THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN.
COMMAND GIVEN TO McCLELLAN--HIS PLANS--APPOINTMENT OF SECRETARY
STANTON--ON THE PENINSULA--BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG--ON THE
CHICKAHOMINY--THE BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS--EFFECT OF THE SWAMPS--LEE IN
COMMAND--STUART'S RAID--NEAREST APPROACH TO RICHMOND--ACTION AT BEAVER
DAM CREEK--BATTLE OF GAINES'S MILLS--BATTLE OF SAVAGE'S
STATION--BATTLE OF CHARLES CITY CROSS-ROADS--BATTLE OF MALVERN
HILL--CRITICISMS OF PENINSULA CAMPAIGN.
Within twenty-four hours after the defeat of McDowell's army at Bull
Run (July 21, 1861), the Administration called to Washington the only
man that had thus far accomplished much or made any considerable
reputation in the field. This was Gen. George B. McClellan. He had
been graduated at West Point in 1846, standing second in his class,
and had gone at once into the Mexican war, in which he acquitted
himself with distinction. After that war the young captain was
employed in engineering work till 1855, when the Government sent him
to Europe to study the movements of the Crimean war. He wrote a report
of his observations, which was published under the title of "The
Armies of Europe," and in 1857 resigned his commission and became
chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, and afterward
president of the St. Louis and Cincinnati. He had done good work in
Northwestern Virginia in the early summer, and now, at the age of
thirty-five, was commissioned major-general in the regular army of the
United States, and given command of all the troops about Washington.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN AND WIFE.]
For the work immediately in hand, this was probably the best selection
that could have been made. Washington needed to be fortified, and he
was a master of engineering; both the army that had just been
defeated, and the new recruits that were pouring in, needed
organization, and he proved preëminent as an organizer. Three months
after he took command of fifty thousand uniformed men at the capital,
he had an army of more than one hundred thousand, well organized in
regiments, brigades, and divisions, with the proper proportion of
artillery, with quartermaster and commissary departments going like
clockwork, and the whole fairly drilled and disciplined. Everybody
looked on with admiration, and the public impatience that had
precipitated the disastrous "On to Richmond" movement was now replaced
by a marvellous patience. The summer and autumn months went by, and no
movement was made; but McClellan, in taking command, had promised that
the war should be "short, sharp, and decisive," and the people
thought, if they only allowed him time enough to make thorough
preparation, his great army would at length swoop down upon the
Confederate capital and finish everything at one blow. At length,
however, they began to grow weary of the daily telegram, "All quiet
along the Potomac," and the monotonously repeated information that
"General McClellan rode out to Fairfax Court-House and back this
morning." The Confederacy was daily growing stronger; the Potomac was
being closed to navigation by the erection of hostile batteries on its
southern bank; the enemy's flag was flying within sight from the
capital, and the question of foreign interference was becoming
exceedingly grave. On the 1st of November General Scott, then
seventy-five years of age, retired, and McClellan succeeded him as
General-in-Chief of all the armies.
Soon after this his plans appear, from subsequent revelations, to have
undergone important modification. He had undoubtedly intended to
attack by moving straight out toward Manassas, where the army that had
won the battle of Bull Run was still encamped, and was still commanded
by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. He now began to think of moving against
Richmond by some more easterly route, discussing among others the
extreme easterly one that he finally took. But, whatever were his
thoughts and purposes, his army appeared to be taking root. The people
began to murmur, Congress began to question, and the President began
to argue and urge. All this did not signify; nothing could move
McClellan. He wanted to wait till he could leave {141} an enormous
garrison in the defences of Washington, place a strong corps of
observation along the Potomac, and then move out with a column of one
hundred and fifty thousand men against an army that he believed to be
as numerous as that, though in truth it was then less than half as
large. It is now known that, from the beginning to the end of his
career in that war, General McClellan constantly overestimated the
force opposed to him. On the 10th of January, 1862, the President held
a long consultation with Generals McDowell and Franklin and some
members of his cabinet. General McClellan was then confined to his bed
by an illness of a month's duration. At this consultation Mr. Lincoln
said, according to General McDowell's memorandum: "If something was
not soon done, the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and if
General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to
borrow it, provided he could see how it could be made to do
something."
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE SEAT OF WAR FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO
SUFFOLK, VA.]
{142} [Illustration: FOREIGN OFFICERS AND STAFF AT GENERAL McCLELLAN'S
HEADQUARTERS. Captain LeClerc. Comte de Paris. Captain Mohain. Duc de
Chartres. Prince de Joinville.]
Immediately upon McClellan's recovery, the President called him to a
similar council, and asked him to disclose his plan for {143} a
campaign, which he declined to do. Finally the President asked him if
he had fixed upon any particular time for setting out; and when he
said he had, Mr. Lincoln questioned him no further. A few days later,
in a letter to the President, he set forth his plan, which was to move
his army down the Potomac on transports, land it at or near Fort
Monroe, march up the peninsula between York and James rivers, and
attack the defences of Richmond on the north and east sides. The
President at first disapproved of this plan, largely for the reason
that it would require so much time in preparation; but when he found
that the highest officers in the army favored it, and considered the
probability that any general was likely to fail if sent to execute a
plan he did not originate or believe in, he finally gave it his
sanction, and once more set himself to the difficult task of inducing
McClellan to move at all. And yet the President himself still further
retarded the opening of the campaign by delaying the order to collect
the means of transportation. Meanwhile General Johnston quietly
removed his stores, and on the 8th of March evacuated Centreville and
Manassas, and placed his army before Richmond. This reconciled the
President to McClellan's plan of campaign, which he had never liked.
The order for the transportation of McClellan's army was issued on the
27th of February, and four hundred vessels were required; for there
were actually transported one hundred and twenty-one thousand men,
fourteen thousand animals, forty-four batteries, and all the necessary
ambulances and baggage-wagons, pontoons and telegraph material. Just
before the embarkation, the army was divided into four corps, the
commands of which were given to Generals McDowell, Edwin V. Sumner,
Samuel P. Heintzelman, and Erasmus D. Keyes. High authorities say this
was one of the causes of the failure of the campaign; for the army
should have been divided into corps long before, when McClellan could
have chosen his own lieutenants instead of having them chosen by the
President. General Hooker said it was impossible for him to succeed
with such corps commanders. But his near approach to success rather
discredits this criticism.
