fit " —I i \ % ^ •i)\ '/■V '*> r <^ *!$«!C- i- Hr ■^ '^^' I W ^^ h^..«''v% n '^mimi^^C LIBRARY OF CONGKKSS, 'y^& 4f^^ v^r^;^?XK?cithiug influence of time and the blockade would eventually bring them to accept terms of reconciliation and reunion. ".,-3. To the coitstant interference of an " Aulic Council " at ."5^,ashington. with the plans of our commanders in the field, an interference which when it does not positively interrupt the progress of operations actually begun, by depriving a general of some portion of the force on which his calculations were based, must still greatly cripple his efficiency by making it incompatible with common prudence for him to take serious risks and essay •adventurous combinations. ; : i^.- To the superior military abilities of the Southern command- ers enabling them to outmanceuvre our leaders and to accumulate overwhelming forces upon the separate armies of an array in the aggregate greatly outnumbering their own. The testimony under these different heads of the Prince de Joinville may be thus summed up : "1. The Prince de Joinville testifies that General McClellan's original plan of camj^aign was in the highest degree direct and aggressive. This plan was formed at a time' when the command of the waters of Virginia Avas entirely in our hands, and it involved so rapid a concentration of the federal forces at a point within striking distance of Richmond as must have been followed either by the evacuation of that city or, by. a. decisive action in the field. He testifies also that when by the sudden and formidable advent of the Merrimac and by the retreat of Johnston from Manassas upon Richmond and Yorktown, this original plan was made impracticable. General McClellan conceived a second plan for turning the position at Yorktown, which was also direct and aggressive in its character, and which was made impracticable PEEPACE. by the sudden withdrawal of the corps cVarmee, necessary to its execution. In respect to tha operations of McClellan before Richmond, he testifies that it was tlie intention of that general to follow up Ms arrival upon the Chickahoniiny by an immediate assault in .com- bination with the army of McDowell, and that this intention was defeated by the coraj^lete separation of that army from his own in consequence of orders sent to McDowell from Washington. He gives it as his opinion, however, that greater activity and more rapid aggressive movements on the part of General McClel- lan during the months of May and June and at the battle of Fair Oaks, miglit possibly have resulted in the fall of Richmond, but this opinion he qualifies by intimating that the disposition of the General to instant action Avas curbed and dampened during that time by the influence of the checks previously imposed upon the develo})ment of his strategy ; and he ascribes the final extrica- tion of the Army of the Potomac from a position which had be- come untenable, to a movement in an extraordinary degree deci- sive and audacious. 2. Writing after a familiar intercourse of months witli the Gen- eral-in-Chief of the army, in which he must necessarily have im- bibed his' leading -views in respect to national policy, the Prince's language makes it more than probable that General McClellan earnestly believed a prompt and decisive victory over the confed- erate army to be the surest if not the only means of securing the restoration of the Union, and that so believing, he thought it essential that a conciliatory temper towards the Southern people should precede, accompany and succeed the victory of the sword. 3. The Prince de Joinville asserts distinctly that the interfer- ence of .the Government with the plans of General McClellan was constant, embarrassing, and of such a nature as finally to make it next to impossible for that General to risk the safety of the army under his charge in any extensive operation the success of which was not substantially assured in advance. 4. The Prhice's account of the retreat of McClellan from Rich- mond shows that he considers the confederate Generals to have been completely out-manoeuvred and out-witted at that time by their adversary, whose concentration they did not comprehend in time to prevent it, and whose escape they were not able to inter- cept although superior to hun in numbers and in knowledge of the country, fighting within sight of their base, and supported by the active good Avill of a wliole population. 6 PREFACE. So runs the evidence upon these four points of a witness whose competency and impartiaUty we have certainly no right or reason to impeach. lie may have been misinformed ; uninformed, the responsibihty which he assumes in pubUshing his narrative forbids us to suppose he can have been. Until the publication of authentic official documents, the paper here submitted to the reader must be considered to be the fullest and fiirest story of the great Campaign of 1862 yet given to the world. As such it should receive the most serious attention. The reputation of any one nuin or set of men is a slight thing in comparison with the success or failure of the nation in a war of life and death. If the Prince de Joinville's statements can be proved incorrect and his inferences unsound ; if General McClel- lan be really responsible by reason of his military incapacity or his political theories for our great disappointments, then it \vill be much for the nation to forgive him the past and forget him in the future. If the Prince's statements be proved correct and his inferences sound, they must be regarded as a substantial indictment of the Administration in respect to its management of the war ; and the removal of General IMcClellan from the command of liis army in the field must be pronounced a sign of evil omen on vrhich too much stress can hardly be laid. I believe the present translation, although rapidly made, will not be found inaccurate. I have ventured to append to it a few notes upon subjects connected Avith the condition of things at the South, in respect to which I had reason to believe myself more fully and correctly informed than the circumstances of the author pei'mitted him to be. W. H. H. New York, Nov. 15, 1862. Note.— Since the first edition of this translation was issued, I have received au- thority from Brigadier-General Rarry, Chief of Artillery of the Army of the Potomac, to correct the writer's statement in rejiard to the loss of guns on the retreat from Rich- mond (p. 93). Instead of three, the army lost but one siege-gun, an S-inch howitzer, the carriage of which broke down. No feature of this extraordinary retreat rcUcets higher credit upon the army than this brilliant achievement of the artillery servirt- and its chief; and as the most extravagant falsehoods upon this point have "obtained credence and circulation abroad, I take a particular pleasure in here recordin<; the truth, confident that no man out of America will more heartily rejoice in it than the u'lthor whom I am thus enabled to set rio-ht. THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. MiLiTAEY events succeed each other rapidly in America, and the public follows them with an attention which is all the more anxious that it does not always understand them, partly througli lack of knowledge of the organization of American armies and of the character of their commanders and their soldiers ; but above all, through the difficulty of getting at the impressions of persons who, being competent to observe these memorable struggles, actually took part in them them- selves. The pages here offered to the reader, will perhaps meet this legitimate public curiosity. They arc the sum and setting forth of the notes of an officer, who took part in the last bat- tles in Virginia, and who has never ceased to watch and fol- low up the grand operations of the war, in respect to w^hich, he will, no doubt, give us new details ; our dnty is simply to gather up and group the impressions and the recollections scattered through the numerous letters, and the private jour- nal of the officer in question. I. ^h €xtixixan of iht i^rmw. On my arrival in America, the curtain had just fallen on the first act of the secessionist insurrection. The attack on Fort Sumter by the people of Charleston, had been the pro- logue, then came the disaster of Bull Run. Tlie army of the 8 THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. South was encamped witliin sight of "Washington. "Works of defence were hastily thrown up around that Capital. The roar of the cannon was heard from time to time along the front of the line. Amid these commotions the army of the Potomac came into being. Up to this time, the Federal Government, taken by surprise, had only hit in haste upon certain provisional measures which aggravated instead of dissipating the danger. All the advan- tages, at the outset of the insurrection, were with the insur- gents. They were ready for an armed conflict, the North was not. In truth the work of secession had been long preparing. Under the pretext of a military organization to repress slave insurrections, the States of the South had created a permanent militia, ready to march at the first signal. Special schools had been founded in which the sons of the Slaveholders imbibed the insj)iration of those good and bad qualities which combine to form a race of sol- diers. Meanwhile, the northern man, reposing with confidence upon the regular operation of the Constitution, remained ab- sorbed in his own affairs behind his counter. The national army of the Union belonged almost entirely to tlie men of the South. For many years the Federal power had been in their hands, and they had not failed to fill, with creatures of their own, all the departments of its administration, and especially the war office and the army, Mr. Jefferson Davis, long Secretary at "War, had done more to accomplish this than any other single man. The disposition of the northern people facilitated his task. Among thelaborious and still somewhat puritanical populations of N^ew England, the career of arms was looked upon as that of an idler. The "West Point Academy enjoyed no great con- sideration in that part of the country, and the heads of fami- lies were by no means anxious to send their sons to it. Finally, THE AEMY OP THE POTOMAC. 1> on tlie eve of the crisis which was to follow Mr. lincoln's election, Mr. Floyd, now a General among the secessionists and then war Secretary under Mr. Buchanan, had taken pains to send to the South the contents of all the Federal arsenals, and to despatch the whole of the regular army to Texas, put- ting between the army and Washington the barrier of the slave States, in order to paralyze the sentiment of duty which might lead the soldiers to follow that small number among their officers who should remain loyal to their flag. Nothing accordingly was lacking in the precautions taken by the Con- federacy. Tliey had dealt with the navy as with the army. It was dispersed at the four corners of the globe. As to the Nortli, it did just nothing. Yet it had not want- ed warnings. For many years Secession had been openly preached. A curious book called the " Partisan Leader," pub- lished twenty years ago, is a proof of this. Under the form of a novel this book is a really prophetic picture of the war which is at this moment desolating Yirginia, a picture so highly colored as easily to explain the ardor with which the imagination of the Creole ladies has espoused the cause of the South. But it was believed in the North, as in various other places, that " all would come right." The jSTorth felt itself the stronger, and saw no reason for troubling itself preuuiturely. It was the old story of the hare and the tor;oisc. Moreover, in the last resort, the North counted on tlie several hundred thousand volunteers set down in the almanacks as represent- ing the military force of the country, and supposed by the popular mind to be irresistible. The Noi-tli was quickly un- deceived. The people of the South were beaten in the presi- dential election. They were still masters of the Senate, and it was not the loss of power which roused them, it was the wound inflicted on their pride. This was used by the ambi- tious managers of the party of Secession to excite the South- 10 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. ern mind, and the standard of the insurrection was raised. The federal power, still passive, allowed the period for com- promise, the period for conciliation, and the period for ener- getic and instantaneous repression to roll by alike unimproved. On both sides the States begin to arm for the inevitable strife ; but the South has the warriors, the arms, the organization, the will and the passion. The North is impotent even to provision Fort Sumter, and the volunteers raised for three montlis, as if that was to be tlie limit of the campaign, get themselves beaten at Bull Run, not througli want of courage, for the instances of individual valor were numerous ; nor yet through the fault of General McDowell, who commanded them, and whose plans deserved success, but through the absence of organization and of discipline. After Bull Run tiiere was no room left for illusions. A great war was before the country. Intoxicated with pride, encouraged by all those who for one or another reason wished ill to the United States, the South it was plain would never again consent to return to the Union until it should liave suf- fered severe reverses. Tlie hopes of its ambitions leaders were more than realized. They had struck a successful vein, and nothing conld make them abandon it. At the ]S"orth, on the other hand, humiliation had opened all men's eyes. It was felt that, having on their side, with the superiority of population and wealth, the right and the legality of the question — ^having the sacred, trust of the Constitution to defend against a factious minority, which after all, only took up arms to extend slavery — they would become a by-word for the world if they did not resist. They felt, besides, that if the doctrine of secession were once admit- ted and sanctioned, it would be susceptible of infinite aj^pli- cation ; that, from one rupture to another, it would bring about a chaos which must very soon open the way to despo- THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 11 tisni. They felt, in short, that it was chimerical to suppose that two Powers could live side by side in peace who had not yet made real trial of their respective strength — who were separated radically, notwithstanding their common tongue and origin, by the institution of slavery — ^the one wish- ing its development and the other its abolition — who were separated, also, by interests which no Custom House line could conciliate, and by the impossibility of regulating, with- out daily quarrels, the numerous questions connected witli the navigation of the Western rivers. All these reasons, obvious to every mind, added to the pain of wounded self-love, and to the novelty of a warlike movement in that land of peace, resulted in setting on foot the immense armament with which the Northern States have up to this day sustained the war against the powerful efforts of Secession. Let us pause liere before passing on to the numerous criti- cisms that we shall have to make, to admire the energy, the devotion, the spirit of courageous self-denial with which the population of those States — rather leading the Government than led by it — ^has of itself, and under the single impulse of its patriotic good sense, given uncounted men and money, sac- rificed