
succeeded  in  making  your  point,  are  very  gratifying. 
The  latter  one,  suggesting  the  probability  of  your  be- 
ing overwhelmed  by  200,000,  and  talking  of  where  the 
responsibility  will  belong,  pains  me  very  much.  I  give 
you  all  I  can,  and  act  on  the  presumption  that  you  will 
do  the  best  with  what  you  have ;  while  you  continue, 
ungenerously  I  think,  to  assume  that  I  could  give  you 
more  if  I  would.  I  have  omitted,  and  shall  omit,  no 
opportunity  to  send  you  reinforcements  whenever  I 
possibly  can. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  how  long  his  desul- 
tory preparations  would  have  lasted  if  General 
McClellan  had  been  left  to  himself;  but  after 
the  23d  of  June,  the  power  of  deciding  upon 
what  day  he  should  attack  had  already  passed 
out  of  his  hands.  General  Lee  had  made,  at 
his  leisure,  all  his  arrangements  for  attacking 
the  Union  army,  and  had  chosen  the  time  and 
the  manner  of  onset, —  as  Johnston  did  a  month 
before, —  without  the  slightest  reference  to  any 
possible  initiative  of  McClellan.  He  had, 
during  the  month  allowed  him  by  the  inac- 
tivity of  his  opponent,  brought  together  from 
every  available  source  a  great  army,  almost 
equal  in  numbers  to  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
Though  there  is  a  great  disparity  in  the  ac- 
counts of  the  different  Confederate  officers  who 
have  written  upon  this  subj  ect,  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  doubt  that  the  official  estimate  quoted 
with  approval  by  General  Webb,  which  states 
Lee's  force  as  80,762,  is  substantially  correct. 
Webb  says  that  McClellan's  effective  force  for 
the  "  seven  days'  battles  "  was  92,500  4 — consid- 
erably less  than  his  own  official  report  of  the 
20th  of  June  gives  him.  The  Confederate 
forces  were,  like  the  army  opposed  to  them, 
of  the  best  material  the  country  could  furnish ;
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
and  no  better  men  ever  went  to  war,  in  any 
age  or  region.  It  is  an  unsolved  and  now  an 
insolvable  question  whether  the  Confederates 
had  gained  or  lost  by  the  wounding  of  John- 
ston and  the  substitution  of  Lee  as  the  com- 
mander of  their  principal  army.  They  were 
both  men  of  the  best  ability  and  highest  charac- 
ter that  the  Southern  States  could  produce; 
both  trained  soldiers,  of  calm  temper,  and  great 
energy;  and  both  equally  honorable  and  mag- 
nanimous in  their  treatment  of  their  subordi- 
nates. But  General  Lee  had  a  great  advantage 
over  his  predecessor  in  possessing  the  perfect 
confidence  and  personal  friendship  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  the  head  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment. He  was  always  sure  in  his  enterprises 
of  what  Johnston  often  lacked,  the  sincere  and 
zealous  support  of  the  Richmond  Government. 
He  also  enjoyed,  to  an  unusual  degree,  the  warm 
regard  and  esteem  of  those  who  were  brought 
into  personal  or  official  relations  with  him. 
His  handsome  and  attractive  presence,  his  dig- 
nified yet  cordial  manner,  a  certain  sincerity 
and  gentleness  which  was  apparent  in  all  his 
words  and  actions,  endeared  him  to  his  asso- 
ciates and  made  friends  of  strangers  at  first 
sight.  Everything  he  asked  for  was  given  him. 
He  had  been  the  favorite  of  General  Scott  in 
the  old  army ;  he  became  the  favorite  of  Mr. 
Davis  in  his  new  command.  The  army  which 
Johnston  gave  up  to  him  had  been  almost 
doubled  in  numbers  by  the  time  he  considered 
himself  ready  to  employ  it  against  McClellan.1 
Lee's  preparations  were  promptly  and  ener- 
getically made.  Immediately  after  Stuart's  raid 
was  completed  he  ordered  Stonewall  Jackson 
to  join  him  by  a  letter  of  the  16th,  which  gave 
minute  instructions  for  his  march  and  enjoined 
upon  him  the  greatest  secrecy  and  swiftness. 
To  mask  this  movement  he  ostentatiously  sent 
Jackson  two  brigades  from  Richmond,  with 
drums  beating  and  colors  flying,  a  proceeding 
which  was  promptly  reported  to  McClellan 
and  caused  him  at  first  some  perplexity,2  but 
which  he  explained  by  his  usual  conclusion 
that  Lee  had  so  overwhelming  a  force  that  a 
few  brigades  here  or  there  made  no  difference 
to  him.  The  manoeuvre  was  of  little  practical 
account,  however,  as  McClellan  was  fully  in- 
formed of  Jackson's  approach  in  time  to  pro- 
vide against  it,  or  to  anticipate  his  arrival  by 
taking  the  offensive.  He  even  knew  as  early 
as  the  25th  that  Jackson  was  to  come  in  on 
his  right  and  rear,2  but  he  made  no  use  of  this 
knowledge  except  to  reproach  the  Government 
for  not  sending  him  more  troops.  Jackson  re- 
ported at  Richmond  in  person  on  the  23d  of 
June,  in  advance  of  his  corps ;  and  in  a  confer- 
ence with  Longstreet  and  the  two  Hills  the 
1  Johnston's  "  Narrative,"  pp.  145,  146. 
2  War  Records. 
Vol.  XXXVII.— 20. 
plan  of  attacking  the  Federal  right  wing,  north 
of  the  Chickahominy,  was  agreed  upon.  As 
Jackson's  troops  had  the  greatest  distance  to 
march,  it  was  left  to  him  to  say  when  the  at- 
tack should  be  made.  He  named  the  morning 
of  the  2Cth  of  June,  giving  himself,  as  it  after- 
wards appeared,  too  little  time. 
General  Lee  matured  his  plan  on  the  24th, 
and  issued  his  orders  for  the  coming  campaign. 
The  most  striking  thing  about  them  is  his  evi- 
dent contempt  for  his  opponent.  He  sent,  in 
effect,  almost  his  entire  army  to  the  north  side 
of  the  Chickahominy  to  strike  McClellan's 
right  wing.  The  enemy  is  to  be  "  driven  from 
Mechanicsville " ;    the    Confederates    are    to 
sweep  down  the  Chickahominy  and  endeavor  to  drive 
the  enemy  from  his  position  above  New  Bridge  ;  Gen- 
eral Jackson  bearing  well  to  his  left,  turning  Beaver 
Dam  Creek,  and  taking  the  direction  towards  Cold 
Harbor.  They  will  then  press  forward  towards  the 
York  River  Railroad,  closing  upon  the  enemy's  rear, 
and  forcing  him  down  the  Chickahominy.  Any  ad- 
vance of  the  enemy  towards  Richmond  will  be  pre- 
vented by  rigorously  following  his  rear,  and  crippling 
and  arresting  his  progress. 
He  anticipated  the  possibility  of  McClellan's 
abandoning  his  intrenchments  on  the  south  side 
of  the  river,  in  which  case  he  is  to  be  "  closely 
pursued  "  by  Huger  and  Magruder.  Cavalry 
are  to  occupy  the  roads  to  arrest  his  flight 
"  down  the  Chickahominy."  General  Lee's 
plan  and  expectation  was,  in  short,  to  herd 
and  drive  down  the  Peninsula  a  magnificent 
army,  superior  in  numbers  to  his  own,  and  not 
inferior  in  any  other  respect  —  if  we  except  the 
respective  commanders-in-chief,  who  were  at 
least  equally  distinguished  engineers.  In  this 
enterprise  he  deserved  and  courted  defeat  by 
leaving  the  bulk  of  McClellan's  army  between 
himself  and  Richmond.  When  he  laid  his  plan 
before  Jefferson  Davis,  the  latter  saw  at  once 
this  serious  defect  in  it.    He  says  : 
I  pointed  out  to  him  that  our  force  and  intrenched 
line  between  the  left  flank  of  the  enemy  and  Richmond 
was  too  weak  for  a  protracted  resistance  ;  and  if  Mc- 
Clellan was  the  man  I  took  him  for,  ...  as  soon 
as  he  found  that  the  bulk  of  our  army  was  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Chickahominy  he  would  not  stop  to  try  con- 
clusions with  it  there,  but  would  immediately  move 
upon  his  objective  point,  the  city  of  Richmond.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  should  behave  like  an  engineer  of- 
ficer, and  deem  it  his  first  duty  to  protect  his  line  of 
communication,  I  thought  the  plan  proposed  was  not 
only  the  best,  but  would  be  a  success.  Something  of 
his  old  esprit  de  corps  manifested  itself  in  General  Lee's 
first  reponse  that  he  did  not  know  engineer  officers 
were  more  likely  than  others  to  make  such  mistakes  ; 
but  immediately  passing  to  the  main  subject,  he  added, 
"  If  you  will  hold  him  as  long  as  you  can  at  the  intrench- 
ments, and  then  fall  back  on  the  detached  works  around 
the  city,  I  will  be  upon  the  enemy's  heels  before  he 
gets  there."  3 
But  everything  shows  that  he  anticipated  no 
3  Davis,  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment," Vol.  II.,  p.  132.
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
such  action  on  the  part  of  McClellan.    All  his 
rs,  all  his  dispositions,  indicate  clearly  that 
he  thought  of  nothing  but  driving  him  clown 
(  hickahominv  towards  Vorktown,  and  cap- 
turing or  dispersing  his  army.    The  measure 
ss  he  met  with  will  always  be,  in  the 
ral  judgment,  a  justification  of  his  plan; 
pinion  of  the  best  military  critics  on 
both  sides  is  that  it  never  could  have  succeeded 
had  it  not  been  lor  McClellan's  hallucination 
the  numbers  opposed  to  him.    From  the 
that    bee  crossed    his  troops    over   the 
Chickahominy,  leaving  that  river  and  McClel- 
army  between  him  and  Richmond,  he 
te  of  the  Confederacy  upon  his 
belief  that  the  Union  general  would  make  no 
forward  movement.    His  confidence  grew  with 
every  step  of  McClellan's  retreat  from  Beaver 
Dam  Creek  to   Malvern  Hill,  and  was  dearly 
paid  for  in  the  blood  of  his  soldiers. 
The  first  meeting  between  the  two  armies 
resulted  in  a  terrible  defeat  for  the  Confeder- 
ates About  3  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
26th,  the  rebel  forces,  commanded  by  Long- 
street,  D.  H.  Hill,  and  A.  P.  Hill,  attacked  the 
Union  troops  in  position  on  the  east  side  of 
Beaver  Dam  Creek,  commanded  by  General 
McCall,  whose  division  had  been  added  to 
Fitz  John  Porter's  corps,  ably  assisted  by 
Seymour,  Meade,  and  Reynolds.  Of  the  last 
two,  the  one  gained  an  undying  fame  and  the 
other  a  glorious  death  at  Gettysburg.  The 
Confederates  were  in  greatly  superior  force, 
but  the  Cnion  troops  had  the  advantage  of 
tion;  and  though  both  sides  fought  with 
equal  valor,  before  night  fell  the  rebels  were 
repulsed  with  great  slaughter.  General  Mc- 
Clellan visited  Fitz  John  Porter's  headquar- 
ters  at  night,  after  the  battle.  He  found  an 
exultant  and  victorious  army,  almost  unscathed 
by  the  fierce  conflict  of  the  day.  Porter  re- 
his  loss  at  250  out  of  the  5000  engaged, 
and  says  the  enemy  lost  nearly  2000  of  their 
0  attacking.1  If  Porter,  instead  of  Mc- 
:n.  had  been  in  command  of  the  army, 
Richmond  might  have  been  under  the  Union 
His  soldierly  spirit,  flushed 
with  the  day's  success,  comprehended  the  full 
advantage  of  the  situation.  He  urged  Mc- 
Clellan to  seize  his  opportunity;  he  proposed 
'•to  hold  his  own  at  the  Beaver  Dam  line, 
slightly  reenforced,  while  General  McClellan 
moved  the  main  body  of  his  army  upon  Rich- 
mond."2 The  General-in-Chief  had  not  resolu- 
tion enough  to  accept  or  reject  this  proposition 
1  "  Battle,  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  Vol.  II., 
p.  MI- 
2  W  e  are  here  quoting  the  language  of  General 
Webb,  whose  testimony  is  beyond  question.  "  The 
Peninsula,"  p.  130. 
'•>  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  Vol. 
II.,  p.  398. 
of  his  gallant  subordinate.  He  returned  to  his 
own  headquarters  to  make  up  his  mind,  and 
about  "  3  or  4  o'clock  in  the  morning  "  sent 
his  final  order  to  Porter  to  retire  to  a  position 
some  four  miles  east,  behind  Boatswain  Swamp, 
and  there  await  the  further  attack  of  the 
enemy. 