Another element of the highest importance had also entered into the
problem with which the nation was struggling. This was the appointment
(January 21, 1862) of Edwin M. Stanton to succeed Simon Cameron as
Secretary of War. Mr. Stanton, then forty-seven years of age, was a
lawyer by profession, a man of great intellect, unfailing nerve, and
tremendous energy. He had certain traits that often made him
personally disagreeable to his subordinates; but it was impossible to
doubt his thorough loyalty, and his determination to find or make a
way to bring the war to a successful close as speedily as possible,
without the slightest regard to the individual interests of himself or
anybody else. He was probably the ablest war minister that ever
lived--with the possible exception of Carnot, the man to whom Napoleon
said, "I have known you too late." It is indicative of Mr. Lincoln's
sagacity and freedom from prejudice, that his first meeting with Mr.
Stanton was when he went to Cincinnati, some years before the war, to
assist in trying an important case. He found Mr. Stanton in charge of
the case as senior counsel, and Stanton was so unendurably
disagreeable to him that he threw up the engagement and went home to
Springfield. Yet he afterward gave that man the most important place
in his cabinet, and found him its strongest member.
One division of the army embarked on the 17th of March, and the others
followed in quick succession. General McClellan reached Fort Monroe on
the 2d of April, by which time fifty-eight thousand men and one
hundred guns had arrived, and immediately moved with this force on
Yorktown, the place made famous by the surrender of Cornwallis eighty
years before. The Confederates had fortified this point, and thrown a
line of earthworks across the narrow peninsula to the deep water of
Warwick River. These works were held by General Magruder with thirteen
thousand effective men. General Johnston, who was in command of all
the troops around Richmond, says he had no expectation of doing more
than delaying McClellan at Yorktown till he could strengthen the
defences of the capital and collect more men; and that he thought his
adversary would use his transports to pass his army around that place
by water, after destroying the batteries, and land at some point
above.
McClellan, supposing that Johnston's entire army was in the defences
of Yorktown, sat down before the place and constructed siege works,
approaching the enemy by regular parallels. As the remaining divisions
of his army arrived at Fort Monroe, they were added to his besieging
force; but McDowell's entire corps and Blenker's division had been
detached at the last moment and retained at Washington, from fears on
the part of the Administration that the capital was not sufficiently
guarded, though McClellan had already left seventy thousand men there
or within call. The fears were increased by the threatening movements
of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, where, however, he was
defeated by Gen. James Shields near Winchester, March 23.
General Johnston had to contend with precisely the same difficulty
that McClellan complained of. He wanted to bring together before
Richmond all the troops that were then at Norfolk and in the Carolinas
and Georgia, and with the large army thus formed suddenly attack
McClellan after he should have marched seventy-five miles up the
peninsula from his base at Fort Monroe. But in a council of war
General Lee and the Secretary of War opposed this plan, and Mr. Davis
adopted their views and rejected it. Johnston therefore undertook the
campaign with the army that he had, which he says consisted of fifty
thousand effective men.
McClellan spent nearly a month before Yorktown, and when he was ready
to open fire with his siege guns and drive out the enemy, May 3d, he
found they had quietly departed, leaving "Quaker guns" (wooden logs on
wheels) in the embrasures. There was no delay in pursuit, and the
National advance came up with the Confederate rear guard near
Williamsburg, about twelve miles from Yorktown. Here, May 4th, brisk
skirmishing began, which gradually became heavier, till reinforcements
were hurried up on the one side, and sent back on the other, and the
skirmish was developed into a battle. The place had been well
fortified months before. The action on the morning of the 5th was
opened by the divisions of Generals Hooker and William F. Smith. They
attacked the strongest of the earthworks, pushed forward the
batteries, and silenced it. Hooker was then heavily attacked by
infantry, with a constant menace on his left wing. He sustained his
position alone nearly all day, though losing one thousand seven
hundred men and five guns, and was at length relieved by the arrival
of Gen. Philip Kearny's division. The delay was due mainly to the deep
mud caused by a heavy rain the night before. Later in the day,
Hancock's brigade made a wide circuit on the right, discovered some
unoccupied redoubts, and took possession of them. When the
Confederates advanced their left to the attack, they ran upon these
redoubts, which their commanding officers knew nothing about, and were
repelled with heavy loss. Hancock's one thousand six hundred men
suddenly burst over the crest of the works, and bore down {144} upon
the enemy with fixed bayonets, routing and scattering them. McClellan
brought up reinforcements, and in the night the Confederates in front
of him moved off to join their main army, leaving in Williamsburg four
hundred of their wounded, because they had no means of carrying them
away, but taking with them about that number of prisoners. The
National loss had been about two thousand two hundred, the Confederate
about one thousand eight hundred. This battle was fought within five
miles of the historic site of Jamestown, where the first permanent
English settlement in the United States had been made in 1607, and the
first cargo of slaves landed in 1619.
Gen. William B. Franklin's division of McDowell's corps had now been
sent to McClellan, and immediately after the battle of Williamsburg he
moved it on transports to White House, on the Pamunkey, where it
established a base of supplies. As soon as possible, also, the main
body of the army was marched from Williamsburg to White House,
reaching that place on the 16th of May. From this point he moved
westward toward Richmond, expecting to be joined by a column of forty
thousand men under McDowell, which was to move from Fredericksburg. On
reaching the Chickahominy, McClellan threw his left wing across that
stream, and sweeping around with his right fought small battles at
Mechanicsville and Hanover Junction, by which he cleared the way for
McDowell to join him. But at this critical point of time Stonewall
Jackson suddenly made another raid down the Shenandoah Valley, and
McDowell was called back to go in pursuit of him.
[Illustration: CAMP OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AT CUMBERLAND LANDING.]