its comforts, renounced voluntarily and for the public good, its tastes, its habits, even to the freedom of the press, and that, too, not under the influence of a momentary passion, not in a transport of transient enthusiasm, but coolly and for a distant object — that of national greatness. The North went seriously to work to create an army — a grand army. Seconded by public opinion. Congress resolved upon the raising of five hundred thousand men, with the funds necessary for the purpose. Unfortunately it could not command the traditions, the training and the experience requisite to form and m.anage such a military force. It was able to collect masses of men and immense material, as if by enchantment ; but it had not the power to create by a vote 12 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. file spirit of discipline, of obedience, and timt iiierarcliical respect, without which there may be ra'med crowds, but there can be no army. Here is the reef upon which many gener- ous efforts have been dashed to pieces. Here is an original vice whose fatal influence we shall everywhere encounter. "We shall discover the germ of this vice by a rapid examina- tion of the machinery which was used to improvise this first creation. According to American law the Federal Government maintains, in time of peace, a permanent regular army. It may, besides, in cases of necessity, war or insurrection, call to its standard as many regiments of volunteers as it may deem expedient. The reguhir army, formed by recruiting only, numbered 20,000 men before the secession. The. officers, educated exclusively at the military school, were remarkable. Well educated, versed practically in their profession, under- standing the necessity of absolute command, they maintained in their small force the most vigorous discipline. This was an excellent nucleus for an army, but the rebellion, as I have before remarked, had brought on its dissolution. The greater part of the officers — more than three hundred — passed over to the South. The soldiers — all Irish or German — lost in the solitudes of Texas, were dispersed. From two to three thousand men, at most, returned from California or Utah to take part in the war. This was chiefly important as bringing back a certain nunibqr of officers who might preside over the organization— SM<;h as it was— of the army of v-oluntee~ra^bout to be raised. In Europe, where we have learned to recog- nize the comparative value of the regular soldier, and of this costly and capricious amateur soldier, who is called a volun- teer, the loss of the aid of the regular army, small as it was, would have brought us to despair, and we should have set to work to increase the army by enlarging its organization and Incorporating recruits. An army of sixty thousand regulars THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 13 would have done more, than donlilc ov triple the number of volunteers; but in America they do not know this, and be- sides, they do not wish to know it. It would involve a re- nunciation of the general and deeply rooted creed, that every Anferican, when he wishes to do a thing, may find within himself, withont^any apprenticeship, the power to do it; and, coiisequently, there is no volunteer who, when he puts on the uniform, does not at the same time put on the qualities of a soldier. Add to this that the West Point officers, simply from the fact that they have received a superior education, and re- cognize the necessity of a hierarchy, are regarded as aristo- crats, and everything aristocratic is bad. Such officers were safe with the mercenaries who consented to obey them, and under their orders to keep the peace against the frontier tribes of Indians ; but to place under their command a great army, which must be reduced to the subordination of the camps, was to run the i-isk of grave political dangers. An eighteenth Brumaire is not to be made with volunteers. Therefore, everything having to be created, it was decided to create an army of volunteers— an ephemeral army, compara- tively inefficient, and, above all, ruinously expensive. The American volunteer is richly paid. His pay is $13— more than 65 francs — per month. Besides that, an allowance of $8 per month is paid to his wife in his absence ; and this, it may be said in passing, has brought about many sudden marriages at the moment of departure for the army. Ordinarily there are no deductions from his pay for clothing or other supplies. The volunteer is provided with everything, and is supplied so liberally with rations that he daily throws away a part of them. One may imagine what such an army must cost. This would not matter if even at such an expense the country were well served. It is not so, however. It is ill served for want of discipline, not that the military laws and regulations were not severe enough ; but they were not enforced, and 14 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. could not be, in consequence of tlie primary organization of the regiment, and of the composition of its corps of officers. And here we come to the essential vice of an American army. How is a regiment of volunteers actually formed ? As soon as Congress has voted the number of men, they calculate at Washington the quota which each State must furnish, accord- ing to its resources and population. This calculation being made, each Governor announces that there are to be so many regiments raised within the limits of his jurisdiction. The regiment of one battalion only, is the American military unit. Affairs are managed in this way : Persons present themselves offering to raise a regiment. Each sets forth his claims, his influence in the State, or among a certain portion of the population, which will enable him to procure easily the necessary number of men, his devotion to the party in powei\ etc. From among the persons thus pre- sented the Governor makes his choice. Generally the person upon whom the choice falls has laid it down as a condition precedent that he shall have the command of the regiment ; and thus Mr. So-and-So, a lawyer or a doctor, never having handled a sword, but feeling within himself an improvised vocation, becomes a colonel at the start, and puts himself in' connection with all the recruiting agencies and with all the furnishers of equipment and clothing supplies for the future rciriuient. The next thinj): is to find the soldiers; this is not so easy, for there is a great deal of rivalry. They apply to all their comrades, traverse the country, ai;d resort to various ]»lans. This is done quickly and well in America, for the Americans have an inventive mind. Most frequently they find friends who, seized with the same martial ardor, promise to bi-iiig so many recruits if they be made — the one captain, the other lieutenant, another sergeant, and so forth. The framework is formed and is partly filled up ; it only remains to complete it. It is then that recourse is had to extraor- THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 15 dinaiy measures — to those gigantic posters which set forth in pompous terms all the advantages to be gained by joining the corps. They go among the Catholic priests to procure Irishmen, and give the coveted privilege of sutlership to the individual who promises the necessary complement of men. Thus the regiment finds itself organized, and the lists are carried to tlie Governor, who approves everything. The regi- ment is mustered, clothed and equipped, and forwarded by railroad to the seat of war. Sometifnes, even frequentl}^, the grades are made to depend on election ; but that is generally only a foriiiality, as everything has been arranged beforehand by those interested. The inconveniences of this system are obvious. The officers, from the colonel down to the lowest in rank, do not know the first word of the militarj^ art, and if they have any real aptitude for it and any warlike qualities, these are still to be proved. The soldiers have no illusions on this point. "They know no more about it than we do, we are well acquainted with them," they say of those who command them. Hence, there is no superiority of knowledge on the part of the officer over the soldier, and no superiority of social position in a country where no such superiority is recognized. Most frequently, also, it is with an idea of being a candidate for political office that the officer has taken up arms. It is to make himself a name in the eyes of the voters. And these future voters are the soldiers. What would become of the popularity he ex- pects to enjoy if he were rough to the soldiers, or showed himself too exacting in the service? All these causes bring about the want of authority with officers, and the want of res- pect among soldiers. Of course, then, there can be neither hierarchy nor discipline. All this has been ameliorated by force of necessity, and in the school of experience. Even from the beginning there were exceptions to it; some colonels, im- ■ polled by a real vocation, or animated by an ardent patriotism, 16 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. encceeded in overcoming the obstacles placed in tlieir path. Sometimes an officer of the regular army, desirous of distin- guishing himself, and having influence enough in his State, raised a regiment and obtained from it an admirable result. TJiiis, a young lieutenant of engineers, named Warren, was marvellously successful with the Fifth New York regiment, of which he was colonel. This regiment served as engineers and artillery at the siege of Yorktown, and, having again be- come infantry, conducted itself like the most veteran troops at the battles of the Chickahominy, where it lost half of its force. And yet these were volunteers — but they felt the know- ledge and superiority of their chief. Generally, however, the chief is simjjly a comrade who wears a different costume. He is obeyed in every day routine, but voluntarily. In the same way the soldiers don't trouble themselves about him when cir cumstances become serious. From the point of view of American equality, there is no good reason to obey him. Be- sides, in the eyes of the greater number this title of volunteer does not signify the soldier who devotes himself generously and voluntarily to save the country or to acquire glory, but rather the well-paid soldier, who only does what he wishes and pleases. This is so true that, although the pay and time of service are the same for volunteers and regulars, the re- cruiting of regulars has become almost impossible. All that class of men who enlisted when regulars alone existed, from a taste for camp life, now join the volunteers. On one side is license, on the other discipline — the choice is easily made. The habits created by universal suffrage also play their part and are reproduced on the field of battle. By a tacit agree- ment the regiment marches against the enemy, advances under fire and begins to deliver its volleys ; the men are brave, very brave ; they are killed and wounded in great numbers, and then, when by a tacit agreement they think they have done enough for military honor, they all march off together. The THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. IT colonel perhaps attempts to give a direction, an impulse, but generally liis efforts are in vain. As to the officers, they never think of it. Why should they attempt it, and vi^hy should they be obeyed if the majority of the regiment has made up its mind to retreat ? Obedience in such an army is like the obedience which children playing at soldiers render to him among their comrades whom they have made their cap- tain. Is any argument necessary to show the inconvenience of such a state of things ? ISTevertheless, the Government put its hand on an immense mass of armed men, a multitude of regiments; for the country had responded unanimously and vigorously to the call for volunteers. Never, we believe, has any nation created, of lierself, by her own will, by her single resources, without coercion of any kind, without government pressure, and in such a short space of time, so considerable an armament. Free governments, whatever may be their faults and the excesses to which they may give rise, always preserve an elasticity and creative power which noth- ing can equal. Only, the vices of organization which we have pointed out singularly impaired the value of this military gathering. It w^as to remedy these vices as far as possible that General McClellan and old officers of "West Point, who had become, by force of circumstances, generals of brigade or of division, devoted all their efforts. Regiments were brigaded by fours, and brigades divisioned by threes. To each division four batteries were given, three of them served by volunteers and one by regulars. The latter was to serve as a model for the others, and its captain took command of all the artillery of the division. At one time they had some idea of placing a battalion of regulars in each division of volunteers, to act the part of " Lance head," which Lord Clyde attributes to the European troops in the Sepoy armies ; but the idea was abandoned. It appeared wis^^r to keep together the only 2 18 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. really disciplined troops that they possessed ; besides, as it was made, the divisional formation was a good one, and has been of very great utility. It next became necessary to provide for the administrative services for provisions, mnnitions and transports, and to organize artillery reserves, tlie engineer corps, the pontoon corps, the topographical brigade, the tele- graphs and the hospitals. This prodigious labor was accomplished with a rapidity and a success which are extraordinary, when we think that the whole thing had to be achieved without any assistance from the past. i!