General  Porter's  personal  devotion  to  Mc- 
Clellan, which  was  afterwards  to  bring  him 
into  lifelong  trouble,  has  never  allowed  him  to 
criticise  this  decision  of  his  chief  which  over- 
ruled his  own  bold  and  intelligent  plan.  Let 
us  see  how  the  ablest  and  most  efficient  Con- 
federate general  engaged  in  this  campaign 
regarded  it.    General  Longstreet  says : 
In  my  judgment  the  evacuation  of  Beaver  Dam 
Creek  was  very  unwise  on  the  part  of  the  Federal 
commanders.  We  had  attacked  at  Beaver  Dam,  and 
had  failed  to  make  an  impression  at  that  point,  losing 
several  thousand  men  and  officers.  This  demonstrated 
that  the  position  was  safe.  If  the  Federal  commanders 
knew  of  Jackson's  approach  on  the  26th,  they  had 
ample  time  to  reenforce  Porter's  right  before  Friday 
morning,  the  27th,  with  men  and  field  defenses,  to  such 
extent  as  to  make  the  remainder  of  the  line  to  the 
right  secure  against  assault.  So  that  the  Federals  in 
withdrawing  not  only  abandoned  a  strong  position, 
but  gave  up  the  morale  of  their  success,  and  transferred 
it  to  our  somewhat  disheartened  forces ;  for,  next  to 
Malvern  Hill,  the  sacrifice  at  Beaver  Dam  was  un- 
equaled  in  demoralization  during  the  entire  summer. 3 
It  is  hard  to  understand  what  General  Mc- 
Clellan means  when  he  says  in  his  report  that 
the  26th  was  "  the  day  he  had  decided  on  for 
our  final  advance."  If  he  thought  it  safe  to  at- 
tack Richmond  with  Lee  and  his  army  in  front 
of  him,  how  much  more  advantageous  would 
such  an  attack  have  been  with  Lee  and  his 
army  engaged  in  a  desperate  battle  north  of 
the  Chickahominy.  There  is  no  indication  in 
his  orders  or  dispatches  of  these  days  —  if  we 
except  one  order  to  Porter,  hereafter  to  be  men- 
tioned —  that  he  had  any  more  definite  pur- 
pose than  to  await  the  action  of  the  enemy,  and 
retreat  to  the  James,  if  necessary.  His  mind 
was  filled  with  that  fantastic  idea  he  had  adopted 
of  an  army  of  200,000  under  Lee.  In  his  re- 
port, written  a  year  afterwards,  he  reiterates 
and  dwells  upon  this  absurd  and  already  dis- 
proved fiction,  basing  his  persistent  belief  on 
the  reports  of  his  ridiculous  detective  service. 
This  is  the  only  explanation  possible  of  his  ac- 
tion during  this  momentous  week  while  he 
was  flying  from  phantom  myriads  which  existed 
only  in  his  own  brain,  and  his  brave  army  was 
turning  and  checking  Lee's  pursuing  forces  at 
every  halt  it  made. 
On  the  morning  of  the  27th  Porter  withdrew 
to  his  new  position,  famous  ever  thereafter  as 
the  battlefield  of  Gaines's  Mill,  or  of  the  Chick- 
ahominy, as  it  is  called  by  Southern  writers. 
His  ground,  like  that  of  the  day  before,  was 
admirably  chosen  for  defense.    He  had   less
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
than  one-third  the  number  of  the  host  which 
was  marching  by  every  road  on  the  west  and 
north  to  destroy  him.1  He  knew  his  force  was 
too  small  to  defend  so  long  a  line  against  such 
numbers,  but  his  appeals  to  McClellan  for  re- 
enforcements  brought  no  response  until  late  in 
the  day,  when  Slocum's  division  was  sent  him. 
With  the  troops  he  had  he  made  a  magnificent 
fight,  which,  in  spite  of  his  subsequent  history, 
makes  us  regret  that  he  had  not  commanded 
the  entire  Army  of  the  Potomac  that  day. 
With  the  exception  of  the  small  detachments 
left  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  under  Magru- 
der  to  amuse  McClellan,  the  whole  army  of 
General  Lee,  numbering  over  60,000  men,  was 
advancing  upon  Porter's  single  corps.  It  was 
led  by  the  best  generals  of  the  South — Long- 
street,  the  two  Hills,  Whiting,  Hood,  Ewell, 
and  the  redoubtable  Jackson,  whose  corps, 
though  marching  with  less  than  their  usual  ce- 
lerity, had  turned  Beaver  Dam  Creek  the  night 
before,  and  had  now  arrived  at  the  post  assigned 
them  opposite  Porter's  right.  General  Lee 
commanded  on  the  field  in  person,  and  Jef- 
ferson Davis  contributed  whatever  his  presence 
was  worth. 
The  battle  began  at  noon,  and  as  evening  fell 
upon  the  desperately  fought  field  the  entire 
Confederate  army,  by  a  simultaneous  advance, 
forced  back  the  Union  troops,  overcome  by 
numbers  and  wearied  with  seven  hours  of  con- 
stant fighting.2  There  was  no  confusion  except 
at  the  point  on  the  right  where  Morell's  line 
had  been  pierced  by  Hood's  brigade,  where  two 
regiments  were  made  prisoners.  Everywhere 
else  the  Union  soldiers  retired  fighting,  turning 
from  time  to  time  to  beat  back  the  enemy, 
until  night  put  an  end  to  the  conflict.  Porter 
had  lost  4000  in  killed  and  wounded,  one- 
sixth  of  his  men;  Lee  something  more,  about 
one-twelfth  of  his.  Lee  had  absolutely  failed 
in  his  object — to  dislodge  the  Union  army  from 
its  position  and  "  drive  it  down  the  Chicka- 
hominy." 
Of  the  heroic  valor  of  this  sanguinary  day's 
work  there  can  be  no  question.    There  is  much 
1  "  Porter's  force  consisted  of  Morell's,  McCall's, 
and  Sykes's  divisions  ;  in  all,  17,330  infantry  for  duty. 
There  were  present  with  him  2534  artillery,  of  which, 
from  the  nature  of  the  ground,  but  a  small  portion  could 
be  used;  and  671  of  the  regular  cavalry  guarded  the 
bridges."    [Webb,  "  The  Peninsula,"  p.  129.] 
2  Porter  says  :  "  The  forces  in  this  battle  were : 
Union,  50  regiments,  20  batteries;  in  all,  about  27,000 
men  [including  the  reinforcements  received  during 
the  day].  Confederate,  129  regiments,  19  batteries; 
in  all,  about  65,000." 
3  "At  last  a  moment  came  when  action  was  impera- 
tive. The  enemy  assumed  the  initiative,  and  we  had 
warning  of  when  and  where  he  was  to  strike.  Had 
Porter  been  withdrawn  the  night  of  the  26th,  our  army 
would  have  been  concentrated  on  the  right  bank,  while 
two  corps  at  least  of  the  enemy's  force  were  on  the  left 
bank.      Whatever  course  we  then  took,  whether  to 
question  of  the  wisdom  of  it.  If  McClellan 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  retreat  to  the  James, 
he  might  have  withdrawn  Porter  to  the  south 
side  of  the  Chickahominy  during  the  night  of 
the  26th,  after  his  signal  victory  at  Beaver 
Dam.;i  Put,  as  we  have  seen,  he  gave  no  defi- 
nite orders  until  3  o'clock  the  next  morning, 
when  he  directed  Porter  to  retire  to  Gai 
Mill.  During  all  the  terrible  conflict  of  the 
27th,  he  left  his  gallant  subordinate  to  fight 
three  times  his  force,  with  no  intimation  of  his 
ultimate  purpose.  Porter  had  a  right  to  think 
that  the  price  of  his  tremendous  sacrifice  was 
to  be  the  capture  of  Richmond.  McClellan's 
orders  to  him  on  the  23d  included  these  words : 
The  troops  on  this  side  will  be  held  ready  either  to 
support  you  directly  or  to  attack  the  enemy  in  their 
front.  If  the  force  attacking  you  is  large,  the  general 
would  prefer  the  latter  course,  counting  upon  your 
skill  and  the  admirable  troops  under  your  command 
to  hold  their  own  against  superior  numbers  long 
enough  for  him  to  make  the  decisive  movement  which 
will  determine  the  fate  of  Richmond. 
In  addition  to  this  we  have  the  most  unim- 
peachable authority  for  saying  that  Porter  on 
the  battlefield  was  left  with  the  same  impres- 
sion. General  Webb,  who  was  present  with 
General  Porter  during  the  fight,  ordered  to 
that  duty  from  McClellan's  headquarters,  says: 
He  carried  with  him  to  General  Porter  the  distinct 
impression,  then  prevailing  at  the  headquarters  of  the 
army,  that  he  was  to  hold  this  large  force  of  the  enemy 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Chickahominy  in  order  that  Gen- 
eral McClellan,  with  the  main  army,  might  break 
through  and  take  Richmond. 
It  was  this  inspiring  thought  which  moved 
Porter  and  his  20,000  to  such  a  prodigious  feat 
of  arms.    General  Webb  says  : 
The  sacrifice  at  Gaines's  Mill  .  .  .  was  warranted, 
if  we  were  to  gain  Richmond  by  making  it ;  and  the 
troops  engaged  in  carrying  out  this  plan,  conceiving 
it  to  be  the  wish  of  the  general  commanding,  were 
successful  in  holding  the  rebels  on  the  left  bank.4 
But  the  general  commanding  was  simply 
incapable  of  the  effort  of  will  necessary  to  carry 
strike  at  Richmond  and  the  portion  of  the  enemy  on  the 
right  bank,  or  move  at  once  for  the  James,  we  would 
have  had  a  concentrated  army,  and  a  fair  chance  of  a 
brilliant  result  in  the  first  place;  and  in  the  second,  if 
we  accomplished  nothing,  we  would  have  been  in  the 
same  case  on  the  morning  of  the  27th  as  we  were  on 
that  of  the  28th  —  minus  a  lost  battle  and  a  compulsory 
retreat;  or,  had  the  fortified  lines  (thrown  up  expressly 
for  the  object)  been  held  by  20,000  men  (as  they  could 
have  been),  we  could  have  fought  on  the  other  side  with 
80,000  men  instead  of  27,000  ;  or,  finally,  had  the  lines 
been  abandoned,  with  our  hold  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Chickahominy,  we  might  have  fought  and  crushed  the 
enemy  on  the  left  bank,  reopened  our  communications, 
and  then  returned  and  taken  Richmond.''  [From  Re- 
port of  General  Barnard,  Chief  of  Engineers,  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  War  Records.] 
4  Webb,  "The  Peninsula,"  p.  1S7.
t4° 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
out  his  share  of  the  plan.    He  gives  us  to  un- 
derstand, in  his  report,  and  in  subsequent  arti- 
that  he  resolved  upon  his  retreat  to  the 
es  on  the   25th  of  June.    General   Webb 
ts  this  theory,  and  adds  that  McClellan 
thought  that  the  capture  of  Richmond,  with 
1  t  e   beyond   the   Chickahominy,   was  not  a 
proper  military  movement.     It  is  not  in  the 
etence  of  any  one  to  judge  what  were 
ral    McClellan's  thoughts  and  intentions 
from  the  23d  to  the  27th  of  June.    So  late  as 
8   o'clock   on  the   night  of  the   27th,  a  dis- 
h  from  him  to  the  War  Department  indi- 
-  that  he  thought  the  attack  of  Magruder 
on  the  right  bank  was  more  serious  than  that 
upon  Porter  on  the  left.    "  I  may  be  forced," 
.  s,   ••  to  give  up  my  position  during  the 
night,  but  will  not  if  it  is  possible  to  avoid  it"; 
and  as  a  matter  of  course  the  usual  refrain  fol- 
lows: u  Had  I  twenty  thousand  fresh  and  good 
troops,  we  would  be  sure  of  a  splendid  victory 
to-morrow."  x    Magruder,  who  had  been  left  to 
guard  Richmond  with  a  thin  curtain  of  troops, 
had  been  all  day  repeating  the  devices  which 
were  so  successful  at  Yorktown.    He  had  rat- 
tled  about  McClellan's   entire   front  with   so 
much  noise  and  smoke  as  to  create  the  im- 
pression of  overwhelming  numbers.    Even  the 
seasoned  corps   commanders  were  not  unaf- 
fected by  it.    Franklin  thought  it  not  prudent 
to  send  any  reinforcements  from  his  line  to 
Porter.    Sumner  offered  to  send  two  brigades, 
but  thought  it  would  be  hazardous.    The  real 
state  of  the  case  can  best  be  seen  from  Magru- 
der's  own  report.    He  says  : 
From  Friday  night  until  Sunday  morning  I  con- 
sidered the  situation  of  our  army  as  extremely  criti- 
cal and  perilous.  The  larger  portion  of  it  was  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Chickahominy.  The  bridges 
had  been  all  destroyed ;  but  one  was  rebuilt  (the  New 
Bridge;,  which  was  commanded  fully  by  the  enemy's 
guns  from  Golding's  ;  and  there  were  but  25,000  men 
en  his  army  of  100,000  and  Richmond.  .  .  . 