Johnston resolved to strike the detached left wing of the National
army, which had crossed the Chickahominy, and advanced to a point
within half a dozen miles of Richmond, and his purpose was seconded by
a heavy rain on the night of May 30th, which swelled the stream and
swept away some of the bridges, thus hindering reinforcement from the
other wing. The attack, May 31st, fell first upon Gen. Silas Casey's
division of Keyes's corps, which occupied some half-finished works. It
was bravely made and bravely resisted, and the Confederate suffered
heavy losses before these works, where they had almost surprised the
men with the shovels in their hands. But after a time a Confederate
force made a detour and gained a position in the rear of the redoubts,
when of course they could no longer be held. Reinforcements were very
slow in coming up, and Keyes's men had a long, hard struggle to hold
their line at all. They could not have done so if a part of Johnston's
plan had not miscarried. He intended to bring in a heavy flanking
force between them and the river, but was delayed several hours in
getting it in motion. Meanwhile McClellan ordered Sumner to cross the
river and join in the battle. Sumner had anticipated such an order as
soon as he {145} heard the firing, and when the order came it found
him with his corps in line, drawn out from camp, and ready to cross
instantly. He was the oldest officer there (sixty-six), and the most
energetic. There was but one bridge that could be used, many of the
supports of this were gone, the approaches were under water, and it
was almost a wreck. But he unhesitatingly pushed on his column. The
frail structure was steadied by the weight of the men; and though it
swayed and undulated with their movement and the rush of water, they
all crossed in safety.
[Illustration: NORTH BATTERY OF CONFEDERATES AT SHIPPING POINT,
POTOMAC RIVER.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL E. W. GANTT, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL R. E. RODES, C. S. A.]
{146} [Illustration: REVIEW IN WASHINGTON, UNDER McCLELLAN, OF EIGHT
BATTERIES OF ARTILLERY AND THREE REGIMENTS OF CAVALRY, BY LINCOLN AND
HIS CABINET.]
Sumner was just in time to meet the flank attack, which was commanded
by Johnston in person. The successive charges of the Confederates were
all repelled, and at dusk a counter-charge cleared the ground in front
and drove off the last of them in confusion. In this fight General
Johnston received wounds that compelled him to retire from the field,
and laid him up for a long time. The battle--which is called both Fair
Oaks and Seven Pines--cost the National army over five thousand men,
and the Confederate nearly seven thousand. It was a more destructive
battle than any that, up to that time, the Eastern armies had fought.
A participant thus describes the after appearance of the field:
"Monday, June 2d, we visited the battlefield, and rode from place to
place on the scene of conflict. We have often wished that we could
efface from our memory the observations of that day. Details were
burying the dead in trenches or heaping the ground upon them where
they lay. The ground was saturated with gore; the intrenchments, the
slashing, the rifle-pits, the thicket, many of the tents, were filled
with dead. In the Fair Oaks farmhouse, the dead, the dying, and the
severely wounded lay together. Along the Williamsburg road, on each
side of it, was one long Confederate grave. An old barn, near where
the One Hundred and Fourth Pennsylvania volunteers first formed, was
filled with our dead and wounded; and farther to the right, near the
station, beside an old building, lay thirteen Michigan soldiers with
their blankets over them and their names pinned on their caps. Near
the railroad, by a {147} log house, the dead and wounded were packed
together. Both were motionless; but you could distinguish them by the
livid blackness of the dead. We could trace the path of our regiment,
from the wood-pile around by the intrenchments to its camp, by the
dead still unburied. Those that died immediately could not be touched,
but were covered with ground where they lay; the wounded, who crawled
or were carried to the barns, tents, and houses, and who died
subsequently, were buried in trenches. Our little tent was still
standing, though pierced by several bullets. Beside it lay two dead
men of the Ninety-eighth, whom we could not identify; for the sun,
rain, and wind had changed their countenances. On the bed lay a dead
Confederate. At the left of our camp, in the wood, where the
Eighty-first, Eighty-fifth, and Ninety-second New York volunteers and
Peck's brigade fought with Huger, the dead were promiscuously mixed
together, and lay in sickening and frightful proximity; strong and
weak, old and young, officer and private, horse and man--dead, or
wounded in the agonies of death, lay where they fell, and furnished,
excepting the swaths on the Williamsburg road, the darkest corner on
that day's panorama."
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN VISITING GENERAL McCLELLAN.]
[Illustration: COMTE DE PARIS. DUC DE CHARTRES.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHAS. H. VAN WYCK. (On General
McClellan's Staff.)]
[Illustration: COLONEL B. S. ALEXANDER (ENGINEER CORPS).]
[Illustration: TABBS HOUSE, YORKTOWN.]
[Illustration: CONTRABANDS--AT FOLLER'S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: CONWAY LANDING.]
{149} [Illustration: BATTERY No. 1 IN FRONT OF YORKTOWN. (Five
Views.)]
Col. William Kreutzer, of the Ninety-eighth New York Regiment, which
went into that battle with three hundred and eighty-five men, and lost
eighty-five, gives some interesting particulars of the action: "The
whole of Company A went to work on the road near the Grapevine bridge.
Details were made for men to make abatis and work on the breastworks.
Company A left its rifles in {148} camp, and lost them. When it
rejoined the regiment, on the 1st of June, it appeared like a company
of pioneers, or sappers and miners, carrying axes, shovels, and
picks.... Soon after one o'clock our pickets begin to come in sight,
retiring through the woods and slashing before the enemy. The skirmish
line of the enemy pursued them. We could see both parties jumping over
the logs and making their way through the brush and bushes, and hear
at intervals the sharp report of their rifles. A little later a dense
mass of men, about two rods wide, headed by half a dozen horsemen, is
seen marching toward us on the Williamsburg road. They move in quick
time, carry their arms on their shoulders, have flags and banners, and
drummers to beat the step. Our three batteries open simultaneously
with all their power. Our regiment pours its volleys into the slashing
and into the column as fast as it can load and fire. The One Hundred
and Fourth Pennsylvania volunteers aims at the column and at the
skirmishers approaching its right front and flank. Unlike us, that
regiment has no slashing in its front. The cleared field allowed the
enemy to concentrate his fire upon it; too near the approaching column
of attack, it interfered with the range and efficiency of our
batteries behind. Its position was unfortunate. As the light troops
pressed upon it, Colonel Davis ordered it to charge them at the
double-quick. The regiment rushed forward with spirit, jumped over a
rail fence in its front, with a shout and yell; but it was met so
{150} resolutely and with such a galling fire by the foe, that it fell
back in disorder, and did not appear on the field as an organization
again during the day. Colonel Davis was wounded, and his 'Ringgold
Regiment' fought its first battle as we have seen.