^ot only was there nobody to be found who knew anything, except from books, of the management of the numerous threads by which an army is held together and moved ; not only was the country destitute of all precedents in the matter ; the number even of those who had travelled in Europe and seen for thernselves what a grand collection of troops is, was infinitely small. The American army had no traditions but those of the Mexican campaign of General Scott — a l)rilliant campaign, in which there were many diffi- culties to be overcome, but which presented nothing like the gigantic proportions of the present war. Moreover, in Mexico General Scott had with him the entire regular army, and here there only remained its feeble ruins. In Mexico the regulars were the main body, the volunteers were only the accessory, and, as it were, the ornament. The old general, who was one day asked what he then did to maintain discipline in their ranks, answered, " Oh, they knew that if they straggled off they would be massacred by the guerrillas." The two cases, therefore, had nothing in common, and the management of these great armies of volunteers, in spite of all the efforts to regularize them, was a i^roblem which offered many unknown data. At the South the organization of the insurrectionary forces presented fewer difficulties. Tlie revolutionary government THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 19 liad q\.icldy assumed in the hands of Mr. Jefferson Davis the dictatorial form. Sustained by an Oligarchy of three hundred tliousand slaveholders, of whom he was the choice, and whose violent passions he personified, Mr. Davis had set himself actively at work to create an army fit to contend against the formidable preparations of the federal government. A former pupil of "West Point, a former General of volunteers in Mexico, a former Secretary of War in the Union, he had all the re- quisite conditions to perform liis task well. He applied to it liis rare capacity. He was seconded by the flower of the for- mer federal staff, by the more military spirit of the Southern- ers, and also by the assistance of all the adventurers, filibusters and others, whom the South had always nurtured in view of those continual invasions to which slavery condemns her. I have no idea of drawing liere a sketch of the separatist army; but I v/ish to point out two important difterences which mark its organization as compared with that of the North. The oflicers were chosen and nominated directly by the President, and were sent with the regiments to fill their positions. There was no comradeship between them and the soldiers. The sol- diers did not know them, and therefore regarded them as their superiors. Tliey were not men who were subsequently, in private life, to find themselves again their equals. In short these officers belonged to that class of slave owners who living by the labor of their inferiors and accustomed to command them, attached to the soil by the hereditary transmission of the paternal estate and of the black serfs who people it, pos- sess to a certain extent, the qii alities of aristocrats. In their hands the discipline of the army could not suffer. ISTumerous shootings caused discipline to be respected, and on the day of battle they led their soldiers valiantly, and were valiantly followed. In the second place, Mr. Davis quickly perceived that the volunteer system would be powerless to furnish him with enough men to sustain th b fratricidal strife into which ) 20 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. he liad j^lunged liis country. He came rapidly to conscri] ition, to forced recruiting. It was no longer a contract betwee i tlie soldier and liis colonel, or between the soldier and tlie State, which would still leave a possibility of its being annulled, and which brought with it absolute obligations. It was the law, the authority, the power of the State, which carried off all able-bodied men and made them march up blindly to what was called the defence of their country. Tliere was no hesitation j)ossible. Bound by the obligation of duty, the soldier became at once more submissive and more reconciled to the sacrifice. In the situation in which the South was, these measures were wise, and there is no doubt that they contributed at the begin- ning of the war to secure great advantages to its army. Never- theless, we are far from reproaching Mr. Lincoln for not hav- ing recourse to such violent measures. The leaders of an insur- rection recognize no obstacle, and are stopped by no scruples when the object is to assure the triumph of their ambitious views, and particularly to escape the consequences of defeat. They recoil before nothing, and have no repugnance to revo- lutionary expedients ; but Mr. Lincoln and his advisers, were the legitimate representatives of the nation, and if it fell to them to suppress a revolt, they did not wish, unless in case of absolute necessity, to touch the guarantees which, up to that time, had made the American people the happiest and freest people of the earth. II. plaits jof i\it Campaigit. The army once improvised, it next became necessary tc decide how to employ it — in other words, to choose the plan of the campaign. Tlie general plan was simple. The idea of conquering and occupying a territory so vast as that of the THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 21 Confederate States could not even be considered ; but for the purpose of esccaping the dangers, actual and possible, of such a formidable insurrection, it was necessary to attain three re- sults : to blockade efficiently the insurgent coast ; to get con- trol of the Mississippi river, and of the entire system of West- ern waters ; and, linally, to drive the rebel government out Eichmond, its capital. By the blockade the rebels are isolated from the foreigners whose sympathy had been promised them ; the introduction of powder and firearms is prevented ; expor- tation, and the resources which it might have procured, are stopped ; and, finally, the introduction of supplies from abrofid is guarded against, which would, in spite of the state of war, have penetrated into the North, to the great detriment of national manufactures and of the Federal treasury. To the navy belonged the duty of this blockade. It discharged that duty rather inefficiently at first for want of sufficient means ; but by degrees the surveillance grew closer and closer until it became difficult to evade it. The possession of the Mississippi was an imperious neces- sity. The great river and ks, affluents are the outlets of all the countries which they water. Tliey are the arteries of the Western States— States which have, up to this time, remained faithful to the Union, but in which their material interests might at length chill their enthusiasm, and speak even louder than their convictions. To restore the Union as a matter of interest, on the basis of slavery, has been for a long time past the programme of the Southern leaders. To abandon to them without a struggle the Western rivers would be to concede half the question. It was therefore decided to bring on a con- flict on this theatre. The navy recaptured ISTew Orleans by a brilliant coup de main. That was the principal point. The Federals thus put the key in their pocket. As to the course of the Mississippi, the task of reconquering it was confided to the Western armies, admirably seconded by Commodore 22 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. Foote's flotilla of iron-clad batteries and steam rams. In those regions the war assumed quite a new character. So long as they were carried on only hy water the operations were very rapid. The enemy could not intercept the mag- nificent navigable highways so favorable to attack which the' great rivers of the West supplied. By water Columbus was besieged, whilst by quickly ascending the Tennessee and Cum- berland rivers, the communications of the rebel army assigned to the defence of that important post, were cut. Once isolated from its railroads, that army had to retreat southwards. It thus retired from position to position, as fast as the Northern flotilla descended the river, and as the jSTorthern army seized upon the princii)al railroad branches. The march of the Federals only slackened when, being able to advance no far- ther by navigable waters, parallel to the Mississippi, such as the Tennessee, they had to reconstruct, as they went along, the railroads necessary for their supplies, which the enemy had destroyed in falling back. The last operation remained — to drive out of Richmond the insurrectionary government. That government, on being concentrated in the hands of Mr. Davis, took the form of a dictatorship, and thus gave to its seat the importance of a capital. There converge all the great railroad and telegraph lines. Thence, for a year past, have all orders and despatches been dated. To force the Confederate government to abandon that capital would be to inflict upon it an immense check — in the eyes of Europe particularly it would have taken away its jM'cstige. Should this attack have been ventured on as soon as the means supposed to be sufficient were provided, w^ithout awaiting the results of the blockade and of the Mississippi campaign ? On this question opinions were di 'idcd. Some said " yes,'' arguing thus : that an insurrection should never be given the time to establish itself; that the Federal army, with its defective organization, would be no better in March THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 23 than in JSToveuiber ; that a splendid success on the part of the I^orth, following close upon Bull Run, might tinish the war at one blow, by permitting a great effort at conciliation be- fore either side became too much embittered. Others said " no." According to them the great work of reducing the insurrection should be performed on the coast and on the Mississippi. The Richmond campaign, undertaken in the spring, with the Army of the Potomac, made hardier by a winter passed in tents, and recovered from the fatal impressions of Bull Run, would be the coup de grace to Secession. The latter course was chosen, either as the result of real delibera- tion, or of necessity from not having decided in time to act during the fine weather of the autumn of 1861. And here I may point out, in passing, a characteristic trait of the American people — that is, as well in regard to the peo- ple as to an agglomeration of individuals— delay. This delay in resolving and acting, so opposed to the promptitude, the decision, the audacity to which the American, considered as an individual, had accustomed us, is an inexplicable phen- omenon which always causes me the greatest astonishment. Is it the abuse of the individual initiative that kills the collective energy ? Is it the habit of calculating only on one's self and of acting only for one's self that renders them hesi- tating and distrustful when they must act with tlie assist- ance of others ? Is it the never having learned to obey that makes it so difficult to command ? Doubtless somethiuo- of all these causes, and other causes still that escape us, must com- bine in producing this result, as strange as it is unaccountable ; but this delay in action whicli, besides, appears to belong to the Anglo-Saxon race, is atoned for by a tenacity and a persever- ance which failure does not discourage. Let us, then, leave tlie federal fleets occupied in blockading the rebel coast, in recapturing New Orleans, in aiding General Halleck to reconquer the course of the Mississippi, and let us 24 THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. follow tlie career of the Army of the Potomac, destined to en- gage the great confederate army and to wrest from it, if pos- sible, the possession of the Virginian capital. The winter had passed, for the Northern soldiers, in the work of organization, of drilling, of provisioning; besides, they had constructed aronnd Washington a series of works, of detached forts (to use a well-known expressio .1) which, armed with powerful artillery, would protect the capital from a sudden assault, even though the Army of the Potomac might be absent. The construction of these works furnished scope for thought to those who sought to penetrate the projects of the General ; but everything had lono- been so quiet at "Washington that it was only casually that the idea of entering on a campaign presented itself. The enemy still occupied, in great force, his positions of Ma- nassas and Centreville, and for six months past nothing but un- important skirmishes had occurred between the two armies. Things were in this condition when, on the evening of the 9th of March, one of my friends, tapping me on the shoulder, said : " You don't know the news? The enerny has evacuated Manassas, and the array sets out to-morrow." 'Next day, in reality, the whole city of Washington was in commotion. A mass of artillery, of cavalry, of wagons, blocked up the streets, moving towards the bridges of the Potomac. On the sidewalks were seen officers bidding tender farewells to weep- ing ladies. The civilian portion of the population looked coldly on this departure. There was not the least trace of en- thusiasm among them. Perhaps this was due to the rain, which was falling in torrents. On the long bridge, in the midst of several batteries tliat were laboriously defiling across this bridge which is eternally in ruins, I met General McClellan, on horseback, with an anxious air, riding alone, without aids-de-camp, and escorted only by a few troopers. . le who could that da}^ have read the Gen- eral's soul would have seen there already something of that THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 25 bitterness which subsequently was to accumulate so cruelly upon him. Beyond the bridge we found the whole army in motion towards Fairfax Court House, where a great part of it en- camped that evening. The cavalry pushed on as far as Cen- treville and Manassas, which it found abandoned. The enemy v^'a's not come up with anywhere ; he had had too greatl}'- the start of us. The head-quarters were established as well as possible at Fairfax, a pretty village, with large frame houses standing apart and surrounded by gardens. The popnlation had fled at our approach, almost without an exception. The next day I accompanied a cavalry reconnoissance to Centre- ville, where I saw the immense barracks which the Confede- rates had occupied during the winter, and to Manassas, whose smoking ruins left on the mind a deep impi'ession of sadness. On our return we visited the battle field of Bull Run. Gene- ral McDowell was with us. He could not restrain his tears at tlie sight of those bleaching bones, which recalled to him so vividly the cruel recollection of liis defeat. While we were making these promenades grave events were occurring in tlie highest regions of the army. There exists in the American army, as in the English, a commander-in-chief who exercises over the head of all the generals, a supreme authority, regulates the distribution of the troops and directs military operations. These functions, which have been greatly curtailed in the British array, since the Crimean war, were still exercised with all their vigor in America. From the aged General Scott, who had long honorably discharged them, they had passed to General McClellan. We learned on reaching Fairfax, that they liad been taken away from liim. It is easy to understand the diminution of force and the restrictions upon his usefulness, thus inflicted upon the general-in-chief byablow in the rear at the very outset of his campaign. Yet this was but a part of the mischief done him. McClellan 26 THE ARMV OF THE POTOMAC. liad lung known, better than anybody else, the real strength of the rebels at Manassas and Centreville. He was perfectly familiar whh the existence of the "wooden cannon" by which it has been pretended that he was kept in awe for six months. But he also knew that till the month of April the roads of Virginia are in such a state that wagons and artillery can only be moved over them by constructing plank roads, a tedious operation, during which the enemy, holding the railways, could either retreat, as he was then actually doing, or move for a blow upon some other point. In any event, had Mc- Clellan attacked and carried Centreville, pursuit was impos- sible and victory would have been barren of results. A single bridge burned would have saved Johnston's whole army. Such are the vast advantages of a railway for a retreating army — advantages which do not exist for the army which pur- sues it. We have the right, we think, to say that McClellan never in tended to advance upon Centreville. His long determined pu pose was to make Washington safe by means of a strong garrison, and then to use the great navigable waters and immense naval resources of the North to transport the army by sea to a point near Kichmond. For weeks, perhaps for months, this plan had been secretly maturing. Secresy as well as pi-omj)tness, it will be understood, was indispensable here to success. To keep the secret it had been necessary to confide it to few per- sons, and hence had arisen one great cause for jealousy of the General. Be this as it may, as the day of