Had  McClellan  massed  his  whole  force  in  column,  and 
advanced  it  against  any  point  of  our  line  of  battle, —  as 
wa-,  done  at  Austerlitz,  under  similar  circumstances,  by 
the  greatest  captain  of  any  age, —  though  the  head  of  his 
column  would   have  suffered   greatly,  its   momentum 
1  War  Records. 
2  "  Ha' ties  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  Vol. 
II..  p.  361. 
•;  1  lie  following  shows  the  opinion  of  two  of  the 
most  prominent  Confederate  officers  upon  this  matter. 
It  i-,  an  extract  from  a  letter  of  General  J.  E.John- 
ston to  General  Beauregard,  dated  Amelia  Springs, 
August  4.  1862,  immediately  after  the  Seven  Days' 
Battles  : 
'•  B  it  for  my  confidence  in  McClellan's  want  of  enter- 
prise, I  should  on  Thursday  night,  after  three-fourths  of 
the  troops  had  crossed  the  Chickahominy,  have  appre- 
hended that  he  would  adopt  the  course  you  suggest  for 
him.  Had  he  done  so,  he  might  have  been  in  Richmond 
on  Friday  before  midday.  By  concentrating  his  troops 
on  the  south  side  of  the  river  before  daybreak  on  Fri- 
day he  would  have  been  between  our  main  body  and 
would  have  insured  him  success ;  and  the  occupation  of 
our  works  about  Richmond,  and  consequently  the  city, 
might  have  been  his  reward.  His  failure  to  do  so  is 
the  best  evidence  that  our  wise  commander  fully  under- 
stood the  character  of  his  opponent.  1 
D.  H.  Hill  says  the  same  thing  :2 
During  Lee's  absence  Richmond  was  at  the  mercy 
of  McClellan.  .  .  .  The  fortifications  around  Rich- 
mond at  that  time  were  very  slight.  McClellan  could 
have  captured  the  city  with  very  little  loss  of  life.  The 
want  of  supplies  would  have  forced  Lee  to  attack  him  as 
soon  as  possible,  with  all  the  disadvantages  of  a  pre- 
cipitated movement.  3 
General  McClellan  did  not  visit  the  field  of 
battle  during  the  day. 4  At  night  he  summoned 
Porter  across  the  river,  and  there  made  known 
to  him  and  the  other  corps  commanders,  for 
the  first  time,  his  intention  to  change  his  base 
to  the  James.  Porter  was  ordered  to  retire  to 
the  south  bank,  and  destroy  the  bridges  after 
him.  This  was  accomplished  safely  and  in 
good  order,  and  the  bridges  were  destroyed 
soon  after  sunrise  on  the  28th.  The  movement 
to  the  James  once  resolved  upon,  it  was  exe- 
cuted with  great  energy  and  ability.  General 
Keyes  moved  his  corps,  with  artillery  and  bag- 
gage, across  the  White  Oak  Swamp,  and  pos- 
sessed himself  of  the  ground  on  the  other  side, 
for  the  covering  of  the  passage  of  the  other 
troops  and  the  trains,  by  noon  of  the  28th. 
General  Porter's  corps,  during  the  same  day 
and  night,  crossed  the  White  Oak  Swamp,  and 
established  itself  in  positions  that  covered  the 
roads  from  Richmond.  Franklin  withdrew  from 
the  extreme  right  after  a  skirmish  at  Golding's 
Farm.  Keyes  and  Porter  continued  in  the  ad- 
vance, and  established  their  two  corps  safely 
at  Malvern  Hill,  thus  securing  the  extreme  left 
flank  of  the  army  in  a  commanding  and  im- 
portant situation. 
This  movement  took  General  Lee  com- 
pletely by  surprise.  Anticipating  nothing  but 
a  retreat  down  the  Chickahominy,5  he  had 
thrown  his  left  wing  and  his  entire  cavalry 
force  in  that  direction ;  and  when  he  became 
aware  of  his  mistake,  a  good  deal  of  precious 
time  was  already  lost,  and  he  was  deprived, 
the  city,  with  only  one-fourth  of  our  force  in  his  way. 
This  fraction  he  could  have  beaten  in  four  hours,  and 
marched  to  Richmond  in  two  hours  more. "  [Published 
in  the  "New  York  Times,"  June  17,  1883.] 
4  "Question.  Were  you  with  the  right  or  left  wing  of 
the  army  during  the  battle  of  Gaines's  Mill  ? 
"Answer.  [General  McClellan.]  I  was  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river,  at  Dr.  Trent's  house,  as  the  most 
central  position."  [Report  of  the  Committee  on  the 
Conduct  of  the  War.] 
5  "  General  Lee,  presuming  that  the  Federalists 
would  continue  to  withdraw,  if  overpowered,  towards 
the  York  River  Railroad  and  the  White  House,  directed 
General  Jackson  to  proceed  with  General  D.  H.  Hill 
to  a  point  a  few  miles  north  of  Cold  Harbor,  and  thence 
to  march  to  that  place  and  strike  their  line  of  retreat." 
[Dabney,  p.  443.]
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
141 
during  the  three  days  that  followed,  of  Stuart's 
invaluable  services.  But  having  ascertained 
on  the  29th  that  McClellan  was  marching  to 
the  James,  he  immediately  started  in  pursuit, 
sending  his  whole  force  by  parallel  roads  to 
intercept  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  near  Charles 
City  Cross-roads,  midway  between  the  White 
Oak  Swamp  and  the  J  ames.  Longstreet  was  to 
march  with  A.  P.  Hill  by  the  Long  Bridge  road; 
while  Huger  was  to  come  up  at  the  same  time 
by  the  Charles  City  road,  and  General  Holmes 
was  to  take  up  position  below  him  on  the  river 
road.  Jackson,  crossing  the  Grapevine  Bridge, 
was  to  come  in  from  the  north  on  the  rear  of 
the  Federal  army. 
Even  the  terrible  lessons  of  Beaver  Dam 
and  Gaines's  Mill  had  not  convinced  General 
Lee  of  the  danger  of  attacking  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  in  position.  These  lessons  were 
repeated  all  along  the  line  of  march.  Sumner 
repulsed  Magruder  at  Allen's  Farm,  and  then, 
retiring  to  Savage's  Station,  he  and  Franklin 
met  another  fierce  onslaught  from  the  same 
force,  and  completely  defeated  them.  It  was 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  Franklin  could 
induce  the  gallant  old  general  to  leave  the 
field.  McClellan's  orders  were  positive  that 
the  White  Oak  Swamp  must  be  crossed  that 
night ;  but  to  all  Franklin's  representations  Sum- 
ner answered :  "  No,  General,  you  shall  not 
go,  nor  will  I."  When  shown  McClellan's 
positive  orders,  he  cried  out,  "  McClellan  did 
not  know  the  circumstances  when  he  wrote 
that  note.  He  did  not  know  that  we  would 
fight  a  battle  and  gain  a  victory."1  He  only 
gave  way  and  reluctantly  took  up  his  line  of 
march  for  the  southward  on  the  positive  orders 
of  an  aide-de-camp,  who  had  just  left  McClel- 
lan.2 
The  next  day  occurred  the  battle  of  Glen- 
dale,  or  Frayser's  Farm,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called.  Jackson,  with  unusual  slowness,  had 
arrived  at  Savage's  Station  the  day  before,  too 
late  to  take  part  in  the  battle  there ;  and  when 
he  came  to  White  Oak  Swamp  the  bridge  was 
gone  and  Franklin  occupied  the  heights  be- 
yond. His  force  was  therefore  paralyzed  dur- 
ing the  day.  He  made  once  or  twice  a  feeble 
attempt  to  cross  the  swamp,  but  was  promptly 
met  and  driven  back  by  Franklin.  Huger,  on 
the  Charles  City  road,  failed  to  break  through 
some  slight  obstruction  there.  Holmes  was  in 
terror  of  the  gunboats  near  Malvern  Hill 
and  could  give  no  assistance;  so  that  Long- 
street  and  A.  P.  Hill  were  forced  to  attack 
1  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  Vol. 
II.,  p.  375- 
2  The  corps  commanders  were  left  almost  entirely 
without  directions,  as  the  following,  from  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  shows : 
"  Question.  By  whom  was  the  battle  of  Savage's 
Station  fought  ?    Did  you  yourself  direct  the  move- 
the  Union  center,  at  Glendale,  on  pretty  nearly 
even  terms.  Here  a  savage  and  obstinate  con- 
flict took  place,  which  was  felt  on  both  sides 
to  be  the  crisis  of  the  campaign.  \i  the 
Union  center  had  been  pierced,  the  disaster 
would  have  been  beyond  calculation.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  our  army  had  been  concentrated 
at  that  point,  and  had  defeated  the  army 
of  Lee,  the  city  of  Richmond  would  have 
been  the  prize  of  victory.  General  Franklin 
says  that  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  who  was 
at  that  moment  taking  leave  of  the  army  to 
return  to  Europe,  said  to  him  with  great  ear- 
nestness, "Advise  General  McClellan  to  center 
his  army  at  this  point  and  fight  the  battle 
to-day.  If  he  does,  he  will  be  in  Richmond  to- 
morrow." Neither  side  won  the  victory  that 
day,  though  each  deserved  it  by  brave  and 
persistent  fighting.  General  McClellan,  intent 
upon  securing  a  defensive  position  for  his  army 
upon  the  James,  left  the  field  before  the  fight- 
ing began;  while  Longstreet,  Lee,  and  Jeffer- 
son Davis  himself  were  under  the  fire  of  the 
Union  guns  during  the  afternoon.  When  dark- 
ness put  an  end  to  the  fighting  the  Federal 
generals,  left  to  their  discretion,  had  accom- 
plished their  purpose.  The  enemy  had  been 
held  in  check,  the  trains  and  artillery  had  gone 
safely  forward  by  the  road  which  the  battle 
had  protected,  and  on  the  next  morning,  July 
1,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  awaiting  its 
enemy  in  the  natural  fortress  of  Malvern  Hill. 
It  was  at  this  place  that  General  Lee's  con- 
tempt for  his  enemy  was  to  meet  its  last  and 
severest  chastisement. 
The  position  strikingly  resembled  the  battle- 
field of  Gaines's  Mill.  The  LTnion  army  was 
posted  on  a  high  position,  covered  on  the  right 
and  on  the  left  by  swampy  streams  and  wind- 
ing ravines.  Woods  in  front  furnished  a  cover 
for  the  formation  of  the  Confederate  columns, 
but  an  open  space  intervening  afforded  full 
play  for  the  terrible  Federal  artillery.  It  was 
not  the  place  for  a  prudent  general  to  attack, 
and  Lee  was  usually  one  of  the  most  prudent 
of  generals.  But  he  had  his  whole  army  well 
in  hand,  Jackson  having  come  up  in  the  night. 
and  he  decided  to  risk  the  venture.  D.  H. 
Hill  took  the  liberty  of  representing  the  great 
strength  of  McClellan's  position,  and  to  give 
his  opinion  against  an  assault.  Longstreet.  who 
was  present,  laughed  and  said,  "  Don't  get 
scared,  now  that  we  have  got  him  whipped."' 
"  It  was  this  belief  in  the  demoralization  of 
the  Federal  army,"  Hill  says,  "  that  made  our 
ments  of  the  troops,  or  were  they  directed  by  the  corps 
commanders  ? 
"  Answer,  [General  McClellan.]  I  had  given  gen- 
eral orders  for  the  movements  of  the  troops  :  hut  the 
fighting  was  done  under  the  direct  orders  of  the  corps 
commanders."
4- 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
loader  risk  the  attack."    Lee  evidently  thought 
the  position   could   be  carried   by  a   coup  de 
I  he  order  to  his  generals  of  division 
curiosity  of  military  literature: 
Batteries  have  Wished  to  rake  the  enemy's 
line.    If  it  is  broken,  as  is  probable,  Armistead,  who 
-  the  effect  ol  the  tire,  has  been  ordered  to 
with  a  yell.    Do  the  same. 
On  the  part  oi  the  Confederates  the  bat- 
tle was  as  ill  executed  as  it  was  ill  conceived. 
There  was  a  vast  amount  of  blood  and  valor 
d  by  them:  while  on  the  Union  side,  un- 
der the  admirable  leadership  of  Porter,  Morell, 
and  Couch,  not  a  drop  of  blood  nor  an  ounce 
>wder  was  thrown  away.  Successive  at- 
s  made  by  the  Confederates  from  i  o'clock 
until  9  were  promptly  and  bravely  repulsed 
by  the  Union  soldiers.  Jackson's  forces  suf- 
fered severely  in  getting  into  position  early  in 
the  afternoon.  One  of  Huger's  brigades  charged 
upon  Couch  about  3  o'clock,  and  was  driven 
back,  roughly  handled.  D.  H.  Hill  waited 
a  long  time  for  the  "  yell "  from  Armistead, 
which  was  to  be  his  signal  for  onset.  But  Ar- 
mistead's  yell  in  that  roar  of  artillery  was  but 
a  feeble  pipe,  and  was  soon  silenced;  and  when 
Hill  at  last  heard  some  shouting  on  his  right 
and  concluded  to  advance,  he  was  repulsed  and 
fearfully  punished  by  the  immovable  brigades 
of  Couch  and  Heintzelman.  The  most  pictur- 
■.  perhaps  we  may  say  the  most  sensational, 
charge  of  the  day  was  that  made  by  Magru- 
der  late  in  the  afternoon.  His  nine  brigades 
melted  away  like  men  of  snow  under  the  fright- 
ful fire  of  Sykes's  batteries  and  the  muskets  of 
MorelFs  steadfast  infantry.  This  charge  closed 
the  fighting  for  the  day.  The  Union  line  had 
not  been  broken. 