"The One Hundred and Fourth falling back, cleared the field opposite
the advancing column, and gave the Ninety-eighth better opportunity to
fire upon it as it moved deliberately on. The charging mass staggers,
stops, resumes its march again, breaks in two, fills up its gaps; but
sure and steady, with its flags and banners, it moves like the tramp
of fate. Thinned, scattered, broken, it passes our right, and presses
for the batteries. As it advances and passes, we pour our volleys into
it with no uncertain aim, no random fire. The gaps we make, the swaths
we mow, can be seen in the column, for we are only ten or fifteen rods
away. The men behind press on those before. The head finally reaches
the redoubt. One of the mounted leaders ascends the parapet and is
shot with a pistol by an artillery officer. The whole column, from the
fort back, severed, broken, staggers, sinks into the earth. The
rifle-pits, breast-works, and the Ninety-eighth have cleared the road.
"To this time the Ninety-eighth has not lost a man by the enemy; but
our batteries behind have killed and wounded of it half a score. There
is a lull in the battle; the coast looks clear; the foe may not appear
again. We look at the main road--it is one gray swath of men. Down
along the railroad by Fair Oaks station, we hear but a few reports.
Smith has had farther to march along the Nine-mile road, and has not
struck our right flank yet; on our left, Palmer has not been attacked;
Huger is not on time. Casey's division has driven back those of
Longstreet and Hill.... Our batteries open. High over our heads,
around us, beside us, the lead is whistling, and the iron is whizzing,
hissing, whirling. Every moment has a new terror, every instant a new
horror. Our men are falling fast. We leave the dead and the dying, and
send the wounded to the rear. Palmer's regiments have all fallen back;
the enemy is on our left and rear. Colonel Durkee tries to move the
regiment by the left flank back to the rifle-pits; a part only receive
the order. The enemy is getting so near, our experience in battle is
so limited, our drill is so imperfect, that many of us will not,
cannot, stand upon the order of our going. Durkee passes the
rifle-pits with what follows him, and goes to our old camp. The writer
rallies a part of the regiment around the flag at the half-deserted
intrenchments. There we use, officers and men, the sharp-shooter's
practice against the enemy. We can mark the effect of our fire; no
rifle was discharged in vain. Many of the men could pick a squirrel
from the tallest trees of Wayne and Franklin, and they load and fire
with infinite merriment and good-nature."
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL W. B. FRANKLIN.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL O. H. HART.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL E. D. KEYES.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER.]
For some time after the battle of Fair Oaks, heavy rains made any
movement almost impossible for either of the armies that confronted
each other near Richmond. Gen. Alexander S. Webb says: "The ground,
which consisted of alternate layers of reddish clay and quicksand, had
turned into a vast swamp, and the guns in battery sank into the earth
by their own weight." McClellan kept his men at work, intrenching and
strengthening his position, while he himself seems to have been
constantly occupied in writing despatches to the President and the
Secretary of War, alternately promising an almost immediate advance on
Richmond, and calling for reinforcements. He wanted McDowell's corps
of forty thousand men, and the authorities wanted to give it to him if
it could be sent by way of Fredericksburg, and united with his right
wing in such a way as not to uncover Washington. But in one despatch
he declared he would rather not have it at all unless it could be
placed absolutely under his command. In several respects his position
was very bad. The Chickahominy was bordered by great swamps, whose
malarial influences robbed him of almost as many men as fell by the
bullets of the enemy. His base was at White House, on the Pamunkey;
and the line thence over which his supplies must come, instead of
being at right angles with the line of his front and covered by it,
was almost a prolongation of it. It was {151} impossible to maintain
permanent bridges over the Chickahominy, and a rain of two or three
days was liable at any time to swell the stream so as to sweep away
every means of crossing. He could threaten Richmond only by placing a
heavy force on the right bank of the river; he could render his own
communications secure only by keeping a large force on the left bank.
When it first occurred to him that his true base was on the James, or
how long he contemplated its removal thither, nobody knows; but he
received a startling lesson on the 12th of June, which seems to have
determined his apparently indeterminate mind.
When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was wounded at Fair Oaks, the command
devolved upon Gen. G. W. Smith; but two days later Gen. Robert E. Lee
was given the command of the Confederate forces in Virginia, which he
retained continuously till his surrender brought the war to a close.
The plan that he had opposed, and caused Mr. Davis to reject, when
Johnston was in command--of bringing large bodies of troops from North
Carolina, Georgia, and the Shenandoah Valley, to form a massive army
and fall upon McClellan--he now adopted and proceeded at once to carry
out. Johnston enumerates reinforcements that were given him
aggregating fifty-three thousand men, and says he had then the largest
Confederate army that ever fought. The total number is given
officially at eighty thousand seven hundred and sixty-two. This
probably means the number of men actually carrying muskets, and
excludes all officers, teamsters, musicians, and mechanics; for the
Confederate returns were generally made in that way. McClellan's total
effective force, including every man that drew pay the last week in
June, was ninety-two thousand five hundred. His constant expectation
of reinforcements by way of Fredericksburg was largely, if not wholly,
what kept him in his false position, and it is fair to presume that
but for this he would have swung across the peninsula to the new base
on the James much sooner and under more favorable circumstances.
[Illustration: BATTERY No. 4 IN FRONT OF YORKTOWN. (Three Views.)]
Wishing to know the extent of McClellan's earthworks on the right
wing, Lee, on June 12th, sent a body of twelve hundred cavalry, with
two light guns, to reconnoitre. It was commanded by the dashing Gen.
J. E. B. Stuart, commonly called "Jeb Stuart," who used to dress in
gay costume, with yellow sash and black plume, wore gold spurs, and
rode a white horse. He was only ordered to go as far as Hanover Old
Church; but at that point he had a fight with a small body of cavalry,
and as he supposed dispositions would be made to cut him off, instead
of returning he kept on and made the entire circuit of McClellan's
army, rebuilding a bridge to cross the lower Chickahominy, and reached
Richmond in safety. The actual amount of damage that he had done was
small; but the raid alarmed the National commander for the safety of
his communications, and was probably what determined him to change his
base. In this expedition Stuart lost but one man. In the encounter at
Hanover Old Church a charge was led by the Confederate Captain Latane
and received by a detachment commanded by Captain Royall. The two
captains {152} fought hand to hand, and Latane was shot dead, while
Royall received severe sabre wounds.