action drew near, those who suspected the General's project, and were angry at not being informed of it ; those wdiom his promotion had excited to envy ; his political enemies ; (who is without them in Amer- ica?) in short all those beneath or beside him who wished him ill, broke out into a chorus of accusations of slowness, inaction, incapacity. McClellan, with a patriotic courage which I have THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 27 always admired, disdained these accusatious, and made no re- ply. He satisfied himself with pursuing his preparations in hiborious silence. But the moment came in which, notwith- standing tlie loyal support given him by the President, that functionary could no longer resist the tempest. A council of war of all the divisional generals was held ; a })laii of campaign, not that of McCIellan, was proposed and discussed. McClellan was then forced to explain his projects, and the next day they were known to the enemy. Informed no doubt by one of those thousand female spies who keep up his com- munications into the domestic circles of the federal enemy, Jolmston evacuated Manassas at once. This was a skillful manoeuvre. Incapable of assuming the offensive ; threatened with attack either at Centreville, where defence would be useless if successful, or at Richmond, the loss of which would be a grave check, and unable to cover both positions at once, Johnston threw his whole force before the latter of the two. For the Army of the Potomac this was a misfortune. Its movement was unmasked before it had been made. Part of its transports were still frozen up in the Hudson, Such being the state of affairs, was it proper to execute as rapidly as pos- sible the movement upon Richmond by water, or to march iipon Richmond by land ? Such was the grave question to be settled by the young general in a miserable room of an aban- doned house at Fairfax within twenty-four hours. And it was at this moment that the news of his removal as general-in- chief reached him ; the news, that is, that he could no longer count upon the co-operation of the other armies of the Union, and that the troops under his own orders were to be divided into four grand corps under four separate chiefs named in order of rank, a change which would throw into subaltern positions some young generals of division who had his personal confidence. It is easy to see that here was matter enough to 28 THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. cast a cloud upon the firmest mind. But the General's reso- lution was promptl}' taken. To follow the confederates by land to Richmond at this sea- son of the year was a material impossibility. An incident had just proved this to be so. Gen. Stonemau, with a flying column, had been sent in pursuit of the enemy. This column came up with the enemy on the Rappahannock, along the railway to Gordonsville, and had two engagements with him of no great importance. Then came the rain. The fords were swollen, the bridges carried away, the water-courses could no longer be passed by swimmiug; they were torrents. Stone- man's column began to suffer for want of provisions, and its situation was perilous. In order to communicate with the army Stonemau had to send two of McClellan's aides-de-camp, who had accompanied him, across a river on a raft of logs tied together with ropes. Such was the country before the arm3\ Furthermore, the enemy was burning and breaking up all the bridges. Now with the wants of the American soldier and the usual extrav- agance of his rations, and with the necessity of transporting everything through a country where nothing is to be found, and where the least storm makes the roads impassable, no army can live unless it supports its march upon a navigable water-course or a railway. In Europe our military admiv.is- tration assumes that the transportation service of an army of one hundred thousand men can only provision that army for a three days' march from its base of operations. In America this limit must be reduced to a single day. An American army, therefore, cannot remove itself more than one day's march from the railway or the water-course by whicli it is supplied ; and if the road which it is taking happens to be interrupted by broken bridges it must wait till the}- are re- paired, or move forward without food and without ammuni- tion. I need only add tliat upon the roads which led to Rich- THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 29 moiid there were viaducts which it would have required six Aveeks to reconstruct. The land march was therefore abandoned and we came back to the movement bj water. But this operation also was no longer what it had been when McClellan had conceived it. The revelation of his plans to the enemy had allowed the lat- ter to take his precautions. The evacuation of Manassas had preceded instead of following the opening of the federal cam- paign. The movement by water could no longer be a sur- prise. Unfortunately it was now also to lose the advantages of a rapid execution. A few days had been half lost in a useless pursuit of the enemy while the transports were assembling at Alexandria. At last they were assembled and the order came to embark. But here a new misunderstanding awaited the General. He had been promised transports which could convey 50,000 men at a time. He found vessels hardly equal to the conveyance of half that number. Instead of moving at once, as McClellan liad intended, a whole army with its equipage, a number of trips had to be made. The embarkation began March IT. The force consisted of eleven divisions of infantry, 8,000 to 10,000 strong ; one division of regulars (inf. and cav.) 6,000 strong ; 350 pieces of artillery. The total eifective force may have been 120,000 men. At the moment of departure a whole division was detached to form, we know not why, an inde- pendent command under General Fremont in the mountains of Yirginia. We shall see the Potomac army successively undergo other not less inexplicable diminutions. But we anticipate. A fortnight was required to move the army to Fortress Monroe. This point was chosen because the apparition of the Merrimac, and her tremendous exhibition of her strength, had made it impossible to regard the federal navy as absolutely mistress of the waters of Yirginia. 30 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. Fortreps Monroe is a regular citadel, built of stone, wliicli occupies the southern point of the Virginian peninsula, and has remained in the hands of the Federal Government since the outbreak of the war. This fortress, crossing its fire with that of the Rip Raps, a fort built on an artificial island, commands the passage from the Atlantic to Hampton Roads, and thence by the James river to Richmond, or bj the Elizabeth to Nor- folk, where the Merrimac was then lying. It was in these interior waters that the naval battles had occurred which have filled such a place in public attention, and which exercised upon the future of the Army of the Potomac so serious an in- fluence, that it will not perhaps be improper to give them a place in this narrative. I shall not describe tlie Merrimac, which everybody now knows. I M'ill simply remind the reader that she was an old and very large screw steam frigate, razeed to the water line, and covered with an iron roof, inclined just far enough to throw oif any ball which might strike her. In this roof portholes were made for 100-pounder Armstrong guns, and for other pieces of very heavy calibre. The bows were armed with an iron spur, resembling that of the ancient galleys. On the 8th of March, the Merrimac, escorted by several iron-clad gun- boats, leaves the Elizabeth river and steei's straight for the mouth of the James, where lay anchored the two old-fashioned sailing frigates, the Cumberland and Congress, Both open with full broadsides upon the unexpected enemy, but without effect ; the balls ricochet from the iron roof. The Merrimac keeps quietly on, and at a speed of no more than from four to five knots strikes her spur into the side of the Cumberland. It is a singular fact that the shock was so slight as to be scarcely ])erceptible on board tlie Merrimac ; but it had smit- ten the federal frigate to death. She was seen to careen and go down majestically, carrying with her two hundred men of her crew, who, to the last moment, worked their useless guns; THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 31 a grand and glorious spectacle ! Bat in this fatal shock the Merriniac had broken her spur. Was this her reason for not even atteni])ting to sink the Congress? It is at least certain tjiat she confined herself to an artillery duel with the latter frigate. Encumbered with the dead and the dying the Con- gress set her sails, ran ashore, hanled down her flag, and burst into flames. In attempting to capture part of her crew, the sailors of the Merrimac were exposed to a musketry fire from the shore, and a ball struck her brave and skillful commander, Captain Buchanan. Meanwhile, the federal squadron united in Hampton Roads, got under weigh to come to the help of their unfortunate com- panions in th.e James river: but this squadron could afford them but little help. It was composed of three frigates, of which one alone, the Minnesota, was in a condition to be of any service ; this vessel was a screw frigate of the size of the Merrimac, but stie was not iron-clad. The two others, the Roanoke, a screw frigate which had lost her mainmast and tlie St. Lawrence, an old sailing frigate, were oidy good to be destroyed. Both of these vessels, after fruitless efforts to reach the scene of action, and after partially running aground, gave up the attempt and returned to their anchorage. As to the Minnesota, which might have had some chance against the Merrimac, not with her guns, but by using her superior speed to run liei- aboard and sink her by the shock, she drew six feet of water more than the Merrimac, and obeyed her helm very badly wlien she had no more than one foot of water un- der her keel, and so she, too, ran aground in a very dangerous situation. There is no doubt that if the Merrimac had attacked her here she would liave shared the fate of the Cumberland and the Congress. The Merrimac, probably to ave.ige her captain, remained off the camp of Newport Kews, shelling that and tlie batteries, aiid then returned to Norfolk, where she went in for the night, probably intending to come out the 32 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. next day and finish her work of destruction. But during tlie night the Monitor arrived. I must ask to be pardoned for the familiar comparison wliich I am about to use to give the reader an idea of this singular vessel. Everybody knows the cylindrical Savoy biscuits covered with chocolate paste, which are a principal ornament of every pastry cook's shop. Let the reader imagine one of these biscuits placed in an oblong plate, and he will have an exact idea of the external appearance of the Monitor. The Savoy biscuit stands for an iron tower pierced with two openings through wliich peer the muzzles of two enormous cannons. This tower is made to turn upon its axis by a very ingenious contrivance, in such a fashion as to direct its fire on any point of the hori- zon. As to the oblong plate on which the biscuit reposes, this is a kind of lid of iron set on at the water level upon the hull which contains the engine, the storage for provisions, and for the crew, and the displacement of the hull supports the whole structure. From a distance the tower only is visible, and this floating tower, so novel in appearance, was the first thing which greeted the Merrimac and her comrades when, on the morning of the 9tli of March, they came back to give the final blow to the Minnesota, which was still ashore, and pro- bably to work further ruin. The two hostile ships, Jamestown and Yorktown, advanced first, with that sort of timid curiosity which a dog displays when he comes near an unknown animal. They had not long- to wait, two flashes sprang from the tower, and were followed by the hissing of two 120-pound balls. ISTo more was needed to send the two scouts flying back. The Merrimac, also, at once perceived that there was work ahead, and ran boldly down to meet this unexpected adversary. Then began the duel which has been so much discussed, and which seems des- tined to bring on so great a revolution in the naval art. From THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 33 the firs!:, the two tilters felt that they must fight at close quar- ters ; but, even at a few yards distance, they seemed to be equally iuvuhierable. The balls ricochetted and struck with- out appearuig to leave any trace but the very slightest bruises. Round shot of 120 pounds, conical 100-pounders, Armstrong balls, nothing went through. Then the Merriniac, trying to take advantage of her huge mass, undertook to sink her enera}'- by taking her violently in flank. But she could not get Bufiicient way. The Monitor, short, agile, easily handled, ran up to her, ran around her, escaped her blows with a speed which the Merrimac, from lier excessive length, could not at- tain. ISTothing could be more curious than to see the two ad- versaries turning one about the other, the little Monitor describing the inner circle, both equally watchful for the weak point of the enemy against which to discharge at point blank one of their enormous projectiles. " It was for all the world," said an eye-witness, "like the fight of Heenan with Sayers." So the conflict went on with no visible results for several hours. Once, only, the Merrimac succeeded in strik- ing the side of the Monitor with her bows ; but the Monitor wheeled around under the shock like a floating shell, and a very slight indenture left upon her plating was the only damage caused by this tremendous concussion. The exhaus- tion of the combatants put an end to this struggle. The con- federates returned to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in posses- sion of the field of battle. The Minnesota and the whole flotilla in Hampton Roads were saved, the pigmy had held his own against the giant. It remained to be seen if the latter would make another effort when the stakes should be more tempting, when, instead of seeking to destroy one or two .shi]DS of war, there should be a chance of preventing the disembarkation of a whole army of invasion. These were the circumstances in which I arrived at Fortress Monroe. Soon the Roads were filled with vessels coming 3 34 THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. from Alexandria or Annapolis, and filled, some Avith soldiers, some with jiorses, cannon and munitions of all kinds. Some- times I counted several hundred vessels at the anchorage, and among tliem twenty or twenty-five large steam transports waiting for their turn to come up to the quay and laud the fif- teen or twenty thousand men wliom they brought. The reader may judge how fearful would have been the catostroplie had the Merrimac suddenly appeared among this swarm of ships, striking them one after another and sendins: to the bottom these human hives with all their inmates ! The federal authorities both naval and military here underwent several days of the keenest anxiety. Eveiy time that a smoke was seen above the trees which concealed the Elizabeth river, men's hearts beat fast; but the Merrimac never came ; she allowed the landing to take place without opposition. Why did she do tliis? She did not come because her position at Norfolk as a