One   remarkable   feature   of  the  battle   of 
Malvern  Hill  was  that  neither  of  the  command- 
ers-in-chief exercised  any  definite  control  over 
the  progress  of  the  fight.    General  Lee,  it  is 
on  the  field,  accompanied  by  Jeffer- 
!  )avis;  but  with  the  exception  of  that  pre- 
:rous   order    about   Armistead's    yell,   he 
seems  to  have  allowed  his  corps  commanders 
to   fight  the  battle  in   their  own  way.    Their 
re  filled  with    angry  recriminations, 
and  show  ick  of  discipline  and  organ- 
..     K   rly  in  the  afternoon  Lee  ordered 
it  and   Hill  to  move  their  forces  by 
the  left  flank,  intending  to  cut  off  the  expected 
retreat  of  McClellan.     Longstrect  says: 
ued  my  orders  accordingly  for  the  two  division 
commanders  to  go  around  and  turn  the  Federal  right, 
when,  in  some  way  unknown  to  me,  the  battle  was 
drawn  on.  We  were  repulsed  at  all  points  with  fear- 
ful slaughter,  losing  :>ix  thousand  men  and  accomplish- 
ing nothing. 
General    McClellan    was    seldom    on    the 
field.    He  left  it  in  the  morning  before  the 
fighting  began  and  went  to  his  camp  at  H ax- 
all's,  which  was  under  the  protection  of  the 
gunboats.  He  came  back  for  a  little  while 
in  the  afternoon,  but  remained  with  the  right 
wing,  where  there  was  no  fighting;  he  said 
his  anxiety  was  for  the  right  wing,  as  he  was 
perfectly  sure  of  the  left  and  the  center.  In  this 
way  he  deprived  himself  of  the  pleasure  of 
witnessing  a  great  victory  won  by  the  troops 
under  the  command  of  his  subordinate  gen- 
erals. It  is  not  impossible  that  if  he  had  seen 
with  his  own  eyes  the  magnificent  success  of 
the  Union  arms  during  the  day  he  would  have 
held  the  ground  which  had  been  so  gallantly 
defended.  To  judge  from  the  accounts  of  the 
officers  on  both  sides,  nothing  would  have 
been  easier.  The  defeat  and  consequent  de- 
moralization of  the  Confederate  forces  sur- 
passed anything  seen  in  the  war,  and  it  might 
have  been  completed  by  a  vigorous  offensive 
on  the  morning  of  the  2d.  Even  Major  Dab- 
ney,  of  Jackson's  staff,  whose  sturdy  partisan- 
ship usually  refuses  to  recognize  the  plainest 
facts  unfavorable  to  his  side,  gives  this  picture 
of  the  feeling  of  the  division  commanders  of 
Jackson's  corps  the  night  of  the  battle : 
After  many  details  of  loss  and  disaster,  they  all  con- 
curred in  declaring  that  McClellan  would  probably 
take  the  aggressive  in  the  morning,  and  that  the  Con- 
federate  army  was  in  no  condition  to  resist  him.1 
But  impressed  by  the  phantasm  of  200,000 
men  before  him,  McClellan  had  already  re- 
solved to  retire  still  farther  down  the  James 
to  Harrison's  Landing,  in  order,  as  he  says,  to 
reach  a  point  where  his  supplies  could  be 
brought  to  him  with  certainty.  Commodore 
Rodgers,  with  whom  he  was  in  constant  consul- 
tation, thought  this  could  best  be  done  below 
City  Point.  The  victorious  army,  therefore, 
following  the  habit  of  the  disastrous  week, 
turned  its  back  once  more  upon  its  beaten 
enemy,  and  established  itself  that  day  at  Har- 
rison's Bar,  in  a  situation  which  Lee,  having 
at  last  gained  some  information  as  to  the  fight- 
ing qualities  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
declined  to  attack,  a  decision  in  which  Jack- 
son agreed  with  him.  After  several  days  of 
reconnaissances  he  withdrew  his  army,  on  the 
8th  of  July,  to  Richmond,  and  the  Peninsular 
Campaign  was  at  an  end. 
Harrison's  landing. 
General  McClellan  was  greatly  agitated 
by  the  battle  of  Gaines's  Mill,2  and  by  the  emo- 
1  Dabney,  p.  473. 
2  Lieutenant-Colonel  B.  S.  Alexander,  of  the  Corps 
of  Engineers,  gave  the  following  sworn  evidence  before 
the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War  [p.  592]. 
}  Te  said  he  saw,  on  the  evening  of  the  28th,  at  General 
McClellan's  headquarters  at  Savage's  Station,  an  order
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMPAIGN. 
lions  incident  to  his  forced  departure  for  the 
James.  Under  the  influence  of  this  feeling  he 
sent  to  the  Secretary  of  War  from  Savage's  Sta- 
tion, on  the  28th  of  June,  an  extraordinary  dis- 
patch, which  we  here  insert  in  full,  as  it  seems 
necessary  to  the  comprehension  of  his  attitude 
towards,  and  his  relations  with,  the  Govern- 
ment: 
I  now  know  the  full  history  of  the  day.  On  this  side 
of  the  river  (the  right  bank)  we  repulsed  several 
strong  attacks.  On  the  left  bank  our  men  did  all  that 
men  could  do,  all  that  soldiers  could  accomplish ;  but 
they  were  overwhelmed  by  vastly  superior  numbers, 
even  after  I  brought  my  last  reserves  into  action.  The 
loss  on  both  sides  is  terrible.  I  believe  it  will  prove  to 
be  the  most  desperate  battle  of  the  war.  The  sad  rem- 
nants of  my  men  behave  as  men.  Those  battalions 
who  fought  most  bravely,  and  suffered  most,  are  still 
in  the  best  order.  My  regulars  were  superb,  and  1 
count  upon  what  are  left  to  turn  another  battle,  in  com- 
pany with  their  gallant  comrades  of  the  volunteers. 
Had  I  20,000  or  even  10,000  fresh  troops  to  use  to- 
morrow, I  could  take  Richmond  ;  but  I  have  not  a  man 
in  reserve,  and  shall  be  glad  to  cover  my  retreat,  and 
save  the  material  and  personnel  of  the  army.  If  we 
have  lost  the  day  we  have  yet  preserved  our  honor, 
and  no  one  need  blush  for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
I  have  lost  the  battle  because  my  force  was  too  small. 
I  again  repeat  that  I  am  not  responsible  for  this,  and 
I  say  it  with  the  earnestness  of  a  general  who  feels  in 
his  heart  the  loss  of  every  brave  man  who  has  been 
needlessly  sacrificed  to-day.  I  still  hope  to  retrieve 
our  fortunes  ;  but  to  do  this  the  Government  must  view 
the  matter  in  the  same  earnest  light  that  I  do.  You 
must  send  me  very  large  reinforcements,  and  send  them 
at  once.  I  shall  draw  back  to  this  side  of  Chickahom- 
iny,  and  think  I  can  withdraw  all  our  material.  Please 
understand  that  in  this  battle  we  have  lost  nothing 
but  men,  and  those  the  best  we  have.  In  addition  to 
what  I  have  already  said,  I  only  wish  to  say  to  the 
President  that  I  think  he  is  wrong  in  regarding  me  as 
ungenerous  when  I  said  that  my  force  was  too  weak. 
I  merely  intimated  a  truth  which  to-day  has  been  too 
plainly  proved.  If  at  this  instant  I  could  dispose  of 
10,000  fresh  men,  I  could  gain  a  victory  to-morrow. 
I  know  that  a  few  thousand  more  men  would  have 
changed  this  battle  from  a  defeat  to  a  victory.  As  it 
is,  the  Government  must  not  and  can  not  hold  me  re- 
sponsible for  the  result.  I  feel  too  earnestly  to-night ; 
I  have  seen  too  many  dead  and  wounded  comrades  to 
feel  otherwise  than  that  the  Government  has  not  sus- 
tained this  army.  If  you  do  not  do  so  now,  the  game 
is  lost.  If  I  save  this  army  now,  I  tell  you  plainly  that 
I  owe  no  thanks  to  you  or  to  any  other  person  in 
Washington.  You  have  done  your  best  to  sacrifice 
this  army.l 
It  is  probable  that  no  other  general  ever 
retained  his  commission  for  twenty-four  hours 
directing  the  destruction  of  the  baggage  of  the  officers 
and  men,  and  he  thought  also  the  camp  equipage  ;  ap- 
pealing to  the  officers  and  men  to  submit  to  this  priva- 
tion because  it  would  be  only  for  a  few  days,  he  thought 
the  order  stated.  He  went  to  the  general  at  once,  and 
remonstrated  with  him  against  allowing  any  such  or- 
der to  be  issued,  telling  him  he  thought  it  would  have 
a  bad  effect  upon  the  army  —  would  demoralize  the  of- 
ficers and  men ;  that  it  would  tell  them  more  plainly 
than  in  any  other  way  that  they  were  a  defeated  army, 
running  for  their  lives.  This  led  to  some  discussion 
among  the  officers  at  headquarters,  and  Colonel  Alex- 
ander heard  afterward  that  the  order  was  never  pro- 
mulgated, but  suppressed. 
after  the  receipt  of  such  a  communication  by 
his  superiors;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  the  reason 
why  he  was  never  called  to  account  for  it. 
The  evident  panic  and  mental  perturbation 
which  pierces  through  its  incoherence  filled  the 
President  with  such  dismay  that  its  mutinous 
insolence  was  entirely  overlooked.  He  could 
only  wonder  what  terrible  catastrophe  already 
accomplished,  or  to  come,  could  ha\e  wrung 
such  an  outcry  as  this  from  the  general  1 
manding.  P^ven  the  surrender  of  the  army  was 
not  an  impossible  disaster  to  expect  horn  a 
general  capable  of  writing  such  a  dispatch. 
Secretary  Chase  has  left  a  memorandum  .show- 
ing that  some  such  action  was  regarded  as  indi- 
cated by  General  McClellan's  dispatches,  and 
that  even  after  his  arrival  at  Harrison's  Land- 
ing, General  Marcy,  his  father-in-law  and  chief 
of  staff,  in  a  visit  to  Washington  spoke  of  it  as  a 
possibility.2  Not  knowing  the  extent  of  the  mis- 
chance which  had  fallen  upon  the  army,  the 
President  hastened  at  once  to  send  a  kind  and 
encouraging  answer  to  McClellan's  dispatches: 
Save  your  army,  at  all  events.  Will  send  reinforce- 
ments as  fast  as  we  can.  Of  course  they  cannot  reach 
you  to-day,  to-morrow,  or  next  day.  1  have  not  said 
you  were  ungenerous  for  saying  you  needed  reinforce- 
ments. I  thought  you  were  ungenerous  in  assuming 
that  I  did  not  send  them  as  fast  as  I  could.  I  feel  any 
misfortune  to  you  and  your  army  quite  as  keenly  as 
you  feel  it  yourself.  If  you  have  had  a  drawn  battle,  or 
a  repulse,  it  is  the  price  we  pay  for  the  enemy  not  be- 
ing in  Washington.  We  protected  Washington  and 
the  enemy  concentrated  on  you.  Had  we  stripped 
Washington,  he  would  have  been  upon  us  before  the 
troops  could  have  gotten  to  you.  Less  than  a  week 
ago  you  notified  us  that  reinforcements  were  leaving 
Richmond  to  come  in  front  of  us.  It  is  the  nature  of 
the  case,  and  neither  you  nor  the  Government  are  to 
blame.  Please  tell  at  once  the  present  condition  and 
aspect  of  things. 1 
The  President  also,  with  the  greatest  dili- 
gence, sent  dispatches  on  the  same  da}-  to 
General  Dix,  at  Fort  Monroe,  to  Admiral 
Goldsborough,  commanding  the  naval  forces  in 
the  James,  and  to  General  Burnside,  in  North 
Carolina,  directing  all  three  of  them  to  strain 
every  nerve  in  order  to  go  to  McClellan's  assist- 
ance. At  the  same  time  he  ordered3  Halleck  to 
send  a  large  portion  of  his  forces  to  the  rescue. 