[Illustration: QUAKER GUNS.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL E. V. SUMNER.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SILAS CASEY.]
Stonewall Jackson, if not Lee's ablest lieutenant, was certainly his
swiftest, and the one that threw the most uncertainty into the game by
his rapid movements and unexpected appearances. At a later stage of
the war his erratic strategy, if persisted in, would probably have
brought his famous corps of "foot cavalry" (as they were called from
their quick marches) to sudden destruction. An opponent like Sheridan,
who knew how to be swift, brilliant, and audacious, without
transgressing the fundamental rules of warfare, would have been likely
to finish him at a blow. But Jackson did not live to meet such an
opponent. At this time the bugbears that haunt imaginations not inured
to war were still in force, and the massive thimble-rigging by which
he was made to appear before Richmond, and presto! sweeping down the
Shenandoah Valley, served to paralyze large forces that might have
been added to McClellan's army.
The topography of Virginia is favorable to an army menacing
Washington, and unfavorable to one menacing Richmond. The fertile
valley of the Shenandoah was inviting ground for soldiers. A
Confederate force advancing down the valley came at every step nearer
to the National capital, while a National force advancing up the
valley was carried at every step farther away from the Confederate
capital. The Confederates made much of this advantage, and the
authorities at Washington were in constant fear of the capture of that
city.
{153} [Illustration: BURNING OF STORES AND MUNITIONS OF WAR AT WHITE
HOUSE, VA.--DEPARTURE OF THE FEDERAL FLOTILLA FOR THE JAMES RIVER.]
Soon after Stuart's raid, Lee began to make his dispositions to attack
McClellan and drive him from the peninsula. He wrote to Jackson:
"Unless McClellan can be driven out of his intrenchments, he will move
by positions, under cover of his {154} heavy guns, within shelling
distance of Richmond." To convey the impression that Jackson was to
move in force down the valley, Lee drew two brigades from his own
army, placed them on the cars in Richmond in plain sight of some
prisoners that were about to be exchanged, and sent them off to
Jackson. Of course the released prisoners carried home the news. But
Jackson returned with these reinforcements and Ewell's division of his
corps, joined Lee, and on the 25th of June concerted a plan for
immediate attack. Secretary Stanton appears to have been the only one
that saw through the game; for he telegraphed to McClellan that while
neither Banks nor McDowell nor Frémont could ascertain anything about
Jackson's movements, his own belief was that he was going to Richmond.
Yet the impression was not strong enough in the mind of the Secretary
of War (or else the Secretary could not have his own way) to induce
the appropriate counter-move of immediately sending McDowell's whole
corps to McClellan. McCall's division of that corps, however, had been
forwarded, and on the 18th took a strong position on McClellan's
extreme right, near Mechanicsville.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS.]
[Illustration: PROFESSOR T. S. C. LOWE, BALLOONIST.]
Admiral Phelps, of the navy, then a lieutenant commanding the gunboat
_Corwin_, and serving in the waters about the peninsula, writes:
"About ten o'clock one evening my emissary notified me that a certain
man, who had caused much trouble, would leave Centreville about
midnight, in a buggy, with letters for 'Queen Caroline' and Richmond,
in violation of orders. Soon after daylight the following morning both
man and mail were in my possession. Only one letter in the package was
of any value (the others were sent to their destination), and that
one--written by an adjutant-general in the Confederate army, informing
his father that, 'on a certain night,' mentioning the date, 'one
hundred thousand men from Beauregard's army at Shiloh would be in
Richmond, after detaching thirty thousand to reinforce Stonewall
Jackson, who was doing for the enemy in the mountains'--was placed in
General McClellan's hands about five P.M. the following day by one of
his aids, to whose care I had intrusted it."
On the 25th McClellan had pushed back the Confederates on his left,
taken a new position there, and advanced his outposts to a point only
four miles from Richmond. But he began his movements too late, for the
Confederates were already in motion. Leaving about thirty thousand men
in the immediate defences of Richmond, Lee crossed the Chickahominy
with about thirty-five thousand under Generals A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill,
and Longstreet, intending to join Jackson's {155} twenty-five
thousand, and with this enormous force make a sudden attack on the
twenty thousand National troops that were on the north side of the
river, commanded by Gen. Fitz-John Porter, destroy them before help
could reach them, and seize McClellan's communications with his base.
Jackson, who was to have appeared on the field at sunrise of the 26th,
was for once behind time. The other Confederate commanders became
nervous and impatient; for if the movement were known to McClellan, he
could, with a little boldness and some fighting, have captured
Richmond that day. Indeed, the inhabitants of the city expected
nothing else, and it is said that the archives of the Confederate
Government were all packed and ready for instant removal. At midday
Gen. A. P. Hill's corps drove the small National force out of
Mechanicsville, and advanced to McCall's strong position on Beaver Dam
Creek. This they dared not attack in front; but they made desperate
attempts on both flanks, and the result was an afternoon of fruitless
fighting, in which they were literally mown down by the well-served
artillery, and lost upward of three thousand men, while McCall
maintained his position at every point and lost fewer than three
hundred.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S CHURCH, NEAR WHITE HOUSE. (George
Washington was married in this church.)]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. J. PETTIGREW, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL BENJAMIN HUGER, C. S. A.]
That night, in pursuance of the plan for a change of base, the heavy
guns that had thwarted Lee in his first attack were carried across the
Chickahominy, together with a large part of the baggage train. On the
morning of the 27th Porter fell back somewhat to a position on a range
of low hills, where he could keep the enemy in check till the stores
were removed to the other side of the river, which was now his only
object. McClellan sent him five thousand more men in the course of the
day, being afraid to send any greater number, because he believed that
the bulk of the Confederate army was in the defences on his left, and
a show of activity there still further deceived them.