con- stant menace secured without any risk two results of great importance. In the first place she kept paralysed in Hampton Eoads tlie naval forces assembled to join the land army in the attack upon Yorktown : in the second place, and this was her principal object, she deprived the federal army of all the advantages which the possession of the James would have secured to it in a campaign of which Eichmond was the base. No doubt, if the Merrimac had gone down to the Roads and destroyed the fleet there assembled, she would have achieved an immense result, but all the chances would not have been with her in such an enterprise. In the first place, the Merri- mac would have encountered tlio Monitpr. Ship to ship she did not fear this enemy: the Monitor's armament had proved impotent against her armor and would prove so again ; and if she had not succeeded in sinking the Monitor at the first shock she had taken her measures to secure better luck the next time. THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 35 The expedient adopted was a suljniarine spur of hammered steel, ten feet long witli which slie would have reached the hull of the Monitor below her iron cover. Of course the latter floating at the water level and without compartments must have gone down as soon as she fairly made water. But the Monitor would have had new auxiliaries in a new conflict When the Merrimac first came out, as she was seen to make nothing of piercing the Cumberland and sinking that unlucky ship, it had instantly occurred to the federals that in the ab sence of vessels constructed like herself the best means of fight ing her would be to employ large vessels of great speed, which might be brought together to the number of five or six and driven against her as soon as she should make her appearance. The engines of these ships once set in motion, only five or six men would be required to guide them. The men and the ships were ready. Had the Merrimac appeared they would have run down upon her at twice her speed. One at least must have succeeded in striking her broadside and would have infallibly sunk he-r, for her cuirass offered no defence against such an attack, or must have run her aboard at the stern and deranged her screw when the Monitor would have had her at her mercy. Other precautions had been taken. A net-work of submarine cordag-e had been set at the mouth of the Eliza- beth river, and this would probably not have failed to sweep around the Merrimac's screw and paralyse its working. All these things, but especially the five or six large vessels with steam always up, and always on the watch like a pack of dogs straining at the leash, had brought the confederate authorities to reflection. For my own part, I am perfectl}^ satisfied that if the Merrimac had ventured into the deep water, beyond the shoals which obstruct the entrance of the James and Eliza- beth, where her adversaries could get way upon them, she would have gone down in a few moments. The federal officei's appreciating the importance of the object aimed at were deter 36 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. mined 1:o sacrifice their ships and with their ships their own lives to attain it. In a w^ord, the American navy might prevent the Merrimac from coming into deep water and interfering with the mili- tary operations, of which the York river was the destined theatre. But the Merrimac, on the other hand, stood in tlie Wiiy of similar operations on the James. This was an im- mense service to be rendered by a single ship ! We have seen above how impossible it became to move forward the army of the Potomac directly and by land upon Richmond, w^hen the railway lines, by which it was to be supplied and its different parts united, were interrupted. Here we see the direct road to Richmond by water blocked by a vessel, a wreck happily rescued from the destruction of the ISTorfolk navy yard, fished up half burned from the bottom of a dock, and transformed by hands as intelligent as they were daring, into a formidable w^arlike machine. Instead of moving up the bank of the James river to Richmond rapidly under the escort and with the support of a powerful flotilla, here was the whole federal army conij)elled to disembark under great perils at Fortress Monroe in order to take the practicable but long and round-about road of the York river. "We were to be forced into going first to Yorktowu, an obstacle to be removed bv arms, and then into ascending the York and the Pamun- key to the head waters at "White House. From this point ■where w^e must leave our gunboats, we were then to follow the line of the York river railway, a road on which there were happily no bridges, and which it was not therefore easy to cut, but which traverses an unwholesome region, and offers the formidable barrier of the Chickahominy river at a few- miles from Richmond. A sure and rapid operation was thus converted into a long and hazardous campaign, simply because we had lost on one point, and for a short time, the control of the water. Every THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 37 body had doubted the efficiency of iron-clads, and nobody had thought much of the Merrimac before we learned what she was. This skepticism was cruelly punished. In the West the armies of the Union were going on from success to suc- cess, thanks to the cooperation, energy, and enterprise of the navy, admirably seconded by the geographical formation of the country. Here things were very diiferent. A single suc- cess of the confederates by sea, a single blow which they had succeeded in striking by surprise, was destined perhaps to paralyze the whole federal army, to make it lose great geo- graphical advantages equal to those which existed in the West, and to compromise, or at least to postpone the success of its operations ; so true is it that experience has not yet taught even the most experienced maritime nations all that is to be gained by the cooperation of a well-organized navy in wars by land ! III. Whilst we were thus waitinsr and waiting in vain for the Merrimac, the army was landing at Fortress Monroe, now the scene of a prodigious activity. By the 4th of April, six divi- sions, the cavalry, the reserve, and an immense number of wagons had been landed. The General-in-Chief who had arrived the evening before, put them at once in motion. Keyes, with three divisions took the road which leads along the banks of the James river. McClellan with the rest of the army followed the direct road to Yorktown. We came at once upon the ruins of Hampton, burned down some months before, a la I^ostopc/mi, by the confederate G-eneral Magru- der. We were informed that he still commanded the garrison of Yorktown and the Peninsula. Magruder, like all the 38 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. confederate leaders, had belonged to tlie regular army of the Union down to the moment of the insurrection. His former comrades, now at the head of the federal troops, were familiar w^ith his habits and character, and sought to infer from them the course he would pursue. This reciprocal knowledge which the chiefs of the tw^o armies possessed of each other, the result of a career begun in common in early youth at the military school, and pursued either on the battle-field or in the tedious life of frontier garrisons, was certainly a singular trait of this singular war. Some people built up their hopes of a final reconciliation upon these old intimacies, but such hopes were not to be realized. Another not less curious trait of the war, which appeared in the outset of the campaign and was constantly reproduced, was the complete absence of all information in regard to the country and to the position of the enemy, the total ignorance imder which we labored in regard to his movements, and the number of his troops. The few inhabitants we met were hostile and dumb ; the deserters and negroes generally told us much more than they knew in order to secure a welcome, and as we had no maps and no knowledge of localities, it was impossible to make anything of their stories, and to reconcile their often contradictory statements. We were here twenty-four miles from Yorktown, and we could not learn what works the enemy had thrown up, nor what was his force within them. This was the more amazing that Fortress Monroe had always been held by a strong gar- rison, which ought to have been able to obtain some inform- ation or to make some reconnoissance in this direction. But by a strange aberration, this fortress now become the base of operations of the Army of the Potomac, had been specially sequestered from the command of General McClellan, together with its garrison, although the General in charge of it was his inferioi- in rank. Hence arose military susceptibilities THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. 39 whicli were by no mcjans favorable to the exctiange of con- fidential communications. So the Army of the Potomac moved on in the dark toward Yorktown. We were two days on the road. The column of the General-in-Chief had passed some fortified positions abandoned by the enemy. A few horsemen were occasionally seen at rare intervals. No sooner had we come under the walls of Yorktown than we were arrested by the cannon. A few gunboats, which had appeared at the mouth of York river, had found it guarded by some forty pieces of heavy calibre. The naval officers concluded that they could not pass this battery • the investment of the place by water must consequently be abandoned. When we undertook to invest it by land, we came upon a series of works stretching across the peninsula, on the edge of a marshy stream, called Warwick Creek, and high enough to make investment im- possible. The confederates had dammed this marshy stream in places so as to convert it into a pond, and their dams, with other accessible points, were defended by artillery, redoubts, and rifle-pits. Abattis had been formed in front of these re- doubts and upon the opposite side of the marsh so as to secure a wide range for the guns. General Keyes, in trying to pass the river Warwick, had been the first to encounter this line of defence. His march had been very slow. TJie country, perfectly flat, and covered with marshy forests, was only traversed by a few roads scarce worth}^ of the name. The rain, falling in tor- rents, unusual at this season of the year, had made these roads, if we must so call them, completely impracticable. The infantry could contrive to get on by marching in the water through the woods, but as soon as two or three wagons had made ruts in the ground, no wheeled vehicle could move an inch. Of course all movement was impossible, for w^ could not leave the wagons. The country was utterly de- 40 THK ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. serted. Except M-ater and food, it supplied ns with nothing. The soldiers, unaccustomed either to long marches or to carry their ammunition, carried but two days' provisions. These exhausted, the wagons were tlieir only resource. Then it was that we had to make what in America are called corduroy roads. These are made by cutting down trees of the same size, a few inches in diameter, and laying them side by side on the ground. All the infantry, not on duty at the advanced posts, were employed, working up to their knees in the mud and water, upon this Herculean labor, and they got through it wonderfully. Here the American pioneer was in his element ; the roads were made as if by enchantment. The cannon and the wagons came in slowly indeed, but they came in where it seemed an impossibility they ever should do so. At night the troops could find no dry corner for their bivouac. They had to sit down on the trunks of felled trees, or to construct with logs a sort of platform, on which they snatched a ver}" precarious rest. I remember to have seen a general of division whose whole establishment consisted of five or six pine branches, one end stuck in the mud, or rather in the water, the other resting on a tree. Here he slept with an indian- rubber cloak over his head. Marchinsj alonjj in this fashion, we reached the confederate lines, which opened on us at once with a sharp fire of artillery. We replied, but without making any impression on the well-defined works which covered, the hostile cannon. The creek had been recon- noitred and found impassable by infantry, both on account of the depth of water and of its marshy borders, in which the troops would have been mired under a cross-fire of numbers of sharpshooters, concealed in the woods and behind the em- bankments. Throughout the seven miles of the confederate lines we en- countered the same attitude of alert defence. Everywlicre cannon and camps. Of course the inference was that we woru THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 41 arrested by forces apparently fonnidable and before a position not easily to be carried. But tins case had been foreseen. Ir order to gain time, and avoid the tedium of a siege, General McClellau had thought out the means of turning the position. The enemy held the James, with the Merrimac and his sun boats ; the York was closed by the Yorktown and Gloucester Point batteries. Nevertheless, by a disembarkation on the Severn, beyond Gloucester, we might carry the latter position and open the way of the federal gunboats into the river York. A subsequent movement up the left bank, in the direction of West Point, would put us so far in the rear of the army charg- ed with the defence of tlie lines of Yorktown, that it would have been in a most perilous position. This accomplished, the confederates must have abandoned Gloucester, and fallen back hastily upon Richmond. The execution of this cou^ de main had been left to a corps of the army commanded by General McDowell. This corps was to be the last to embark at Washington, and it was calculated that it ought to reach Yorktown in a body on its transports at the moment when the rest of the army, moving by land, should appear before that post from Fortress Monroe. Instead of finding it, we received the inexplicable and as yet unexplained intelligence that this corps, 35,000 strong, had been sent to another destination. The news was received in the army with stupefaction, although the majority could not foresee the deplorable consequences of a step taken, it must be supposed, with no evil intention, but certainly with inconceivable recklessness. Fifteen days before, this measure, although it must always have been injurious, would have been much less so. We might have made arrangements upon a new basis. Taken when it was it deranged a whole system of machinery fairly at work. Among the divisions of McDow- ell's corps, there was one, that of Franklin, T^hicli was more regretted than all the others, as M^ell on account of the troops 42 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. themselves, as of their commanders. The General-in-Chief had bestowed special pains on its organization during the winter, and earnestly demanded its restoration. It was sent back to him without a word of explanation, precisely as it had been detached from him. This fine division, 11,000 strong, arrived, and for a moment the General thought of intrusting to it alone the Gloucester expedition. But this intention was renounced. Then came the reflection, that somewdiere in these seven miles of confederate intrenchments, there must be a weak spot. Could this spot be found and forced, the usual result in such cases would probably come to pass. The enemy at either ex- tremity would suppose themselves to have been turned, and would become demoralized. If we then continued to pour a constantly increasing force of our troops through the opening thus made, we would probably inflict upon the army thus cut in two one of those disasters which settle the fate of a campaign. This weak point, it was supposed, had been found near the centre of the lines of Warwick Creek, at a place called Lee's Mill. The bottom here was firm, the water waist deep. In front of the hostile w^orks was a kind of open plateau, upon which a strong artillery force might be brought up to shatter them. On the 16th of April, an attempt was made at this point. Eighteen field-pieces opened fire at 500 yards on the confederate batteries, and silenced them, and the creek was then passed by some Vermont companies. They advanced gallantly, carried a rifle-pit, but their am- munition had been wetted in passing the stream ; they were not supported, and retired after losing many of their number. The project thus began was, no doubt, found to present un- foreseen difficulties, and it was at once abandoned. This operation, like that against Gloucester, not being feasi ble, we were forced to undertake the siege of the uninvested fortifications of Yorktown. THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. 