As  the  29th  and  30th  of  June  passed  with- 
1  War  Records. 
2  This  is  the  language  of  Mr.  Chase's  memorandum: 
"  General  McClellan  himself,  in  his  dispatches  before 
reaching  Harrison's  Landing,  referred  to  the  possi- 
bility of  being  obliged  to  capitulate  with  his  entire 
army;  and  after  reaching  that  place,  General  Marcy, 
....  who  had  been  sent  up  to  explain  personally 
the  situation  to  the  President,  spoke  of  the  possibil- 
ity of  his  capitulation  at  once,  or  Avithin  two  or  three 
days."     [Schuckers,  "  Life  of  S.  P.  Chase,"  p.  447.  ] 
3  This  order  was  afterwards  revoked  on  Halleck's 
representation  that  the  detachment  of  so  large  a 
force  would  be  equivalent  to  the  abandonment  of 
Tennessee.     [War  Records.]
144 
AURA  HAM  LINCOLN. 
out  news  of  any  farther  catastrophe,  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  Secretary  of  War  began  to  think 
better  of  the  situation,  and  concluded  that  it 
might  possibly  be  improved  by  change  of  base 
to  th  s,     Mr.   Stanton    telegraphed    to 
General  Wool  that  it  looked  "  more  like  taking 
Richmond  than  at  any  time  before."  But  on 
the  i  st  oi  July  a  dispatch,  dated  at  Turkey 
Bridge,  arrived  from  General  McClellan,  who 
-;ill  under  the  influence  of  great  agitation, 
announcing  that  he  is  "  hard  pressed  by  supe- 
rior numbers."  and  fearing  that  he  shall  be 
andon  his  material  and  save  his 
men  under  cover  of  the  gunboats.  "  If  none  of 
as  escape,  we  shall  at  least  have  done  honor 
to  the  country.  I  shall  do  my  best  to  save  the 
army.  Send  more  gunboats."1  While  waiting 
for  his  troops  to  come  to  the  new  position  he 
had  chosen  for  them,  he  continued  asking  for 
reenforcements.  "I  need,"  he  says,  "50,000 
more  men.  and  with  them  I  will  retrieve  our 
fortunes."  The  Secretary  of  War  at  once  an- 
swered that  reenforcements  were  on  the  way, 
5000  from  McDowell  and  25,000  from  Hal- 
leck.  "Hold  your  ground,"  he  says  encourag- 
ingly, "  and  you  will  be  in  Richmond  before 
the  month  is  over."1  On  the  morning  of  the 
battle  of  Malvern,  McClellan  writes  again,  "  I 
dread  the  result  if  we  are  attacked  to-day  by 
fresh  troops.  ...  I  now  pray  for  time."  It 
has  been  seen  that  his  dread  was  uncalled  for. 
Meanwhile,  before  hearing  of  the  battle,  the 
President  had  telegraphed  : 
It  is  impossible  to  reenforce  you  for  your  present 
emergency.  If  we  had  a  million  of  men  we  could  not 
get  them  to  you  in  time.  We  have  not  the  men  to  send. 
If  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  face  the  enemy  you 
find  a  place  of  security,  and  wait,  rest,  and  repair. 
Maintain  your  ground  if  you  can,  but  save  the  army  at 
all  event-,  even  if  you  fall  back  to  Fort  Monroe.  We 
still  have  strength  enough  in  the  country  and  will  bring 
it  out. 
On  the  2d.  the  flurry  of  the  week  having 
somewhat  subsided,  the  President  sent  him  the 
following : 
Your  dispatch  of  Tuesday  morning  induced  me  to 
>pe  your  army  is  having  some  rest.    In   this  hope 
allow  me  to  reason  with  you  a  moment.    When  you 
ask  for  50,000  men  to  be  promptly  sent  you,  you  surely 
labor  under  some  gross  mistake  of  fact.    Recently  you 
sent  papers  showing  your  disposal  of  forces  made  last 
spring  for  the  defense  of  Washington,  and  advising  a 
return  to  that  plan.    I   find  it  included  in  and  about 
Washington  75,000  men.    Now  please  be  assured  I 
have  not  men  enough  to  fill  that  very  plan  by  15,000. 
All  of  Fremont's  in  the  valley,  all  of  Banks's,  all  of 
McDowell's  not  with  you,  and  all  in  Washington  taken 
0  not  exceed,  if  they  reach,  60,000.     With 
and  Dix  added  to  those  mentioned  I  have  not, 
your  army,  75,000  men  cast  of  the  moun- 
1  V  rds. 
2  This  was  at  a  time  when  Lee  had  given  up  all 
thought  of  attacking  the  Union  army  at  Harrison's 
Landing. 
tains.  Thus  the  idea  of  sending  you  50,000,  or  any 
other  considerable  force,  promptly  is  simply  absurd. 
If  in  your  frequent  mention  of  responsibility  you  have 
the  impression  that  I  blame  you  for  not  doing  more 
than  you  can,  please  be  relieved  of  such  impression. 
I  only  beg  that,  in  like  manner,  you  will  not  ask  im- 
possibilities of  me.  If  you  think  you  are  not  strong 
enough  to  take  Richmond  just  now,  I  do  not  ask  you 
to  try  just  now.  Save  the  army,  material,  and  per- 
sonnel, and  I  will  strengthen  it  for  the  offensive  again 
as  fast  as  I  can.  The  governors  of  eighteen  States 
offer  me  a  new  levy  of  300,000,  which  I  accept. 
This  quiet  and  reasonable  statement  pro- 
duced no  effect  upon  the  general.  On  the  3d 
he  wrote  again  in  a  strain  of  wilder  exaggera- 
tion than  ever.    He  says : 
It  is  of  course  impossible  to  estimate,  as  yet,  our 
losses ;  but  I  doubt  whether  there  are  to-day  more 
than  50,000  men  with  their  colors.  To  accomplish 
the  great  task  of  capturing  Richmond  and  putting  an 
end  to  this  rebellion,  reenforcements  should  be  sent 
to  me,  rather  much  over  than  much  less  than  100,000 
men.  I  beg  that  you  will  be  fully  impressed  by  the 
magnitude  of  the  crisis  in  which  we  are  placed.1 
The  didactic,  not  to  say  magisterial,  tone 
of  this  dispatch  formed  a  not  unnatural  intro- 
duction to  the  general's  next  important  com- 
munication to  the  President,  laying  before  him 
an  entire  body  of  administrative  and  political 
doctrine,  in  which  alone,  he  intimates,  the  sal- 
vation of  the  country  can  be  found : 
Headquarters  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
Camp  near  Harrison's  Landing,  Virginia, 
July  7,  1862. 
Mr.  President:  You  have  been  fully  informed 
that  the  rebel  army  is  in  our  front  with  the  purpose 
of  overwhelming  us  2  by  attacking  our  positions  or  re- 
ducing us  by  blocking  our  river  communications.  I 
cannot  but  regard  our  condition  as  critical,  and  I  ear- 
nestly desire,  in  view  of  possible  contingencies,  to  lay 
before  your  Excellency,  for  your  private  consideration, 
my  general  views  concerning  the  existing  state  of  the 
rebellion,  although  they  do  not  strictly  relate  to  the 
situation  of  this  army  or  strictly  come  within  the  scope 
of  my  official  duties.  These  views  amount  to  con- 
victions, and  are  deeply  impressed  upon  my  mind  and 
heart.  Our  cause  must  never  be  abandoned ;  it  is  the 
cause  of  free  institutions  and  self-government.  The 
Constitution  and  the  Union  must  be  preserved,  what- 
ever may  be  the  cost  in  time,  treasure,  and  blood.  If 
secession  is  successful,  other  dissolutions  are  clearly 
to  be  seen  in  the  future.  Let  neither  military  disaster, 
political  faction,  nor  foreign  war  shake  your  settled  pur- 
pose to  enforce  the  equal  operation  of  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  upon  the  people  of  every  State.  The 
time  has  come  when  the  Government  must  determine 
upon  a  civil  and  military  policy  covering  the  whole 
ground  of  our  national  trouble.  The  responsibility  of 
determining,  declaring,  and  supporting  such  civil  and 
military  policy,  and  of  directing  the  whole  course  of 
national  affairs  in  regard  to  the  rebellion,  must  now 
be  assumed  and  exercised  by  you,  or  our  cause  will  be 
lost.  The  Constitution  gives  you  power  sufficient  even 
for  the  present  terrible  exigency. 
This  rebellion  has  assumed  the  character  of  a  war. 
As  such  it  should  be  regarded,  and  it  should  be  con- 
ducted upon  the  highest  principles  known  to  Christian 
civilization.  It  should  not  be  a  war  looking  to  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  people  of  any  State  in  any  event.  It 
should  not  be  at  all  a  war  upon  population,  but  against 
armed  forces  and  political  organizations.    Neither  con-
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMI'AIGN. 
fiscation  of  property,  political  executions  of  persons, 
territorial  organization  of  States,  or  forcible  abolition 
of  slavery  should  be  contemplated  for  a  moment. 
In  prosecuting  the  war  all  private  property  and  un- 
armed persons  should  be  strictly  protected,  subject 
only  to  the  necessities  of  military  operations;  all  pri- 
vate property  taken  for  military  use  should  be  paid  or 
receipted  for ;  pillage  and  waste  should  be  treated  as 
high  crimes,  all  unnecessary  trespass  sternly  prohib- 
ited, and  offensive  demeanor  by  the  military  toward 
citizens  promptly  rebuked.  Military  arrests  should  not 
be  tolerated,  except  in  places  where  active  hostilities 
exist;  and  oaths  not  required  by  enactments  —  consti- 
tutionally made  —  should  be  neither  demanded  nor  re- 
ceived. Military  government  should  be  confined  to 
the  preservation  of  public  order  and  the  protection  of 
political  rights.  Military  power  should  not  be  allowed 
to  interfere  with  the  relations  of  servitude,  either  by 
supporting  or  impairing  the  authority  of  the  master, 
except  for  repressing  disorder,  as  in  other  cases. 
Slaves,  contraband  under  the  act  of  Congress,  seeking 
military  protection,  should  receive  it.  The  right  of  the 
Government  to  appropriate  permanently  to  its  own 
service  claims  to  slave  labor  should  be  asserted,  and 
the  right  of  the  owner  to  compensation  therefor  should 
be  recognized.  This  principle  might  be  extended  upon 
grounds  of  military  necessity  and  security  to  all  the 
slaves  within  a  particular  State,  thus  working  manu- 
mission in  such  State;  and  in  Missouri,  perhaps  in 
western  Virginia  also,  and  possibly  even  in  Maryland, 
the  expediency  of  such  a  military  measure  is  only  a 
question  of  time.  A  system  of  policy  thus  constitu- 
tional and  conservative,  and  pervaded  by  the  influences 
of  Christianity  and  freedom,  would  receive  the  support 
of  almost  all  truly  loyal  men,  would  deeply  impress 
the  rebel  masses  and  all  foreign  nations,  and  it  might 
be  humbly  hoped  that  it  would  commend  itself  to  the 
favor  of  the  Almighty. 
Unless  the  principles  governing  the  further  conduct 
of  our  struggle  shall  be  made  known  and  approved, 
the  effort  to  obtain  requisite  forces  will  be  almost 
hopeless.  A  declaration  of  radical  views,  especially 
upon  slavery,  will  rapidly  disintegrate  our  present 
armies.  The  policy  of  the  Government  must  be  sup- 
ported by  concentrations  of  military  power.  The  na- 
tional forces  should  not  be  dispersed  in  expeditions, 
posts  of  occupation,  and  numerous  armies  ;  but  should 
be  mainly  collected  into  masses  and  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  armies  of  the  Confederate  States.  Those 
armies  thoroughly  defeated,  the  political  structure 
which  they  support  would  soon  cease  to  exist. 
In  carrying  out  any  system  of  policy  which  you 
may  form,  you  will  require  a  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army;  one  who  possesses  your  confidence,  under- 
stands your  views,  and  who  is  competent  to  execute 
your  orders  by  directing  the  military  forces  of  the 
nation  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  objects  by  you 
proposed.  I  do  not  ask  that  place  for  myself.  I  am 
willing  to  serve  you  in  such  position  as  you  may  as- 
sign me,  and  I  will  do  so  as  faithfully  as  ever  subordi- 
nate served  superior. 
I  may  be  on  the  brink  of  eternity,  and  as  I  hope 
forgiveness  from  my  Maker,  I  have  written  this  letter 
with  sincerity  towards  you  and  from  love  of  my 
country.  Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
G.  B.  McClellan, 
Major-  General  Commanding. 
His  Excellency  Abraham  Lincoln,  fresident.1 
This  letter  marks  the  beginning  of  General 
McClellan's  distinctively  political  career.  He 
had  always  been  more  or  less  in  sympathy  with 
the  Democratic  party,  and  consequently  in  an 
attitude  of  dormant  opposition  to  the  Admin- 
istration; although,  after  the  manner  of  officers 
Vol.  XXXVII.— 21. 
of  the  regular  service,  he  had  taken  no  pro- 
nounced political  attitude.  In  fact,  on  his 
first  assuming  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  he  had  seemed  to  be  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  President  and  Cabinet  in  the  proceed- 
ings they  thought  proper  to  adopt  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  rebellion.  Pie  had  even  entered 
heartily  into  some  of  the  more  extreme  meas- 
ures of  the  Government.  His  orders  to  General 
Banks  directing  the  arrest  of  the  secessionist 
members  of  the  Maryland  legislature  might 
have  been  written  by  a  zealous  Republican. 