On the morning of the 27th Porter had eighteen thousand infantry, two
thousand five hundred artillerymen, and a small force of cavalry, with
which to meet the attack of at least fifty-five thousand. Longstreet
and the Hills had followed the retreat closely, but, warned by the
experience of the day before, were not willing to attack until Jackson
should join them. The fighting began about two o'clock in the
afternoon, when A. P. Hill assaulted the centre of Porter's position,
and in a two hours' struggle was driven back with heavy loss. Two
attacks on the right met with no better success. The effect on the new
troops that had been hurried up from the coast was complete
demoralization. The Confederate General Whiting says in his report:
"Men were leaving the field in every direction, and in great disorder.
Two regiments, one from South Carolina and one from Louisiana, were
actually marching back from the fire. Men were skulking from the front
in a shameful manner."
But at length Jackson's men arrived, and a determined effort was made
on all parts of the line at once. Even then it seemed for a time as if
victory might rest with the little army on the hills; and in all
probability it would, if they had had such intrenchments as the men
afterward learned how to construct very quickly; but their breastworks
were only such as could be made from hastily felled trees, a few
rails, and heaps of knap-sacks. The Confederates had the advantage of
thick woods in which to form and advance. As they emerged and came on
in heavy masses, with the Confederate yell, they were answered by the
Union cheer. Volley responded to volley, guns were taken and re-taken,
{156} and cannoneers that remained after the infantry supports retired
were shot down; but it was not till sunset that the National line was
fairly disrupted, at the left centre, when the whole gave way and
slowly retired. Two regiments were captured, and twenty-two guns fell
into the hands of the enemy. In the night Porter crossed the river
with his remaining force, and destroyed the bridges. This was called
by the Confederates the battle of the Chickahominy; but it takes its
better known name from two mills (Gaines's) near the scene of action.
The total National loss was six thousand men. The Confederate loss was
never properly ascertained, which renders it probable that it was much
larger. Some of the wounded lay on the field four days uncared for.
This action is sometimes called the first battle of Cold Harbor. The
armies under Grant and Lee fought on the same ground two years later.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL--LEE'S ATTACK.]
Lee and Jackson believed that they had been fighting the whole of
McClellan's forces, and another mistake that they made secured the
safety of that army. They took it for granted that the National
commander, driven from his base at White House, would retreat down the
peninsula, taking the same route by which he had come. Consequently
they remained with their large force on the left bank of the
Chickahominy, and even advanced some distance down the stream, which
gave McClellan twenty-four hours of precious time to get through the
swamp roads with his immense trains. He had five thousand loaded
wagons, and two thousand five hundred head of cattle. Gen. Silas
Casey's division, in charge of the stores at White House, loaded all
they could upon transports, and destroyed the remainder. Trains of
cars filled with supplies were put under full speed and run off the
tracks into the river. Hundreds of tons of ammunition, and millions of
rations, were burned or otherwise destroyed.
{157} [Illustration: BATTLE OF CHARLES CITY CROSS-ROADS, JUNE 30,
1862.]
Rear Admiral Thomas S. Phelps, United States Navy, gives a vivid
description of the scene when the transports and other vessels fled
down the river in panic: "Harassing the enemy and protecting the
worthy fully occupied my time until the afternoon of June 27, 1862,
when Quartermaster-General Ingalls came down the river on a boat
provided especially for his use, and after directing an assistant to
abandon the Point, immediately continued on his way to Yorktown. Soon
afterward the Pamunkey, as far as the eye could reach, appeared
crowded with a confused mass of side-wheel boats, propellers, brigs,
and schooners, and as they dashed past my vessel there appeared to be
as complete a stampede as it has ever been my misfortune to witness.
In answer to the hail, 'What is the trouble?' I was greeted with, 'The
rebels are coming! The whole country is full of them; go to the
mast-head and you will see thousands of them!' Eliciting nothing
further of a satisfactory nature, and seeing nothing but empty fields,
I directed a count to be made of the fleeing vessels, and by evening's
dusk six hundred {158} and eighty were reported as having passed, not
counting several schooners left behind, which on touching the bottom
had been abandoned, their crews escaping to more fortunate
companions." On the following day the gunboats returned to West Point,
towing the derelict schooners which they had floated, and also the
half of a regiment which in the hurry of the previous day had been
forgotten and left behind. At the last moment Casey embarked his men,
and with what he had been able to save steamed down the Pamunkey and
York Rivers, and up the James to the new base. At the close of a long
despatch to the Secretary of War, on the 28th, General McClellan said:
"If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to
you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to
sacrifice this army."
When Gen. John B. Magruder, who had been left in the defences of
Richmond, found that the National army was retreating to the James, he
moved out to attack it, and struck the rear guard at Allen's farm. His
men made three assaults, and were three times repelled. Magruder
complained that he lost a victory here because Lee had left him but
thirteen thousand men.
The National troops fell back to Savage's Station, where later in the
day Magruder attacked them again. He had a rifled cannon mounted on a
platform car, with which he expected to do great execution. But there
was an ample force to oppose him, and it stood unmoved by his
successive charges. About sunset he advanced his whole line with a
desperate rush in the face of a continuous fire of cannon and
musketry, but it was of no avail, and half an hour later his own line
was broken by a counter charge that closed the battle. He admitted a
loss of four thousand men. Sumner and Franklin, at a cost of three
thousand, had thus maintained the approach to the single road through
White Oak Swamp, by which they were to follow the body of the army
that had already passed. But it was found necessary to burn another
immense quantity of food and clothing that could not be removed, and
to leave behind two thousand five hundred sick and wounded men.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL A. P. HILL, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAS. E. RAINS, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL D. H. HILL, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL J. E. B. STUART, C. S. A.]
Jackson, after spending a day in building bridges, crossed the
Chickahominy and attempted to follow McClellan's rear guard through
White Oak Swamp; but when he got to the other side he found a
necessary bridge destroyed and National batteries commanding its site,
so that it was impossible for his forces to emerge from the swamp. But
meanwhile Hill and Longstreet had crossed the river farther up stream,
marched around the swamp, and struck the retreating army near Charles
City Cross-Roads, on the 30th. There was terrific fighting all the
afternoon. There were brave charges and bloody repulses, masses of men
moving up steadily in the face of batteries that tore great gaps
through them at every discharge, crossed bayonets, and clubbed
muskets. Only on that part of the line held by McCall did the
Confederates, with all their daring, succeed in breaking through.