43 The various attempts at feeling our way had unfortunately consumed much time, and the siege itself was to consume much more, although it was pushed forward with great ener- gy. Ten thousand laborers, constantly relieved, were set at work on the abattis, through the woods, roads, trenches and batteries. It was a curious spectacle. A narrow arm of the sea, fringed by a close and vigorous vegetable growth, made up of trees of all kinds, living and dead, draped in vines and mosses, wound up towards the front of our attack. This had been used as our -first parallel. Bridges were thrown over it, roads had been opened on the banks among the tulip trees, the Judas trees, and the azaleas in full flower. From this natural parallel others set out, made by human hands and rap- idly approaching the works. The defenders kept up on all that they saw or suspected, a tremendous fire. The shells whistled from every side among the high trees, tore off the branches, scared the horses, but did very little damage. Ko- body heeded them. In the evenings when all the squads came in in good order, their guns on their backs and their picks on their shoulders, the firing increased, as if the enemy had marked the hour. We used to go to the front for this cannonade, as if it were an entertainment, and when on fine spring evenings the troops came in gaily to the sound of mar- tial music through the blossoming woods, and when the bal- loon which we used for our reconnoissances was floating in the air, one easily believed himself to be enjoying a festival, and was glad for a moment to forget the miseries of the war. All this time the siege went on, A powerful artillery force had been brought up, not without difficulty. Rifled guns of 100 and even of 200 pounds calibre, 13-inch mortars, were got ready to batter the works. Fourteen batteries had been built, armed and provisioned. If we had not yet opened a fire it was because we meant it to be general from all sides, and wo were only waiting to get into a complete state of pre- t-l THE ARMY OB^ THE POTOMAC. paration. It was impossible, liowever, to resist the desire we had of trying onr 200-ponnders. These enormous guns were worked with inconceivable ease. Four men were able to load and point them with no more trouble than our old-fashioned 24-pounders. At three miles their fire was admirably accu- rate. One day one of these huge guns had a sort of duel with a somewhat smaller rifled piece mounted on one of the bastions of Yorktown. The curious upon our side got upon the parapets to watch the effect of every shot, then whilst we were discussing our observations the sentinel would warn us that the enemy in liis turn was firing ; but the distance was so great that between the discharge and the arrival of the ball everybody had time enough to step quietly down and get under the shelter of the parapet. Nevertheless, such was the excellence of the firing that you were sure to see the enorm- ous missile pass over the very place where the group of spec tators had a moment before been standing. It would then go on and strike the ground 50 yards in the rear, its cap would explode and it would burst, throwing into the air a cloud of earth as high as the jet of the water-works at St. Cloud. These new and curious artillery experiences were not the only interesting feature of this siege. In 1781 Yorktown had been besieged by the combined forces of France and America under Washington and Kochambeau, and this operation had resulted in the celebrated capitulation which secured the independence of the United States. At every step we came upon the traces of this first siege. Here in this decrepid hovel Lafayette had fixed his head-quarters ; there the French trenches began ; there, again, lay the camp of the regiments of Bourbon and of Saintonge. In other directions appeared the still visible entrenchments of Eochambeau, upon which the almost tropical vegetation of the country had reasserted it empire. Further on was pointed out to us the house inhab- ited by the two commanders. Behind these same fortifica- THE AKMY OF THE POTOMAC. 45 tious of Y jrktown, CornwiiUis and his Eiiglislimeii Iiad so long withstood the assault of the allied armies. Upon yonder ramparts the blood of our soldiers had sealed an alliance un- broken down to our own times ; an alliance to which the United States once owed their prosperity and their greatness. Not to speak of the emotion with which I found myself in this distant spot surrounded by recollections of national glory ; not to speak of the interest with which I examined the traces of scenes of war, some of the actors in which I had myself been permitted to see, I could not but ask myself if by a strange caprice of destiny these same ramparts might not behold the undoing of the work of 1781, and if from the slow siege of Yorktown, both tlie ruin of the great Republic and the rup- ture of the Franco-American alliance might not be fated to come forth. The destiny of the Union was in the hand of the God of Battles. No one could foresee his decrees ; but the Franco-American alliance, that alliance which had so well served all generous ideas, was more plainly dependent upon human will. Doubtless the strife before Yorktown was a civil war, and although the federals were fighting for the most just of all possible causes, nothing absolutely obliged France to send her soldiers to aid them. But the sword of France makes itself felt afar as well as nearer home, and the Ameri- cans of the North could have wished to see their ancient allies throw their influence in favor of the side on which were arrayed justice and liberty. It was plain that with the powerful means which we were using the fall of Yorktown was purely a question of time. Crushed under the weight of the fire about to be opened upon them, without casemates to shelter their troops, with no other defences than earthworks and palisades, the rebels had no chance of prolonged resistance. Everything was ready for the decisive blow. Not only was a terrible bombardment to be directed against the city : not only were the choicest troops 46 THE AEMY OF THE POTOMAC. selected for the grand assault which was to follow the bom- bardment, but the steam transports M^aited only for the signal to pass up into the York river as soon as the place should fall, and land the forces of Franklin high up on the line of the confederate retreat. A part of the forces were actually kept on board of the transports. In a few hours they would have passed over the distance which it would have taken the enemy two days to traverse. Driven by storm from Yoi-ktown, fol- lowed up step for step, intercepted on their road by fresh troops, the army of the South would have been in a very criti- cal position, and the Federals would have found what they so greatly needed, a brilliant military success. This they needed, not only to escape the serious evils with which they were threatened by a prolongation of the cam- paign ; the political was perhaps more urgent than the military necessity. A victory and a decisive victory alone, could bring on the re-establishment of the Union, that object of the ardeni pursuit of all American patriots who set the greatness and the prosperity of their country above the passions of parties and of sects. Bull Run, by humbling one of the adversaries, had for a time shut the door upon all hopes of reconciliation. As soon as the legal government of the country should have re- covered its ground, and proved its strength, it would again become possible to negotiate and to establish, by a common agreement, the fraternal bonds of the Union. To secure this, it was necessary to lose no time. The minds of men were em- bittering on either side ; interests, individual ambitions, foreign intrigues were daily exerting a more active interposition be- tween the two camps, and every delay must make the work of reconciliation more difficult. A great success of the federal army before Yorktown was then of vital importance to the Government at Washington. Unfortunately, the con- federate leaders and generals saw and felt this also ; and like skillful men they t' ok the best way of preventing it. THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 47 In the night of the 8d and dth of May, Yorktown and the lines of Warwick river were evacuated. This evacua- tion must have been commenced several days before, but it had been managed with great secresy and great skill. On the 3d, the fire of the hostile batteries had greatly increased in intensity. The shells from the rifled guns flew in all direc- tions with a length of range which had not before been sus- pected. The accuracy of theip fire* forced us to abandon all the signal posts we had established in the tops of the tallest trees. The balloon itself, whenever it rose in the air, was sa- luted with an iron hail of missiles which were, however, per- fectly harmless. The object of all this was to mask the retreat, and it was perfectly successful. On 'the 4:th, at daybreak, the men in the rifle-pits of the advance saw no signs of the foe before them. A few of them ventured cautiously up to the very lines of the enemy. All was as silent as death. Soon suspicion grew into cer- tainty ; it was flashed upon the head-quarters by all tlie telegraphic lines which connected them with the difi'er- ent corps of the army. The confederates had vanished, and with them all chances of a brilliant victory. The impos- sibility of any naval cooperation, and the fatal measures by which the Army of the Potomac lost the corps of McDowell, had combined with the firmness of the enemy to prevent us from taking Yorktown by storm. "We had next spent a whole month in constructing gigantic works now become useless, and now, after all this, the confederates fell back, satisfied with gaining time to prepare foi* the defence of Richmond, and henceforth relying on the season of heats and sickness for aid against the federal army encamped among the marshes of * Note. — 1 am not sure whether I ought to attribute to tliis accuracy an cxtiaordi- naiy fact which occurred during the siege. Some topographical engineers were bu.sy estimating a relief. They were perceived, and a single .«hot was fired at thera. The sliell, fired from an immense distance, burst upon tlie circumferentor and killed the officer and his a.ssistant. 48 THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. Virginia. The federals, whose number was constantly lessen- ing, saw before them the perspective of a campaign Avhich threatened to become more and more laborious, diminishino- daily as its perils increased the chances of an amicable ad- justment. Here was matter enough for serious and even for melancholy reflection : but in war moments are precious, and it is weakness to lose them in lamentations. It was probable that the enemy was at no great distance. He could not yet have gained any considerable start, and by throwing ourselves rapidly upon his track we might at least come up with his rear guard, fling it into disorder, and make some prisoners. A few hours after the news was received of the evacuation, the whole army was in motion. Stoneman's cavalry first crossed the intrenchments. As they passed on, several infer- nal machines, cowardly instruments of destruction, burst under the horses' feet and killed several men. We had only time to cast a single glance upon the formid- able works thrown up by the enemj^, upon which he had abandoned 72 pieces of artillery ; then passing swiftly through his deserted camps and burning magazines, amid whicli the sound of sudden explosions was heard from time to time, we took the road to Williamsburg, a small city situated upon a point at which the Virginian peninsula, shut closely in be- tween two arms of the sea, off'ers a strong and defensible posi- tion. It was upon this isthmus that we expected to come up with the rear guard of the enemy. Stoneman marched rapidly upon Williamsburg with all the cavahy and four batteries -of horse artillery. The infantry followed as fast as the few and narrow roads would ])ennit. There were really only two of these roads — one direct from Yorktown, the other coming from the left of the federal posi- tions. The latter traversed Warwick river at Lee's Mill, on a bridge which it took three hours to rebuild. When Smith's division, which was the first to cross, had advanced a shoi't THE ARMY OF TKI^ POTOMAC. 