"When  they  meet  on  the  17th,"  he  says,  "you 
will  please  have  everything  prepared  to  ar- 
rest the  whole  party,  and  be  sure  that  none  es- 
cape." He  urges  upon  him  the  "  absolute 
necessity  of  secrecy  and  success  " ;  speaks  of  the 
exceeding  importance  of  the  affair — "If  it  is 
successfully  carried  out  it  will  go  far  towards 
breaking  the  backbone  of  the  rebellion."  This 
was  in  September,  1861.2  Later  in  that  year 
he  was  repeatedly  urged  by  prominent  Dem- 
ocratic politicians  to  declare  himself  openly 
as  a  member  of  their  party.  They  thought  it 
would  be  to  his  advantage  and  to  theirs  to 
have  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  decidedly  with  them.  At  this  time 
he  declined  their  overtures,  but  they  were  press- 
ingly  repeated  at  Yorktown  and  afterwards ; 
and  he  appears  finally  to  have  yielded  to  their 
solicitations,  and  the  foregoing  letter  was  the 
result.  It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  this  doc- 
ument was  prepared  during  the  flight  from  the 
Chickahominy,  or  during  the  first  days  of  doubt 
and  anxiety  at  Harrison's  Landing.  It  had 
probably  been  prepared  long  before,  and  is 
doubtless  referred  to  in  the  general's  dispatch 
of  the  20th  of  June,  in  which  he  says,  "  I  would 
be  glad  to  have  permission  to  lay  before  your 
Excellency  my  views  as  to  the  present  state  of 
military  affairs  throughout  the  whole  country." 
He  had  at  that  time  some  vague  and  indefinite 
hope  of  taking  Richmond;  and  such  a  manifesto 
as  this,  coming  from  a  general  crowned  with  a 
great  victory,  would  have  had  a  far  different 
importance  and  influence  from  that  which  it 
enjoyed  issuing  from  his  refuge  at  Harrison's 
Bar,  after  a  discrediting  retreat.  But  the  choice 
of  occasion  was  not  left  to  him.  The  letter  could 
not  be  delayed  forever;  and  such  as  it  was, 
it  went  forth  to  the  country  as  the  political 
platform  of  General  McClellan,  and  to  the 
President  as  a  note  of  defiance  and  opposition 
from  the  general  in  command  of  the  principal 
army  of  the  United  States.  Though  more  mod- 
erate in  form,  this  letter  was  as  mutinous  in 
substance  as  the  dispatch  from  Savage's  Station. 
1  Slight  errors  having  crept  into  this  letter  in  its 
manifold  publications,  we  print  it  here  from  the  origi- 
nal manuscript  received  by  the  President. 
2  McPherson,  "  History  of  the  Rebellion,"  p.  153.
i46 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
1  [e  assumes  to  instruct  the  President  as  to  his  du- 
I  s  and  the  limits  of  his  constitutional  power. 
He  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  President  has  no 
definite  policy,  and  proceeds  to  give  him  one. 
Unless  his  advice  is  followed.  "  our  cause  will  be 
He  postures  as  the  protector  of  the  peo- 
against  threatened  arbitrary  outrage.  He 
Presidenl  against  any  forcible  inter- 
im slavery.  1  le  lets  him  know  he  can 
have  no  more  troops,  except  on  conditions 
known  and  approved.  He  tells  him  plainly 
that  "a  declaration  of  radical  views,  especially 
upon  slavery,  will  rapidly  disintegrate  ourpres- 
rmies."  Finally,  he  directs  him  to  appoint 
a  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  and  thinks 
it  necessary  to  inform  him  that  he  does  not  ask 
the  place  for  himself. 
The  President,  engrossed  with  more  im- 
portant affairs,  paid  no  attention,  then  or  after- 
wards, to  this  letter.  He  simply  passed  it  by 
in  good-natured  silence.  General  McClellan 
continued  his  dispatches,  constantly  announc- 
ing an  impending  attack  upon  his  position,  and 
constantly  asking  for  reinforcements.  He  con- 
tinued this  until  General  Lee  withdrew  his  army 
to  Richmond,  a  movement  which  General 
Mc(  "lellan  at  once  characterized  as  "  a  retreat." 
During  all  the  time  that  McClellan  remained 
at  Harrison's  Landing  his  correspondence  with 
the  Government  was  full  of  recrimination  and 
querulousness ;  and  his  private  letters,  which 
have  been  published  since  his  death,  show  an 
almost  indecent  hostility  to  his  superiors.  He 
writes : 
Marcy  and  I  have  just  been  discussing  people  in 
ington,  and  conclude  they  area  "mighty  trifling 
set.':  ...  I  begin  to  believe  they  wish  this  army  to 
be  destroyed.! 
When  you  contrast  the  policy  I  urge  in  my  letter  to 
the  President  with  that  of  Congress  and  of  Mr.  Pope, 
in  readily  agree  with  me  that  there  can  be  little 
natural  confidence  between  the  Government  and  my- 
self.   We  are  the  antipodes  of  each   other.2 
I    am  satisfied   that   the    dolts   in  Washington   are 
ruction.    .    .    .    Halleck  is  not  a  gen- 
tleman.^ 
We  need  not  multiply  these  utterances  of  a 
weak  and  petulant  mind.  They  have  already 
judged  by  the  highest  authority.  Gen- 
eral Sherman  says,  referring  to  this  period, 
"  The  temper  of  his  correspondence,  official 
and  private,  was  indicative  of  a  spirit  not  con- 
sistent with  the  duty  of  the  commanding  gen- 
eral of  a  great,  army."4 
The  President  had  been  much  disturbed  by 
the  conflicting  reports  that  reached  him  as  to 
the  condition  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
and  he  therefore  resolved  by  a  personal  visit 
to  satisfy  himself  of  the  state  of  affairs.    He 
1  July  31.  2  August  2.  3  August  10. 
4    In  his  paper  on  "The  Grand  Strategy  of  the  War 
of  the  Rebellion,"  The  Century  for  February,  1888. 
6   War  Records. 
reached  Harrison's  Landing  on  the  8th  of 
July,  and  while  there  conferred  freely,  not  only 
with  General  McClellan  himself,  but  with 
many  of  the  more  prominent  officers  in  com- 
mand. With  the  exception  of  General  Mc- 
Clellan, not  one  believed  the  enemy  was  then 
threatening  his  position.  Sumner  thought  they 
had  retired,  much  damaged ;  Keyes,  that  they 
had  withdrawn  to  go  towards  Washington; 
Porter,  that  they  dared  not  attack ;  Heintzel- 
man  and  Franklin  thought  they  had  retired. 
Franklin  and  Keyes  favored  the  withdrawal  of 
the  army  from  the  James ;  the  rest  opposed 
it.  Mr.  Lincoln  came  back  bearing  a  still 
heavier  weight  of  care.  One  thing  that  gave 
him  great  trouble  was  the  enormous  amount 
of  absenteeism  in  the  army.  On  returning  to 
Washington  he  wrote  this  note  to  General 
McClellan,  which,  like  most  of  his  notes,  it  is 
impossible  to  abridge : 
I  am  told  that  over  160,000  men  have  gone  into  your 
army  on  the  Peninsula.  When  I  was  with  you  the 
other  day  we  made  out  86,500  remaining,  leaving 
73,500  to  be  accounted  for.  I  believe  23,500  will  cover 
all  the  killed,  wounded,  and  missing  in  all  your  battles 
and  skirmishes,  leaving  50,000  who  have  left  other- 
wise. Not  more  than  5000  of  these  have  died,  leaving 
45,000  of  your  army  still  alive  and  not  with  it.  I  be- 
lieve half  or  two-thirds  of  them  are  fit  for  duty  to-day. 
Have  you  any  more  perfect  knowledge  of  this  than  I 
have?  If  I  am  right,  and  you  had  these  men  with 
you,  you  could  go  into  Richmond  in  the  next  three 
days.  How  can  they  be  got  to  you,  and  how  can  they 
be  prevented  from  getting  away  in  such  numbers  for 
the  future  ? 
To  this  note  the  general  replied  in  a  letter 
which  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  satisfactory 
answer  to  the  President's  searching  questions. 
He  says,  in  general  terms,  that  there  is  always 
a  difference  between  the  returns  a,nd  the  effect- 
ive force  of  armies.  He  thinks,  but  is  not 
certain,  that  the  force  given  to  him  is  not  so 
much  as  160,000,  but  admits  that  he  has  at 
that  moment,  present  for  duty,  88,665  >  absent 
by  authority,  34,472  ;  without  authority,  nearly 
4000.  This  is  very  far  from  the  "  50,000  with 
their  colors "  which  he  reported  a  few  days 
before ;  and  he  gives  no  adequate  reason  for  the 
vast  aggregate  of  those  absent  by  authority.5 
But  another  question,  far  more  important 
and  more  grievous,  was,  what  was  to  be  done 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  ?  General  Mc- 
Clellan would  listen  to  nothing  but  an  enor- 
mous reenforcement  of  his  army  and  another 
chance  to  take  Richmond.  Many  of  his  prom- 
inent officers,  on  the  contrary,  thought  that 
an  advance  on  Richmond  under  existing  con- 
ditions would  be  ill-advised,  and  that  for  the 
army  to  remain  in  its  present  position  during 
the  months  of  August  and  September  would 
be  more  disastrous  than  an  unsuccessful  bat- 
tle. The  President  had  already  placed  Gen- 
eral John  Pope  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of
JACKSON'S    VALLEY  CAMJ>ALGN. 
Virginia,  in  front  of  Washington,  and  he  now 
resolved  to  send  to  Corinth  for  General  Hal- 
leck,  whom  he  placed  in  chief  command  of 
the  armies  of  the  United  States.  This  was 
done  by  an  order  of  the  i  ith  of  July,  and  Gen- 
eral Halleck  was  requested  to  start  at  once 
for  Washington.  As  soon  as  he  could  place  his 
command  in  the  hands  of  General  Grant,  the 
next  officer  in  rank  in  his  department,  he  came 
on  to  Washington,  assumed  command  of  the 
army  on  the  23d,  and  the  very  next  day  was 
sent  to  the  camp  of  General  McClellan,  where 
he  arrived  on  the  25th.  He  asked  the  general 
his  wishes  and  views  in  regard  to  future  oper- 
ations. McClellan  answered  that  he  purposed 
to  cross  the  James  River  and  take  Petersburg. 
Halleck  stated  his  impression  of  the  danger  and 
impracticability  of  the  plan,  to  which  McClel- 
lan finally  agreed.  The  General-in-Chief  then 
told  him  that  he  regarded  it  as  a  military  neces- 
sity to  concentrate  Pope's  army  and  his  on  some 
point  where  they  could  at  the  same  time  cover 
Washington  and  operate  against  Richmond; 
unless  it  should  be  that  McClellan  felt  strong 
enough  to  take  the  latter  place  himself 
with  such  reinforcements  as  would  be  given 
him.  McClellan  thought  he  would  require 
30,000  more  than  he  had.  Halleck  told  him 
that  the  President  could  only  promise  20,000; 
and  that,  if  McClellan  could  not  take  Rich- 
mond with  that  number,  some  plan  must  be» 
devised  for  withdrawing  his  troops  from  their 
present  position  to  some  point  where  they 
could  unite  with  General  Pope  without  expos- 
ing Washington.  McClellan  thought  that  there 
would  be  no  serious  difficulty  in  withdrawing 
his  forces  for  that  purpose ;  but  he  feared  the 
demoralizing  influence  of  such  a  movement  on 
his  troops,  and  preferred  that  they  should  stay 
where  they  were  until  sufficient  reinforcements 
could  be  sent  him.  Halleck  had  no  authority 
to  consider  that  proposition,  and  told  him  that 
he  must  decide  between  advising  the  with- 
drawal of  his  forces  to  meet  those  of  Pope, 
or  an  advance  upon  Richmond  with  such 
forces  as  the  President  could  give  him.  Hal- 
leck gained  the  impression  that  McClellan's 
preference  would  be  to  withdraw  and  unite 
with  General  Pope;  but  after  consultation  with 
his  officers,  he  informed  Halleck  the  next  morn- 
ing that  he  would  prefer  to  take  Richmond. 