McCall, in his report, describes the successful charge: "A most
determined charge was made on Randol's battery by a full brigade,
advancing in wedge shape, without order, but in perfect recklessness.
Somewhat similar charges had been previously made on Cooper's and
Kern's batteries by single regiments, without success, they having
recoiled before the storm of canister hurled against them. A like
result was anticipated by Randol's battery, and the Fourth Regiment
was requested not to fire until the battery had done with them. Its
gallant commander did not doubt his ability to repel the attack, and
his guns did indeed mow down the advancing host; but still the gaps
were closed, and the enemy came in upon a run to the very muzzles of
his guns. It was a perfect torrent of men, and they were in his
battery before the guns could be removed." General McCall himself,
endeavoring to rally his men at this point, was captured and carried
off to Richmond. In Kearney's front a similar charge was made three
times; but every time a steady musketry fire drove back the enemy that
had closed up its gaps made by the artillery. Darkness put an end to
the fighting, and that night McClellan's army continued its retreat to
Malvern Hill, where {159} his advance guard had taken up the strongest
position he had yet occupied. The battle just described has several
names--Glendale, Frazier's Farm, Charles City Cross-Roads, Newmarket,
Nelson's Farm. McClellan here lost ten guns. The losses in men cannot
be known exactly, as the reports group the losses of several days
together. Longstreet and the two Hills reported a loss of twelve
thousand four hundred and fifty-eight in the fighting from the 27th to
the 30th.
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN G. BARNARD.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. J. ABERCROMBIE.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY M. NAGLEE.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL L. C. HUNT.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL INNIS N. PALMER.]
The last stand made by McClellan for delivering battle was at Malvern
Hill. This is a plateau near Turkey Bend of James River, having an
elevation of sixty feet, and an extent of about a mile and a half in
one direction and a mile in the other. It is so bordered by streams
and swamps as to leave no practicable approach except by the narrow
northwest face. Here McClellan had his entire army in position when
his pursuers came up. It was disposed in the form of a semicircle,
with the right wing "refused" (swung back) and prolonged to Haxall's
Landing, on the James. His position was peculiarly favorable for the
use of artillery, and his whole front bristled with it. There were no
intrenchments to speak of, but the natural inequalities of the ground
afforded considerable shelter for the men and guns. It was as complete
a trap as could be set for an army, and Lee walked straight into it.
Under ordinary circumstances, both commander and men would properly
hesitate to attack an enemy so posted. But to the confidence with
which the Southerners began the war was now added the peculiar elation
produced by a week's pursuit of a retreating army; and apparently it
did not occur to them that they were all mortal.
In the first contact seven thousand Confederates, with six guns,
struck the left of the position. They boldly advanced their artillery
to within eight hundred yards of the cliff; but before they could get
at work, a fire of twenty or thirty guns was concentrated upon their
battery, which knocked it to pieces in a few minutes; and at the same
time some huge shells from a gunboat fell among a small detachment of
cavalry, threw it into confusion, and turned it back upon the
infantry, breaking up the whole attack.
Lee was not ready to assault with his whole army till the afternoon of
July 1st. An artillery duel was kept up during the forenoon, but the
Confederate commander did not succeed in destroying the National
batteries, as he hoped to: on the contrary, he saw his own disabled,
one after another. The signal for the infantry attack was to be the
usual yell, raised by Armistead's division on the right and taken up
by the successive divisions along the line. But the Confederate line
was separated by thick woods; there was long waiting for the signal;
some of the generals thought they heard it, and some advanced without
hearing it. The consequence was a series of separate attacks, some of
them repeated three or four times, and every time a concentrated fire
on the attacking column and a bloody repulse. The men themselves began
to see the hopelessness of it, while their officers were still urging
them to renewed efforts. "Come on, come on, my men," said one
Confederate colonel, with the grim humor of a soldier; "do you want to
live forever?" There were some brief counter-charges, in one of which
the colors were taken from a North Carolina regiment; but in general
the National troops only maintained their ground, and though fighting
was kept up till nine o'clock in the evening, the line--as {160}
General Webb, then assistant chief of artillery, tells us--was never
for one instant broken or the guns in danger. This battle cost Lee
five thousand men, and at its close he gave up the pursuit. The
National loss was less than one-third as great. That night McClellan
withdrew his army to Harrison's Landing, on the James, where he had
fixed his base of supplies and where the gunboats could protect his
position. This retreat is known as the Seven Days, and the losses are
figured up at fifteen thousand two hundred and forty-nine on the
National side, and somewhat over nineteen thousand on the Confederate.
[Illustration: GRAPEVINE BRIDGE.]
From that time there was an angry controversy as to the military
abilities of General McClellan and the responsibility for the failure
of the campaign, and partisanship was never more violent than over
this question. The General had won the highest personal regard of his
soldiers, and they were mostly unwilling or unable to look at the
matter in the cold light of the criticism that simply asks, What was
required? and What was accomplished? The truth appears to be, that
General McClellan, like most men, possessed some virtues and lacked
others. He organized a great army, and to the end of its days it felt
the benefit of the discipline with which he endowed it. But with that
army in hand he did not secure the purpose of its creation. He was an
accomplished engineer, and a gigantic adjutant, but hardly the general
to be sent against an army that could move and a commander that could
think. There can be no doubt that the Administration was over-anxious
about the movements in the Shenandoah, and should have sent McDowell's
corps to McClellan at once; but neither can there be much doubt that
if Little Mac, the Young Napoleon, as he was fondly called, had been a
general of the highest order, he would have destroyed Lee's army and
captured the Confederate capital with the ample forces that he had. It
was not General McClellan alone that was in a false position when his
army was astride the Chickahominy, but the Administration and the
people of the loyal States as well. Their grand strategy was radically
vicious, for they stood astride of the great central question of the
war itself.
{161} [Illustration: GENERAL McCLELLAN'S ARMY BETWEEN BIG BETHEL AND
YORKTOWN.]