49 distance it met a portion of the confederate army, which gave way and fell back before it. Smith informed McClellan of this, and the General, who thought that Stoneman might ont- strip the hostile column and cut it off at the fork of the roads before Williamsburg, sent orders to that officer to hasten his march. Unfortunately, it was not easy to advance rapidly. The roads, and particularly that road taken by the cavalry, were narrow and full of frightful morasses from which it was difficnlt to extricate the cannon, although the weather had been fine and dry for several days. At any other time we should have paused to admire the scenery of this lovely region covered with virgin forests broken at intervals by a clearing, and recalling by its aspect the smiling districts of Devonshire, that Provence of England. But now we only looked upon these forests as the hiding places of an enemy. The young Duke of Chartres, on a scout with forty horsemen, suddenly fell upon a confederate brigade. This was the rear guard of the column described by Smith. The prince brought back some fifteen prisoners and gave his information to Stoneman, who hurried his advance to reach tiiis column before it should join the body of the hostile forces supposed to be at Williams- burir. Soon the fork of the two roads was reached, the one leading from Yorktown, by which Stoneman was advancing, and the other leading from Lee's Mill, by which the confed- erates were retreating. But the moment that the fed- eral cavalry came out upon this fork, it was received by an artillery fire from numerous field works erected in front of Williamsburg. A rapid survey explained the position. As we have stated, the Virginian peninsula narrows towards Wil- liamsburg. Two creeks or bays, the one opening out of the James, the other out of the York, and both terminating in marshes, make this neck of land still smaller, and form be- tween the marshes a kind of isthmus upon which the roads from ].ee's Mill and from Yorktown debouch. To the south 4 50 THE AUMY OF THE POTOMAC. of tlie isthnins, that is to say in the direction of the approach from Yorktown, the country is densely wooded. To the north, on the contrary, tliat is to say towards Williamsburg, it is open and exhibits large fields of grain behind which the spires and towers of the city are visible. Upon this open sj)ace, the enemy had erected first, a considerable bastioned work, Fort Magrnder, placed upon the roadway opposite the isthmus, and then a series of redoubts and rifle-])its fronting every part of the marsh over which it Avould have been possible for in- fantry to advance. He had then constructed vast abattis in such wise as to expose to his artillery and musketry the ap- proaches of the marsh and of tlie fork of the roads. It was in the midst of these abattis that the federal cavalry debouched upon the trot ; and here it was, that they were saluted with a shower of shells from Fort Magruder. In the space between this fort and the redoubts, the confederate foot and horse were drawn up in order of battle. Stoneman, seeing that the enemy covered the fork of the roads, and perceiving that it M'ould be impossible for him to maintain his ground before them, nnder- took to dislodge them by a vigorous blow. He threw forward all his horse artillery, which took up its positions brilliantly in front of the abattis, and replied to the fire of the redoubts ; and he then ordered liis cavalry to charge. The sixth federal cavaby dashed forward gallantly to meet the cavalry of the confederates, passed directly under the cross-fire of the redoubts, and rode into one of those fights Avith the cold steel which liave become so rare in these days. Nevertheless, this was all so much valor thrown away. The enemy did not disturb himself; lie had the advantages of number and position. To carry these works with cavalry was impossible. Men and particularly horses, began to fall. " I have lost thirty-one men," said Major Williams, who had led the charge of the sixth, gracefully sal- uting General Stoneman with his sabre, with that air of deter- mination which says, " we will go at it again, but it's of no use." THE ARMY OF THE rOTOMAC. 51 Stoneman then ordered the retreat. We repassed the abattis, and fallhig Ijack to a clearing about half a mile distant, there awaited the arrival of the infantry to renew the engagement. Unluckily, in traversing the marsh, a gun of the horse-artil- lery got buried in the mud and could not be extricated. In vain were the teams doubled. The enemy concentrated his fire of shells on that point and killed all the horses. The gun had to be left. It was the first whicli the army had lost, and the men were inconsolable. In the evening we renewed our efforts to recover it, but the abattis were filled with hostile sharpshooters who made it impossible to approach. The sun was going down. The confederate columns coming from Lee's Mill, escaped and took shelter behind the entrenchments of Williamsburg. As to the federal infantry, it came up very late. The roads over which it passed had been tremendously obstructed. At nightfall General Sumner, who had assumed command, wished to make an attempt to carry the works. Unfortunately it was completely dark before the troops de- bouched from the woods and the marshes, and everything had to be put off to the next day. Upon this supervened one of those vexatious mishaps which are too common in war, and of which this anny did not escape its full share during this trying campaign. The I'ain began to fall in torrents and poured down incessantly for thirty consecutive hours. The country became one vast lake, the roads were channels of liquid mud. The troops dismally bivouacked for the night where they stood. 'Next day the battle began again, but, of course, in circum- stances unfavorable to the federals. The two roads leading to Williamsburg were crowded with troops. Upon that to the left from Lee's Mill, were the divisions of Hooker and Kearney be- longing to Heintzel man's corps — but they were separated from each other by an enormous multitude of wagons loaded down with baggage, and for the most part, fast in the mud. Upon 52 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. that to the right two other divisions were moving forward witli still greater difficulty. Such was the condition of the ground that the cannon sank over tlie axle into the mud. This inedley of men and baggage thrown pellmell into narrow and flooded roads had fallen into considerable disorder. In the United States there is no such thing as a corps of the General Staff. The American system of " ever}'" man for himself," individually applied by the officers and soldiers of each corps to one another, is also applied by the corps themselves to their reciprocal relations. There is no special branch of the service whose duty it is to regulate, centralize and direct the movements of the army. In such a case as this of which we are speaking, we should have seen the General Staff Officers of a French army taking care that notliing should impede the advance of the troops, stopping a file of wagons here and ordering it out of the road to clear the way, sending on a de- tail of men there to repair the roadway or to draw a cannon out of the mire, in order to conmiunicate to every corps com- mander the orders of the General-in-Chief Here nothing of the sort is done. Tlie functions of the adjutant-general are limited to the transmission of the orders of tlie genera]. He has nothing to do with seeing that they are executed. The general has no one to bear his orders but aides-de-camp who have the best intentions in the world, and are excellent at repeating mechanically a verbal order, but to whom nobody pays much attention if they undertake to exercise any initiative whatever. Down to the present moment although this want of a General Staff had been often felt, its consequences had not been serious. We had the telegraph, which followed the army everywhere and kept up communications between the different corps ; the generals could converse together and inform each other of anything that it was impuitant to know. But once on the march this resource was lost to us, and so farewell to our communications ! THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 63 The want of a General SUiif was not less severely felt in obtaining and transmitting the information necessary at the moment of an impending action. No one knew the country ; the maps were so defective that they were useless. Little was known about the fortified battle-field on which the army was about to be engaged. Yet this battle-field had been seen and re- connoitred the day before by the troops which had taken part inStoneman's skirmish. Enough was surely known of it for us to combine a plan of attack and assign to every commander his own part in the work. No, this was not so. Every one kept his observations to himself, not from illwill, but because it was nobody's special duty to do this general work. It was a defect in the organization, and with the best elements in the world an army which is not organized cannot expect great success. It is fortunate if it escape great disaster. Thanks to this constitutional defect of the federal armies, Hooker's division which led the column on the left hand road and had received, the day before, a general order to march npon Williamsburg, came out on the morning of the 5th upon the scene of Stoneman's cavalry fight without the least knowledge of what it was to meet there. Eeceived as soon as it appeared with a steady fire from the hostile works, it de- ployed resolutely in the abattis and went into action. But it came up little by little and alone, whilst the defence was carried on by from 15 to 20,000 men strongly entrenched. The odds were too great. Hooker, who is an admirable soldier, held his own for some time, but he had to give way and fall back, leaving in the woods and in these terrible abattis some two thousand of his men killed and wounded, with several of his ffuns which he could not bring ofi". The enemy followed him as lie fell back. The division of General Kearney having passed the crowded road, and marching upon the guns at the pas de course, re- established the battle. The fisrht had now rolled from the ■64 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. edges of tlic plain into tlie forest, and it was sLarp, for the enemy was strongly reinforced. The federals fought not less firmly, encouraged by their chiefs, Hooker, Heintzelman, and Kearney. Kearney in especial, who lost an arm in Mexico, and fought with the French at the Muzaia and at Solferino, had displayed the finest courage. All his aids had fallen around him, and left alone he had electrified his men by his intrepid- ity. During all this time the part of the army massed on the road to the right remained passive. A single division only liad come up, and the generals in command could not resolve to throw it into the engagement without seeing its supports. These supports were delayed by the swollen streams, the en- cumbered roads, the shattered wagons sticking in the mud. But all the while the sound of Hookei''s musketry was in our ears. His division was cut up and falling back. His guns had been heard at first in front, then on one side, and they were receding still. The balls and tlie shells began to whistle and shatter the trees over the fresh division as it stood immova- ble and expectant. It was now three o'clock, and the generals resolved to act. One division passed through the woods to flank the regiments which Avere driving Hooker, while to the extreme right a brigade passed the creek on an old mill bridge, which the enemy had failed to secure, and debouched upon the flank of the Williamsburg works. The confederates did not expect this attack, which, if successful, must sweep everything be- fore it. They dispatched two brigades, which advanced resolutely through the corn fields to drive back the federals. The latter coolly allowed their foes to come up, and received thom with a tremendous fire of artillery. Th( confederates unshaken, pushed on within thirty yards of the cannon's mouth, shouting, " Bull Kun ! Bull Kun ! " as the Swiss used to shout, " Griinson ! Granson ! " There, however, they wav- ered, and the federal General Hancock, seizing the moment, THE ARMY OP THE POTOMAC. " 55 cried to his soldiers, as lie waved his cap, " Now, goutlomen, the bayonet ! " and charged with his brigade. The enemy could not withstand the shock, broke and fled, strewing the field with his dead. At this very moment General McClellan, who had been detained at Yorktown, appeared on the field. It 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 uninterrupt- edly. The success of Hancock had been decisive, and the reserves brought up by the General-in-Chief, charging upon the field settled the afl'air. Then it was that I saw General McClellan, passing in front of the Sixth cavalry, give his hand to Major Williams with a few words on his brilliant charge of the day before. The regiment did not hear Mdiat he said, but it knew what he meant, and from every heart went up one of those masculine, terrible shouts, which are oul}' to be heard on the field of battle. These shouts, taken up along the whole line, struck terror 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 com- bat which in America is called '' the battle of Williamsburg. IV. Jfr0m Millhimsbur^ tor Jfit'ir #alis. The next day dawned clear and cloudless. The atmosphere had that purity which in warm countries succeeds a storm ; the woods breathed all the freshness of a fair spring j.aorning. All around us lay a smiling landscape, decked with splendid flowers new to European eyes ; but all this only deepened the mournful contrast of the battle field, strewn with the dead and dying, with wrecks and ruin. The confederates had evacuated their works during the night. We soon entered them and 56 ' THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. watched the blue lines of the federal infantry as they march- ed with banners flying into the town of Williamsburg to the sound of expl >ding magazines and caissons. Shortly after the General's staf came in by a broad fine street, bordered with acacias. All the shops were shnt, but the inhabitants for the most part were to be seen in their doorways and windows, looking on lis with a sombre, anxious air. The negroes alone were smiling. Many of them put on the most grotesquely victorious airs, or decamped in the direction of Fortress Mon- roe, that is to say, of freedom, carrying their wives and children witli them in small carts. From all the public buildings, churches, colleges and the like waved the yellow flag. They were crowded with the wounded left there by the enemy. At the end of a broad street, we debouched upon a handsome square, ornamented with a marble statue of Lord Botetourt, once governor of Virginia, and surrounded by the buildings of a celebrated college founded by the English Government when Virginia was a pet colony. The wounded were lying upon the very steps of the college porticoes. General McClellan's first thought was for the relief of all this suffering. He dispatched a flag of truce to the confeder- ate rear-guard, to request them to send in surgeons to look after their wounded, promising them perfect freedom of action. A number of these medical officers soon arrived, dressed in the dull-gray confederate uniform with the green collar, which gave them the appearance of Austrian Chas- seurs. This duty done, the next thing was to station sentinels for the maintenance of exact discipline. Tliis precaution was superfluous, for if the obedience of the federal soldiers to their officers is not what it should be, for the good of the service, I venture to believe that no army has ever shown more res- pect fDr non-combatants and private property. During the whol r time of my presence with the Army of the Potomac, THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 57 the only instance of disorder wliicli came to my knowledge, ing in "Washington, or failing in that, APPENDIX. 