He  would  not  say  that  he  thought  the  proba- 
bilities of  success  were  in  his  favor,  but  that 
there  was  "  a  chance,"  and  that  he  was  "  will- 
ing to  try  it."  His  officers  were  divided  on  the 
subject  of  withdrawing  or  of  making  an  attack 
upon  Richmond.  McClellan's  delusion  as  to 
the  number  of  the  enemy  had  infected  many 
of  the  most  intelligent  generals  in  his  com- 
mand. General  Keyes,  in  a  letter  to  Quarter- 
master-General Meigs,  assured  him  that  the 
enemy  "  have  200,000  —  more  than  double  our 
number."  At  the  same  time  General  Meigs 
himself,  simply  from  reading  the  Richmond 
newspapers  and  using  his  common  sense  in 
connection  with  their  accounts,  had  formed  an 
estimate  of  the  rebel  force  very  much  nearer 
the  truth  than  that  made  by  the  generals  in 
front.1  He  found  it  to  consist  of  152  regi- 
ments, which,  at  an  average  of  700  men, —  too 
high  an  average, —  would  give  a  total  force  of 
105,000.  By  General  McClellan's  returns  for 
the  10th  of  August  he  himself  had  an  aggre- 
gate present  of  113,000  men.1 
Halleck's  return  to  Washington  was  followed 
by  a  shower  of  telegrams  from  McClellan  urg- 
ing the  reenforcement  of  his  army.  "  Should 
it  be  determined  to  withdraw  it,"  he  says  on 
the  30th  of  July,  "  I  shall  look  upon  our  cause 
as  lost,  and  the  demoralization  of  the  army  cer- 
tain " —  a  statement  which  certainly  was  lack- 
ing in  reserve.  The  weight  of  opinion,  however, 
among  the  generals  of  highest  rank  was  on  the 
other  side.  General  Keyes  wrote  in  the  strong- 
est terms  urging  the  withdrawal  of  the  army.1 
General  Barnard,  McClellan's  chief  of  engi- 
neers, and  General  Franklin  counseled  the 
immediate  withdrawal  from  the  James  to  re- 
unite with  the  forces  covering  the  Capital.1 
Upon  General  Halleck's  return  to  Washington 
this  course  was  resolved  upon.  General  Hal- 
leck's first  order  in  that  direction  was  dated  the 
30th  of  July,  and  requested  McClellan  to  send 
away  his  sick  as  quickly  as  possible.  Four  days 
afterwards,  without  having  taken  in  the  mean 
while  any  steps  to  obey  the  order,  he  sent  Gen- 
eral Hooker  to  Malvem  Hill.  He  drove  the 
Confederates  from  there  after  a  sharp  cav- 
alry skirmish.  This  so  brightened  McClellan's 
spirits  that  he  telegraphed  to  Halleck  on  the 
5th  that  "  with  reinforcements  he  could  march 
his  army  to  Richmond  in  five  days  "  —  a  sug- 
gestion to  which  Halleck  made  the  curt  rejoin- 
der, "  I  have  no  reinforcements  to  send  you."2 
1  War  Records. 
2  General  Hooker  told  the  Committee  on  the  Con- 
duct of  the  War  a  curious  story  about  this  affair.  He 
said  that  after.  General  McClellan  received  his  orders 
to  abandon  Harrison's  Landing  he  went  to  him  volun- 
tarily and  suggested  that,  with  the  forces  they  had  there, 
they  could  take  Richmond,  and  urged  him  to  do  it.  So 
confident  was  Hooker,  that  he  was  willing  to  take  the 
advance,  and  so  assured  McClellan.  On  reaching  his 
camp,  about  two  hours  after  that  interview,  he  says  he 
found  on  his  table  an  order  from  General  McClellan  to 
prepare  himself  with  three  days'  rations  and  a  supply 
of  ammunition,  and  be  ready  to  march  at  2  o'clock  the 
next  day.  "  I  firmly  believe,"  said  Hooker,  "  that  order 
meant  Richmond.  I  had  said  to  McClellan  that  if  we 
were  unsuccessful  it  would  probably  cost  him  his  head, 
but  that  he  might  as  well  die  for  an  old  sheep  as  for  a 
lamb.  But  before  the  time  arrived  for  executing  that 
order  it  was  countermanded."  [Hooker,  Testimony, 
Report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War.  ]
i  ; 
O    YE   SWEET  HEAVENS!" 
The  order  to  dispose  of  the  sick  was  not 
promptly  obeyed,  because  General  McClellan 
insisted  upon  knowing  the  intentions  of  the 
i        srnment  in  regard  to  his  army;  and  after 
ig  informed  that  it  was  to  be  withdrawn 
|  ames,  several  days  more  were  wasted 
in  wearisome  interchange  of  dispatches  between 
himself  and    Halleck.    McClellan    protesting 
gr  atest  energy  and  feeling  against 
this  movement,  and  Halleck  replying  with  per- 
>gic  and  temper  in  defense  of  it.    In  a 
I       |  and  elaborate  dispatch,  in  which  Halleck 
(       adered  the  whole  subject,  he  referred  to 
the  representation  made  to  him  by  McClellan 
and  some  of  his  officers  that  the  enemy's  forces 
around  Richmond  amounted  to  200,000,  and 
that  McClellan  had  reported  that  they   had 
since  received  large  reinforcements.    He  adds: 
r..!  Pope's  army  is  only  about  40,000;  your 
effective  force,  about  90,000.  You  are  30  miles  from 
Richmond  and  General  Pope  80  or  90,  with  the  enemy 
directly  between  you,  ready  to  fall  with  his  superior 
numbers  on  one  or  the  other  as  he  may  elect.  Pope's 
army  could  not  be  diminished  to  reenforce  you  ;  if 
your  force  is  reduced  to  strengthen  Pope,  you  would 
be  too  weak  to  hold  your  present  position  against  the 
enemy.  You  say  your  withdrawal  from  your  present 
position  will  cause  the  certain  demoralization  of  the 
army.  I  cannot  understand  why  this  should  be,  un- 
the  officers  themselves  assist  in  that  demoraliza- 
tion, which  1  am  satisfied  they  will  not.  You  may  reply, 
'•  Why  not  reenforce  me  here  so  that  I  can  strike  Rich- 
mond from  my  present  position  ?  "  You  told  me  that 
mid  require  30,000  additional  troops  ;  you  finally 
sai  1  that  you  would  have  "  some  chance  of  success  " 
with  20,000;  but  you  afterwards  telegraphed  me  you 
would  require  35,000.  To  keep  your  army  in  its  pres- 
ent position  until  it  could  be  so  reenforced  would  almost 
destroy  it  in  that  climate.  In  the  mean  time  Pope's 
forces  would  be  exposed  to  the  heavy  blows  of  the  en- 
emy without  the  slightest  hope  of  assistance  from  you. 
He  tells  McClellan,  in  conclusion,  that  a  large 
number  of  his  highest  officers  are  decidedly  in 
favor  of  the  movement. 
'Weary  at  last  of  arguments,  Halleck  became 
more  and  more  peremptory  in  his  orders ;  and 
this  failing  to  infuse  any  activity  into  the  move- 
ments of  McClellan,  he  had  recourse  to  sharp 
dispatches  of  censure  which  provoked  only  ex- 
cuses and  recriminations.  In  some  of  his  re- 
plies to  Halleck's  urgent  dispatches,  enjoining 
the  greatest  haste  and  representing  the  grave 
aspect  of  affairs  in  northern  Virginia,  McClel- 
lan replied  in  terms  that  indicated  as  little  re- 
spect for  Halleck  as  he  had  shown  for  the 
President  and  the  Secretary  of  War.  On  the 
6th  of  August,  in  answer  to  an  order  insisting 
on  the  immediate  dispatch  of  a  battery  of  artil- 
lery to  Burnside,  he  calmly  replies,  "  I  will 
obey  the  order  as  soon  as  circumstances  per- 
mit. My  artillery  is  none  too  numerous  now." 
On  the  12th,  little  or  no  progress  having  yet 
been  made,  he  says  : 
There  shall  be  no  unnecessary  delay,  but  I  cannot 
manufacture  vessels.  It  is  not  possible  for  any  one  to 
place  this  army  where  you  wish  it,  ready  to  move,  in 
less  than  a  month.  If  Washington  is  in  danger  now, 
this  army  could  scarcely  arrive  in  time  to  save  it.  It  is 
in  much  better  position  to  do  so  from  here  than  from 
Aquia. 
At  the  same  time  the  Quartermaster- General 
reported  that  "nearly  every  available  steam 
vessel  in  the  country  was  then  under  the  con- 
trol of  General  McClellan."  Only  on  the  17th 
of  August  was  McClellan  able  to  telegraph 
that  he  had  left  his  camp  at  Harrison's  Bar, 
and  only  on  the  27  th  of  the  month,  when 
Pope's  campaign  had  reached  a  critical  and 
perilous  stage,  did  he  report  himself  for  orders 
at  Alexandria,  near  Washington. 
<%^znS 
"O    YE    SWEET    HEAVENS! 
OYE  sweet  heavens !   your  silence  is  to  me 
More  than  all  music.     With  what  full  delight 
I  come  down  to  my  dwelling  by  the  sea 
And  look  out  from  the  lattice  on  the  night ! 
There  the  same  glories  burn  serene  and  bright 
As  in  my  boyhood;  and  if  I  am  old 
Are  they  not  also  ?  Thus  my  spirit  is  bold 
To  think  perhaps  we  are  coeval.  Who 
Can  tell  when  first  my  faculty  began 
Of  thought  ?  Who  knows  but  I  was  there  with  you 
When  first  your  Maker's  mind,  celestial  spheres, 
Contrived  your  motion  ere  I  was  a  man  ? 
Else,  wherefore  do  mine  eyes  thus  fill  with  tears 
As  I,  O  Pleiades  !  your  beauty  scan  ? 
T.    W.  Parsons.
AD  ASTRA. 
turn  you  out  on  the  stairway.  She  does  not 
like  a  woman  about,  especially  a  pretty  woman, 
and  doubtless  she  will  dismiss  my  Louise  many 
times.  But,  madame,  let  me  entreat  you  to 
♦return  to  sleep  and  have  no  fear.  I  will  even 
lock  the  doors  of  her  chambers.  She  will  dis- 
turb you  no  more." 
Claire  listened  aside  to  some  outer  sound, 
and  then  exclaimed : 
"You  did  not  tell  me  where  the  comman- 
dant is,  Jacques.  He  has  not  gone  back  to  his 
fortress  without  me  ?  " 
Jacques's  face  fell  into  creases  of  anguish. 
"  Madame,  he  said  you  were  to  sleep  undis- 
turbed till  morning." 
"  He  should  have  obtained  Mademoiselle 
de  Granville's  consent  to  that.  This  is  not 
answering  a  question  I  have  already  repeated 
to  you." 
"  Madame,  he  has  taken  the  Indians  and 
gone  in  his  boat.  Soldiers  must  do  all  sorts 
of  things,  especially  commandants.  He  would 
not  expose  you  to  the  dangers  of  the  route  by 
night." 
m'sieur   at   the  gate.    . 
"  Listen!"   Her  expression  changed 
Jacques  gladly  listened. 
"I  was  sure   I  heard  some  noise  befo 
You   see   you   are   mistaken.     He   is  not   yet 
gone." 
Mellow  relief,  powerful  as  sunshine,  softened 
the  swarthy  pallor  of  Jacques's  face.  He 
caught  his  candle  from  the  chimney  shelf  and 
jammed  its  charred  wick  against  a  glowing  coral 
knot  in  the  log. 
"  Madame,  that  's 
know  his  stroke  and  his  call.    I  '11   bring  him 
up." 
No  man  can  surely  say,  with  all  his  ancestry 
at  his  back  and  his  unproved  nature  within, 
what  he  can  or  cannot  do  in  certain  crises  of 
his  life. 
"  What  is  it,  m'sieur  ?  "  exclaimed  Jacques 
as  he  let  Dollard  through  the  gate. 
"  We  went  scarce  a  quarter  of  a  league.  I 
came  back  because  I  cannot  leave  her  with- 
out telling  her  ;  it  was  a  cowardly  act !  "  ex- 
claimed Dollard,  darting  into  the  house.  "  She 
must  go  with  me  to  Montreal." 
(To  be  continued.) 
Alary  Hartwell  Caiherwood. 
AD    ASTRA. 
TF  thou  hast  drained  to  the  lees 
■*  The  cup  of  inglorious  ease, 
Think  now  on  the  mighty  men ; 
Dream  thou  dost  hear  again 
The  voice  of  Miltiades 
And  the  rustle  of  his  laurels. 
And  yet  not  alone  for  the  past 
Was  the  mold  of  heroes  cast: 
Let  the  Alps  and  the  Andes  say 
What  breed  there  is  to-day ; 
And  the  poles,  and  the  ocean  vast. 
And  the  burning  waste  of  Sahara. 
See  the  stern  purpose  rise 
To  Cortes'  glittering  eyes  — 
To  cut  off  all  retreat 
See  him  sink  every  ship  in  his  fleet, 
Then  sweep  to  his  golden  prize 
With  not  one  plank  behind  him. 
Think  of  the  soul  that  needs 
No  background  for  its  deeds  ; 
Of  him  who  bravely  bears 
A  mountain  of  lifelong  cares  ; 
Of  the  heart  that  aches  and  bleeds 
And  dies,  but  never  surrenders. 
