The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1862-11-29

IL was DUSK, the night was coming on, the
rain still falling in torrents. On three
sides Of the plateau on which the General
was the cannon and the musketry were
rattling uninterruptedly. The success of
Hancock had been decisive, and the re-
serves brought up by the Generalin- Chief
charging the field, settled the affair Then
It was that saw General Mcclellan, pass
ing IN front of the Sixth Cavalry, give his
hand to Major Williams with few words
on his brilliant charge Of the day before.
The regiment did not hear what he said.
but it knew what it meant, and from
every heart went up one of those nascu.
line, terrible shouts which are only to be
heard on the field of battle. These shouts,
taken up along the whole line, struck ter
ror to the enemy. We saw them come
upon the parapets and look out in silence
and motionless upon the scene Then
the firing died away, and night fell on the
combat which In America is called the
I battle Of Williamsburg
+ BEFORE RICHMOND
The Confederate retreat from Williams.
burg and the advance of Mcclellan are
described at considerable length, and with
many interesting comments upon the cha
racteT OF the troops and the condition of
! the country. Mcclellan is at the White
House, and the siege Of Richmond fairly
begun.
Cavalry reconnoisances pushed in all
| directions demonstrated tina. nearly the
whole hostile army had crossed the Chick
ahominy, and everything indicated that
we should meet 4 desperate resistance
under the walls OF the Confederate capital.
| Prisoners had been t1ken who belonged
to a corps which had, up TO this time been
stationed opposite Gen Burnside in North
Carolina. 1t was plain this army had
joined the Army Of Virginia. We soon
learaed Of the evacuation Of Norfolk 1t
was manifest that Davis could only have
made this sacrifice in order 10 bring HUI
ger with his $4,000 men 10 Richmond
Finally the Confederate chief had ordered
levy en- pdsts Of every man able to bear
arms. The result of all this threat
ened the Army of the Potomac in it. only
superiority, that of numbers. UIhappily,
too, while the enemy was concentrating
and strengthening his forces, ours were
melting away. We have already seen at
Alexandria a division detached and sent
TO Fremont Before York town we had
lost two other divisions under Mc Dowell
/ We had since le!tsgarrisons in Iork.own,
| Gloucester, aud Williamsburg. We had
| lost men under fire and by disease a. wei.
as by struggling Nothing came to FIJI up
the gaps. When an American regiment
marches to the war 1t goes as a whole, and
| leaves behind It no depots Of recruits TO
restore its ranks as they are wasted away.
| The suicioe of the Merri,nac was now
announced. and in commenting upon this
the Prince states his impression that il
might have been we'll for Mcclellan to
| take at that time the risk Of changin. his
whole plan OF operations, and by moving
upon the lower James River to have at
tempted a joint operation with the fleet
against Fort Darling and Richmond from
| the south bank OF the James But. as he
observes, the movement would have been
very hazardous with large Confederate
army on the flank of the Federals. and it
,,swas moreover equally impossible 10 foresee
either that on the first Of June an extra
| ordinary fres het not TO be looked for at
that season would come in to paralyze the
movements OF the army, or that the .'S0-
600 men assembled before Washington
would do less than nothing to aid the Po-
tomac army in conquering the obstacles
/ before it
AT all events, the campaign so far. Il
not brilliant had produced important re-
suits. Yorktown and Norfolk had been
abandoned and the Merrimac destroyed
Mcclellan had driven the enemy
home upon his capital, and trou ght him
/ to the issue Of a decisive battle
IL know that such battle ought 10
have been won, and was not won. But
here the responsibility is far from belong
ing to the chief or his army Who were
the men who, driving them into an IN
timely campaign, had so revealed 10 the
enemy operations not yet ripe for execu-
ton? Was Mcclellan responsible for that
want Of unity in the ends and in the action
OF the government which had trammelei
the movements of the army since he had
I been deprived of the chief command and
supreme direction of the armies Was
Mcclellan responsible for the systematic
diminution of his ferces, which. in the
| face OF the agglomeration Of the forces of
the enemy, had successfully deprived him,
since the campaign had opened. of the
division OF Benker and of twothirds OF
McDowelrs corps, without sending him
one solitary man to fill up the gaps made
by sickness and the cannon2 In spite Of
all these obstacles he had reached the
walls of Richmond, but he had no longer
the means of striking the great blow
which probably would have ended the
war. In hostile country what appears a
simple reconnaissance may often prove q
/
force is needed to guard against surprises
and still larger force t. secure lines of
communication, which cannot be broken
without danger. Reinforcements
| were needed General Wool, from Nor
folk; Burnside, from North Carolina
might send some men, but very few, while
around Washington more than eighty
thousand were collected. Of these aoout
one half were making head against the
partisan jackson, in the Valley Of the
Shenandoah. The rest we're collected
under Mcdowell at Fredericksburg, sixty
| miles to the north of Richmond. They
had rebuilt the railway bridge over the
Rappahannock, and in three or four days
they might have joined the army of Nc
Clellan. They covered nothing at Freder-
icksburg, and were so notoriously useless
to the Federal cause that, in the Confede
rate journals, they were spoken Of as the
fifth wheel in the coach 1t was known
that Mcdowell desired ardently to give
the lie to these railleries by bringing at
the decisive moment his assistance to the
cause of the Union. Accordingly McClel
lon had no sooner arrived before Rich
mond than he undertook to discover what
he had to hope for on this side. No oai-
cial advice, either from Washington or
from Fredericksburg, had informed him
of McDowells presence at that point, only
sixty miles distant, but rumor and proba-
bility agreed so we'll in placing him there
that the General in Chief resolved to make
An attempt to establish communications
with him. On the night Of the Goth he
sent forward Gen. Porter's division with a
few squadrons of cavalry, in furious
storm, to Hanover Court House, village
about twenty miles north of Richmond,
whore the railway to Fredericksburg
crosses the Pamunkey. The troops of
Porter moved rapidly, and about mikday
Of the 9th came upon the hostile division