To a student of the art of war, this disastrous campaign and the many
criticisms that it evoked are exceedingly interesting. Nearly every
military problem was in some way presented in it. Two or three
quotations from the best sources will indicate its importance and the
complicated questions that it involved. General McClellan himself says
in his report: "It may be asked why, after the concentration of our
forces on the right bank of the Chickahominy, with a large part of the
enemy drawn away from Richmond, upon the opposite side, I did not,
instead of striking for James River fifteen miles below that place, at
once march directly on Richmond. It will be remembered that at this
juncture the enemy was on our rear, and there was every reason {162}
to believe that he would sever our communications with our supply
depot at the White House. We had on hand but a limited amount of
rations, and if we had advanced directly on Richmond it would have
required considerable time to carry the strong works around that
place, during which our men would have been destitute of food; and
even if Richmond had fallen before our arms, the enemy could still
have occupied our supply communications between that place and the
gunboats, and turned their disaster into victory. If, on the other
hand, the enemy had concentrated all his forces at Richmond during the
progress of our attack, and we had been defeated, we must in all
probability have lost our trains before reaching the flotilla. The
battles which continued day after day in the progress of our flank
movement to the James, with the exception of the one at Gaines's Mill,
were successes to our arms, and the closing engagement at Malvern Hill
was the most decisive of all."
One of General McClellan's severest critics, Gen. John G. Barnard, in
an elaborate review of the campaign, wrote: "It was a blunder
unparalleled to expose Porter's corps to fight a battle by itself on
the 27th against overwhelming forces of the enemy. With perfect ease
that corps might have been brought over on the night of the 26th, and,
if nothing more brilliant could have been thought of, the movement to
the James might have been in full tide of execution on the 27th. A
more propitious moment could not have been chosen, for, besides
Jackson's own forces, A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's corps were on the
left bank of the Chickahominy on the night of the 26th. Such a
movement need not have been discovered to the enemy till far enough
advanced to insure success. At any rate, he could have done no better
in preventing it than he actually did afterward.... He has spent weeks
in building bridges which establish a close connection between the
wings of his army, and then fights a great battle with a smaller
fraction of his army than when he had a single available bridge, and
that remote. He, with great labor, constructs 'defensive works' in
order that he 'may bring the greatest possible numbers into action,'
and again exhibits his ability to utilize his means by keeping
sixty-five thousand men idle behind them, while thirty-five thousand,
unaided by 'defensive works' of any kind, fight the bulk of his
adversary's forces, and are, of course, overwhelmed by 'superior
numbers.' We believe there were few commanding officers of the Army of
the Potomac who did not expect to be led offensively against the enemy
on the 26th or 27th. Had such a movement been made, it is not
improbable that, if energetically led, we should have gone into
Richmond. Jackson and A. P. Hill could not have got back in time to
succor Magruder's command, if measures of most obvious propriety had
been taken to prevent them. We might have beaten or driven Magruder's
twenty-five thousand men and entered Richmond, and then, reinforced by
the great moral acquisition of strength this success would have given,
have fought Lee and reëstablished our communications. At any rate,
something of this kind was worth trying.... Our army is now
concentrated on the James; but we have another day's fighting before
us, and this day we may expect the concentrated attack of Lee's whole
army. We know not at what hour it will come--possibly late, for it
requires time to find out our new position and to bring together the
attacking columns--yet we know not when it will come. Where, this day,
is the commanding general? Off, with Captain Rodgers, to select 'the
final positions of the army and its depots.' He does not tell us that
it was on a gunboat, and that this day not even 'signals' would keep
him in communication with his army, for his journey was ten or fifteen
miles down the river; and he was thus absent till late in the
afternoon. This is the first time we ever had reason to believe that
the highest and first duty of a general, on the day of battle, was
separating himself from his army to reconnoitre a place of retreat!...
If the enemy had two hundred thousand men, it was to be seriously
apprehended that, leaving fifty thousand behind the 'strong works' of
Richmond, he would march at once with one hundred and fifty thousand
men on Washington. Why should he not? General McClellan and his
eulogists have held up as highly meritorious strategy the leaving of
Washington defended by less than fifty thousand men, with the enemy in
its front estimated to be one hundred and twenty thousand to one
hundred and fifty thousand strong, and moving off to take an eccentric
line of operations against Richmond; and now the reverse case is
presented, but with an important difference. The enemy at Manassas, on
learning General McClellan's movement, could either fly to the defence
of Richmond or attack Washington. General McClellan says that this
latter course was not to be feared. McClellan on the James, on
learning that Lee with one hundred and fifty thousand men is marching
on Washington, can only attack Richmond; by no possibility can he fly
to the defence of Washington. Besides, he is inferior in numbers
(according to his own estimate) even to Lee's marching army. Here, in
a nutshell, is the demonstration of the folly of the grand strategic
movement on Richmond, as given by its own projector."
An English military critic thus analyzes the great campaign: "As
regards the value of the plan, in a merely military point of view,
three faults may be enumerated: It was too rash; it violated the
principles of war; its application was too timid. (1) An army of one
hundred and thirty thousand volunteers should not be moved about as if
it were a single division. (2) The choice of Fort Monroe as a
secondary basis involved the necessity of leaving Washington, or the
fixed basis, to be threatened, morally at least, by the enemy. The
communications also between these two places were open to an attack
from the _Merrimac_, an iron-plated ship, which lay at Norfolk, on the
south side of Hampton Roads. The first movement to Fort Monroe was the
stride of a giant. The second, in the direction of Richmond, was that
of a dwarf. When the army arrived in front of the lines at Yorktown,
it numbered, probably, one hundred thousand men, and here there was no
timid President to interfere with the command; nevertheless, McClellan
suffered himself to be stopped in the middle of an offensive campaign
by Magruder and twelve thousand men.... The hour of his arrival in
front of the lines should have been the hour of his attack upon them.
Two overwhelming masses, to which life and energy had been
communicated, should have been hurled on separate points. Magruder not
only defeated but destroyed! The _morale_ of the Federal army raised!
The result of the campaign, although it might not have been decisive,
would have been more honorable."
On the Confederate side the criticism was almost as severe, because,
while claiming the result of the six days as a Confederate success, it
was also claimed that the campaign should have resulted in the
complete destruction of McClellan's army.
The use of balloons for reconnoitring the enemy's position formed a
picturesque feature of this campaign. T. S. C. Lowe, J. H. Stiner, and
other aëronauts were at the National headquarters with their balloons,
and several officers of high rank accompanied them in numerous
ascents. But it seems to have been demonstrated that the balloon was
of little practical value.
{163}