Dost  believe  all  is  over  and  done, 
And  no  hope  is  under  the  sun  ? 
Then  think  on  the  mighty  men  ; 
Dream  thou  canst  hear  again 
The  great  shouts  of  Timoleon 
That  rallied  the  flying  army. 
O  true  man,  bear  thy  pains 
And  count  thy  losses  gains : 
Believe  in  the  brave  whom  alone 
Heaven's  eye  hath  seen  and  known: 
For  as  surely  as  justice  reigns. 
Their  reward  will  shine  like  their  valor. 
Henry  Ames  Blood.
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:     A    HISTORY.* 
FIRST    PLANS    FOR    EMANCIPATION. 
BY    JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT.2 
COMPENSATED    ABOLISHMENT. 
HE  annual  message  of  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  at  the  open- 
ing of  Congress  in  De- 
cember, 1 86 1, treated  many 
subjects  of  importance  — 
foreign  relations,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  finances,  a  reor- 
ganization of  the  Supreme 
Court,  questions  of  military  administration,  the 
building  of  a  military  railroad  through  Ken- 
tucky to  east  Tennessee,  the  newly  organized 
Territories,  a  review  of  military  progress  to- 
wards the  suppression  of  rebellion.  It  con- 
tained also  a  vigorous  practical  discussion  of 
the  relations  between  capital  and  labor,  which 
pointed  out  with  singular  force  that  "  the  in- 
surrection is  largely,  if  not  exclusively,  a  war 
upon  the  first  principle  of  popular  government 
—  the  rights  of  the  people."  In  addition  to 
these  topics,  it  treated  another  question  of 
greater  importance  than  all  of  them,  but  for 
the  present  in  so  moderate  a  tone,  and  with 
such  tentative  suggestions,  that  it  excited  less 
immediate  comment  than  any  other.  This  was 
the  question  of  slavery. 
It  had  not  escaped  Mr.  Lincoln's  notice  that 
the  relations  of  slavery  to  the  war  were  pro- 
ducing rapidly  increasing  complications  and 
molding  public  thought  to  new  and  radical 
changes  of  opinion.  His  revocation  of  Fre- 
mont's proclamation  had  momentarily  checked 
the  clamor  of  importunate  agitators  for  military 
emancipation  ;  but  he  saw  clearly  enough  that 
a  deep,  though  as  yet  undefined,  public  hope 
to  the  .  te  suggestion  that  slavery  and 
rebellion  might  perish  together.  As  a  significant 
symptom  of  this  undercurrent  of  public  feeling, 
came  to  him  in  November  a  letter  from 
►ft,  1  he  veteran  Democratic  politi- 
cian and  national  historian ;  a  man  eminent  not 
only  for  his  writing  upon  the  science  of  govern- 
ment, but  who  as  a  member  of  President  Polk's 
cabinet  had  rendered  signal  and  lasting  service 
in  national  administration.  Mr.  Bancroft  had 
lately  presided  at  a  meeting  in  New  York 
called  to  collect  contributions  to  aid  the  suffer- 
ing loyalists  of  North  Carolina.  As  it  happened 
on  all  such  occasions,  the  inflamed  popular  pa- 
triotism of  the  hour  sprang  forward  to  bold 
speech  and  radical  argument.  Even  the  mod- 
erate words  of  Mr.  Bancroft  on  taking  the  chair 
reflected  this  reformatory  spirit : 
If  slavery  and  the  Union  are  incompatible,  listen 
to  the  words  that  come  to  you  from  the  tomb  of 
Andrew  Jackson  :  "  The  Union  must  be  preserved  at 
all  hazards."  .  .  .  If  any  one  claims  the  compro- 
mises of  the  Constitution,  let  him  begin  by  placing 
the  Constitution  in  power  by  respecting  it  and  up- 
holding it.3 
In  the  letter  transmitting  these  remarks  and 
the  resolutions  of  the  meeting  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
Mr.  Bancroft  made  a  yet  more  emphatic  sug- 
gestion.   He  wrote : 
Your  administration  has  fallen  upon  times  which 
will  be  remembered  as  long  as  human  events  find 
a  record.  1  sincerely  wish  to  you  the  glory  of  per- 
fect success.  Civil  war  is  the  instrument  of  Divine 
Providence  to  root  out  social  slavery;  posterity  will 
not  be  satisfied  with  the  result,  unless  the  conse- 
quences of  the  war  shall  effect  an  increase  of  free 
States.  This  is  the  universal  expectation  and  hope 
of  men  of  all  parties.4 
Such  a  letter,  from  a  man  having  the  learn- 
ing, talent,  and  political  standing  of  its  author, 
is  of  itself  historic;  but  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply 
gives  it  a  special  significance.  November  18, 
1861,  he  wrote : 
I  esteem  it  a  high  honor  to  have  received  a  note 
from  Mr.  Bancroft,  inclosing  the  report  of  proceed- 
ings of  a  New  York  meeting  taking  measures  for 
the  relief  of  Union  people  of  North  Carolina.  I  thank 
you  and  all  others  participating  for  this  benevolent 
and  patriotic  movement.  The  main  thought  in  the 
closing  paragraph  of  your  letter  is  one  which  does 
2  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  announcing  edito- 
rially "Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,"  November, 
it  was  stated  as  follow-:  When  "the  military 
portion  of  this  history  is  reached  in  magazine  pub- 
i  i,  care  will  be  taken  to  avoid  as  much  as  pos- 
sible the  repetition  of  details  already  given  in  THE 
CENTURY'S  war  series,  while  fully  presenting  that  part 
of  the  military  narrative  in  which  is  explained  the  re- 
lation of  the  President  to  these  events."  In  order  to 
avoid  all  possibility  of  misunderstanding,  this  statement 
is  here  repeated.  It  is  expected  that,  with  the  excisions 
referred  to,  the  work  will  extend  through  twelve  or 
thirteen  numbers  more  of  the  magazine. — EDITOR  OF 
The  Century. 
3  "The  New  York  Times,"  Nov.  8,  1861. 
4  Unpublished  MS. 
1   Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886.     All  rights  reserved.
FIRST  PLANS  FOR   EMANCIPATION. 
not  escape  my  attention,  and  with  which  I  must  deal 
in  all  due  caution,  and  with  the  best  judgment  1 
can  bring  to  it.1 
This  language  gives  us  the  exact  condition 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  on  the  subject  of  slav- 
ery at  that  time.  He  hoped  and  expected  to 
effect  an  "  increase  of  free  States "  through 
emancipation ;  but  we  shall  see  that  this 
emancipation  was  to  come  through  the  vol- 
untary action  of  the  States,  and  that  he  desired 
by  this  policy  to  render  unnecessary  the  com- 
pulsory military  enfranchisement  which  Fre- 
mont had  attempted  and  which  his  followers 
advocated. 
The  prudent  caution  and  good  judgment 
which  President  Lincoln  applied  to  the  solu- 
tion of  this  dangerous  problem  becomes  mani- 
fest when  we  reexamine  its  treatment  in  his 
annual  message  mentioned  above.  Not  re- 
ferring directly  to  any  general  plan  or  hope 
of  emancipation,  he  nevertheless  approached 
the  subject  by  discussing  its  immediate  and 
practical  necessities  in  phraseology  which  gave 
him  limit  for  expansion  into  a  more  decisive 
policy.  It  is  worth  while,  not  merely  to  quote 
the  whole  passage,  but  to  emphasize  the  sen- 
tences which  were  plainly  designed  to  lead 
Congress  and  the  country  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  new  and  possible  contingencies. 
Under  and  by  virtue  of  the  act  of  Congress  en- 
titled "  An  Act  to  Confiscate  Property  used  for  Insur- 
rectionary Purposes,"  approved  August  6,  1861,  the 
legal  claims  of  certain  persons  to  the  labor  and  ser- 
vice of  certain  other  persons  have  become  forfeited  ; 
and  numbers  of  the  latter,  thus  liberated,  are  already 
dependent  on  the  United  States,  and  must  be  provided 
for  in  some  way.  Besides  this,  it  is  not  impossible 
that  some  of  the  States  will  pass  similar  enactments 
for  their  own  benefit  respectively,  and  by  operation 
of  which  persons  of  the  same  class  will  be  thrown 
upon  them  for  disposal.  In  such  case  I  recommend 
that  Congress  provide  for  accepting  such  persons  from 
such  States,  according  to  some  mode  of  valuation, 
in  lieu,  pro  tanto,  of  direct  taxes,  or  upon  some  other 
plan  to  be  agreed  on  with  such  States  respectively ; 
that  such  persons,  on  such  acceptance  by  the  General 
Government,  be  at  once  deemed  free  ;  and  that,  in 
any  event,  steps  be  taken  for  colonizing  both  classes 
(or  the  one  first  mentioned,  if  the  other  shall  not 
be  brought  into  existence)  at  some  place  or  places 
in  a  climate  congenial  to  them.  It  might  be  well  to 
consider,  too,  whether  the  free  colored  people  already 
in  the  United  States  could  not,  so  far  as  individuals 
may  desire,  be  included  in  such  colonization.  .  .  . 
The  war  continues.  In  considering  the  policy  to  be 
adopted  for  suppressing  the  insurrection,  I  have 
been  anxious  and  careful  that  the  inevitable  conflict 
for  this  purpose  shall  not  degenerate  into  a  violent 
and  remorseless  revolutionary  struggle.  I  have, 
therefore,  in  every  case,  thought  it  proper  to  keep 
the  integrity  of  the  Union  prominent  as  the  primary 
1  Unpublished  MS. 
2  "Congressional  Globe,"  Appendix,  Dec.  3,  1861. 
object  of  the  contest  on  our  part,  leaving  all  ques- 
tions which  are  not  oi  vital  military  Importance  to 
the  more  deliberate  action  of  the  legislature. 
In  the  exercise  of  my  best  discretion  I  have  ad- 
hered to  the  blockade  of  the  ports  held  by  the  in- 
surgents, instead  of  putting  in  force,  by  proclama- 
tion, the  law  of  Congress  enacted  at  the  late  session 
for  closing  those  ports.  So,  also,  obeying  the  dic- 
tates of  prudence,  as  well  as  the  obligations  of  law, 
instead  of  transcending,  I  have  adhered  to  the  act 
of  Congress  to  confiscate  property  used  for  insur- 
rectionary purposes.  If  a  new  law  upon  the  same 
subject  shall  be  proposed,  its  propriety  will  be  duly 
considered.  The  Union  must  be  preserved  ;  and 
hence,  all  indispensable  means  must  be  employed. 
We  should  not  be  in  haste  to  determine  that  radical 
and  extreme  measures,  which  may  reach  the  loyal 
as  well  as  the  disloyal,  are  indispensable.2 
Apparently  these  propositions  covered  the 
simple  recommendation  of  colonization,  an 
old  and  familiar  topic  which  had  friends  in 
both  free  and  slave  States ;  but  the  language, 
when  closely  scanned,  is  full  of  novel  sugges- 
tions :  that  the  war  has  already  freed  many 
slaves;  that  the  war  may  free  many  more; 
that  the  President  will  impartially  consider 
any  new  law  of  Congress  increasing  emanci- 
pation for  rebellion ;  that  he  will  not  hastily 
adopt  extreme  and  radical  measures ;  but  that, 
finally  to  preserve  the  Union,  all  i?idispensable 
means  must  be  employed.  These  declarations, 
in  fact,  cover  the  whole  of  his  subsequent 
treatment  of  the  slavery  question. 
Congress  was  too  busy  with  pressing  prac- 
tical legislation  to  find  time  for  immediately 
elaborating  by  debate  or  enactment  any  of 
the  recommendations  thus  made.  It  is  not 
likely  that  the  President  expected  early  action 
from  the  national  legislature,  for  he  at  once 
turned  his  own  attention  to  certain  initiatory 
efforts  which  he  had  probably  carefully  medi- 
tated. He  believed  that  under  the  pressure  of 
war  necessities  the  border  slave-States  might 
be  induced  to  take  up  the  idea  of  voluntary 
emancipation  if  the  General  Government  would 
pay  their  citizens  the  full  property  value  of  the 
slaves  they  were  asked  to  liberate ;  and  this 
experiment  seemed  to  him  most  feasible  in  the 
small  State  of  Delaware,  which  retained  only 
the  merest  fragment  of  a  property  interest  in 
the  peculiar  institution. 
Owing  to  the  division  of  its  voters  between 
Breckinridge,  Bell,  Lincoln,  and  Douglas,  the 
electoral  vote  of  Delaware  had  been  cast  for 
Breckinridge  in  the  presidential  election  of 
i860 ;  but  more  adroit  party  management  had 
succeeded  in  effecting  a  fusion  of  the  Bell  and 
Lincoln  vote  for  member  of  Congress,  and 
George  P.  Fisher  had  been  elected  by  a  small 
majority.  It  is  of  little  importance  to  know  the 
exact  shade  of  Mr.  Fisher's  politics  during  the 
campaign:  when  the  rebellion  broke  out  he 
was  an  ardent  Unionist,  a  steadfast  friend  of