105 for the seizure and removal to tlie South of General Scott. He was excessively disgusted at his inability to accomplish an organization for either purpose. President Davis, who detests Mr. Floyd, seized upon his conduct at the surrender of Fort Donelson as a good occasion for disgracing him, and ordered him into arrest. He remain- ed for some time at his home in Western Virginia, his particu- lar organ, the " Richmond Examiner," meanwhile grinding forth, almost daily, imprecations upon the confederate govern- ment for its neglect of the " great soldier who had kept Rose- crans chained to the Gauley," and the "great statesman who had first warned the South to expect nothing from lalse and selfish England." The Legislature of the State was finalh' dra- gooned into providing for him. Authority was given him through tlie Governor, to raise ten thousand men, and he was commissioned a Major-General of Virginia. Whetlier he ever raised the men or not, I do not know. He had not done so three months ago. I mention these circumstances, because I observe that the "Richmond Examiner" is constantly quoted at the North, as the representative of southern sentiment in general, whereas it is a fact notorious in Richmond, and indeed self-evident to any person whose unfortunate destiny has ever put him in the way of a prolonged familiarity with southern journalism, that the "Examiner" is simply the mouth-piece of Mr. Floyd's disappointed ambitions, political, military and diplomatic. Note C— Page 27. THE EVACUATION OF MANASSAS. I HAVE reason to believe that when the history of the pre- sent war shall come to be written fairly and in full, it will be found that General Johnston never intended to hold Manassas and Centreville against any serious attack ; that his array at 106 APPENDIX. tliese points liad suifcred greatly during tlic autumn and win- ter of 1801-2 ; that from Oct jber to March, he never had an eflfective force of more thar 40,000 men under his orders ; that his preparations for an evacuation were begun as early as October, 1861, and that after that time he lay there simply in observation. It was the opinion of accomplished officers of the southern army, that the reduction of Richmond would never be really attempted excepting by the valley of the Shenandoah, in a campaign intended to cut off the capital and the army from their connections with the west by the James river canal, and the Virginia, and Tennessee railways ; or by the James and York rivers, in precisely such a movement as that which the Prince de Joijiville states that it was the intention of General McClellan to make, had not his plans been disconcerted by the untimely and unnecessary revelation of them to which the Prince so delicately but so distinctly alludes. General D. II. Hill expected the campaign of the Shenandoah, but, it is my impression that the majority of the confederate com- manders looked with more anxiety for the final advance of McClellan in the direction which it now appears that it was his intention to follow. The confederate government, how- ever, scarcely anticipated any serious campaign from either quarter, and amused with dreams of an early peace through the influence of European intervention and of politico-finan- cial causes at the J^orth, kept Johnston's army in a position of observation on the Potomac, and utterly neglected all adequate preparations against such an expedition as the Prince relates General McClellan to have been silently pre- paring during the winter of 1861-2. There can be little doubt that the completion of the Merrimac in time to close the James river against our fleets, was quite as much a matter of chance as of design ; the Secretary of the confederate navy having small faith in the work, and the people at large no APPENDIX. 107 faith at ail. My own impression is, tliat the movement of General McClellan's army from its demonstrations along the Potomac to the base upon the James, selected for its opera- tions against Richmond, could it have been put into execution as the author planned it, might well have proved so eminent- ly and brilliantly successful, as to take its place in military history w^ith such openings of a campaign, as Moreau's pass- age of the Rhine in 1800, and the Marshal de Saxe's sudden and mao;uificent transition from the demonstrations against Antwerp to the operations against Maestricht, in the Flemish campaign of 1748. Note D.— Page 59. CENSORSHIP OF THE SOUTHERN PRESS. The Prince only echoes a belief very general at the North, when he speaks of the " Complete Censorship of the Southern Press," but this belief is certainly unfounded. It is a curious trait of the existing war that every attempt on tlie part of the Richmond government to exercise a centralized control over the institutions of the different seceded States has been in- stantly, and so far as I know, successfully repelled by public sentiment. Reporters for the press were excluded from the lines of the Southern armies in the field early in the current year, but this was a military measure, and was acquiesced in as such, A tacit agreement subsequently grew up between • 1 lie War Department and the Press that great reticence should be observed in regard to military movements. But a propo- sition to establish a formal censorship, made in January or February, 1861, was instantly sneered and shouted down throughout the South, and when, not very long afterwards, the commander of the department of Henrico, Brigadier- General Winder, permitted himself to threaten certain papers in Richmond with "suppression,'^ he was met with open and 108 APPENDIX. contemptuous defiance ; and very promptly modified liis pre- tensions with no unnecessary delay. AVluitever " censorship" exists at all in the South is a censorship of passion and not of power. Note E.— Page 63. RESPECT FOR SOUTHERN PROPERTY. It is equally astonishing and unfortunate that the policy of forbearance in respect to the property and the persons of non- combatants in Yirginia should ever have been the subject of unfavorable discussion in Congress. Aside from the abstract question involved, and from the moral influence of our prac- tice in this particular upon the opinion of the world, it was only necessary to read the Richmond papers to perceive how anxiously the southern leaders desired to see us concede that disgraceful license of plunder and cruelty to the whole army which certain general officers of the army of the Potomac are alleged to have put to profit, until the practice was prevented by peremptory orders from the General-in-Chief. Confederate oflicers, who served in Western Yirginia, at the beginning of the war, testified strongly, in my hearing, to the " bad ejQPect" upon their men of General McClellan's forbearance and kind- ness towards the prisoners whom he paroled after the defeat of General Garnett. Every instance of pillage which oc- curred during the subsequent invasions in Yirginia was sedu- lously magnified and published throughout the South. The result of all this was two-fold ; it produced upon the soldiers in the field precisely the effect which Lord Dunmore aimed at in the early days of the Revolution, when he made the royal troops believe that they would be scalped if they fell alive into the hands of the "shirtmen;" audit so influenced the pas- sions of the people against the northern " Hessians " as cruelly to increase the sufiPerings of oui- prisoners. I have seen the soldiers of the guard forced to protect prisoners in Richmond APPENDir. 109 from the insults and violence of the citizens, and it was noto- rious that any official attempt to treat the federal captives de- cently would be universally denounced as soon as it was made public. General Lee himself was insulted in one of the Richmond papers, because his wife had accepted the protec- tion of General McClellan for her household and herself. Let me add that the private testimony of refugees in Rich- mond was almost unanimous as to the general good conduct of our troops, but this was as carefully suppressed, as was con- current testimony of the same kind to the damage inflicted upon the country people by their southern " defenders," Whatever the issue of the pending struggle may be, we ought to remember that pillage in war is after all simply open robber}'. Probably none of us would take any particular pride in calling the attention of his guests to a silver teapot stolen by his grandfather from a farm-house during the invasion of Canada; and we may surely do our posterity the trivial jus- tice to believe that their respect for their ancestors will not be diminished by any display on our part of self-command, dig- nity, and reverence for those "holy bounds" of which Schil- ler sings so earnestly in his Wallenstein. Note F— Page 65. OPENING OP JAMES RIVER. The author speaks of James river as " opened to the fed- eral navy" by the destruction of the Merriraac. This is per- fectly correct ; but it may be observed that James river was never closed to the federal navy till the Merrimac had been launched, proved and found far from wanting. The memo- rable panic occasioned in Richmond in April, 1861, by the news that the " Pawnee" was coming up the river, might have been supposed likely to point out to our own Government the 110 APPENDIX. wisdom of tiylng the experiment of a naval excursion from Fortress Monroe to Kocketts ; and to the confederates the pro- priety of fortifying the river banks. It produced neither the nne nor the other effect. A couple of war steamers sent up the James when the armv of McDowell advanced from Washington, might have neutral- ized the southern victory at Bull Run ; and I have the author- ity of a southern naval officer for saying that the banks of the James were never adequately protected against the passage of even a single powerful gunboat until the works at Drewry's Bluff were extemporized in May, 1862. These works were thrown up so hastily, and so little was known or believed at Richmond of their capacity to resist a serious attack, that the excitement which reigned throughout tlie city during the dull gray morning of the day in which the heavy guns of tl>e at- tack and defence were heard sullenly booming down the river, more nearly approached a panic than anything else vvhich I witnessed during the whole time of my detention there. The preparations of the governments, state and confederate, for evacuating the city had been hurried forward with great earnestness from the time when the sacrifice of I^orfolk and the Merrimac became a probable military necessity ; but there was such a conflict of councils in both governments that the successful passage of Drewry's Bluff would unquestionably have brought on a tremendous general catastrophe. Note G.— Page 67. " THE PARTISAN JACKSON." It is singular enough that so many even of those who ought to be well informed in respect to the history and present posi- tion of the southern leaders sliould persist in writing and talk- ing of " Stonewall Jackson " as a " partisan," He is scarcely APPENDIX. Ill a " partisan," even in the political sense of tliat word, for he was by no means a Secessionist in his convictions or his sym- pathies, and only joined the southern forces in the field, as I have been informed upon very respectable authority, from a religious sense of duty to his native State. I do not know that it is a greater stretch of charity to concede the possible exist- ence of an honest " rebel " than of an honest atheist, and if Stonewall Jackson may be supposed to be honest, he belongs to the not inconsiderable class of men in the South who would draw the sword at the behest of their State as readily against the government of Jefferson Davis as against that of Abraham Lincoln. A partisan, in the military sense, Jackson has never been. He was graduated at West Point with the class of 1842, served with distinction in Mexico, and holds the rank of Major- G-eneral in the regular army of the " Confederate States." The partisan service has not been popular in the South, and most of those leaders who won their first spurs as partisans in Ken- tucky and Virginia have passed into the regular service as fast as they could find or make room for themselves. Turner Ash- by v/as a confederate brigadier when he fell in battle, and John Morgan now liolds that rank, his second in command being an experienced English officer. Colonel George St. Leger Grenfell, who resigned his Queen's commission and left a lucra- tive post in India, came from Calcutta to Havana, and " ran the blockade " into Charleston to put his sword at tke service of the South. Note H.— Page 6S MCDOWELL'S RECALL FROM FREDERICKSBURG. The failure of the armies of McDowell and McClellan to unite before Richmond surprised the confederate command- ers in the latter city more, I think, than any one incident of the war. They had endeavored, of course, to bring it about 112 APPENDIX. thougli I liave some reason to doubt whether it was the pri- mary object or expectation of "Stonewall" Jackson in his dashing Potomac campaign to effect this result. But it was not believed possible in Richmond for some days after it had demonstrably occurred. The cannon of Fitz-John Porter in the battle at Hanover Court House had sounded the knell of Richmond in the ears of those who knew the relative positions of the two federal armies. I was at that time living in a house on the extreme verge of Shockoe Hill, overlooking the line of the Yirginia Central Railway, and on the 27th of May I re- ceived a visit from an European officer of distinction, then in Richmond, who brought me the news of what was going on, and said to me, " You will have the first view of the Yankees — they will march in on yonder lines ;" pointing to the roads which wound away from beyond the crest to our left in the direction of Hanover Court House and Ashland. At that time the foreign consuls in Richmond had made all necessary arrangements for protecting the property of their fellow sub- jects ; and almost every body who owned any tobacco or flour was eager to shift it, in one way or another, to the ac- count of foreign owners. The fall of the city was considered inevitable. Note I.— Page 72. FAIR OAKS. The Prince's account of the condition of the confederates on the morning of June 1st, rather under than overstates tlie case. They were in a perfect chaos of brigades and regiments. The roads into Richmond were literall}'- crowded witli strag- glers, 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 Chickahominy like bees," and " fighting like devils." In two days of the succeeding week the provost-marshal's guard APPENDIX. 113 collected between 4,000 and 5,000 stragglers and sent tliem into camp. What had become of the command of the army no one knew. By some persons it was reported that Major- General Gustavus W. Smith had succeeded Johnston, by others, that President Davis in person had taken the reins of the army. General Johnston himself was supposed to be either actually dead or dying. He had been twice hit before he received the final wound which struck him from his horse. In falling he had broken two of his ribs, was picked up sense- less and covered with blood, put into a hackney coach and driven to a house on Church Hill, where he lay between life and death for several weeks. The roads in the vicinity were covered with tan and all traffic interrupted by chains stretched across them near the house which he occupied. 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 till several days after the battle that any- thing like military order was restored throughout the confed- erate positions, or the last of the wounded brought in from the recesses of the woods and the intricacies of the secluded path- ways in which they had lain dying a hundred deaths within four or five miles of the city and its hospitals. It is impossi- ble to exaggerate the difficulties attending a general action in such a country. One gentleman who distinguished himself by his assiduity in seeking and bringing in the wounded from the field, told me that on three difi'erent occasions, within as many days, he had been forced to pass by wounded men, his carriage being absolutely filled and he walking by its side, that on each occasion he had noted as well as he could the position of the sufierers, and that on each occasion when he returned to seek for them he was compelled to give up the search in despair, so absolutely impossible was it to identify particular paths in that labyrinth of swamps and trees. 8 114 APrSNDIX. I do not think the Prince exaggerates the losses of the enemy in this sanguinary flight. There were published in the Kichmond papers, detailed brigade and regimental reports of the losses in sixty out of seventy-two organizations, regiments, battalions and companies mentioned as taking part in the en- gagements. I computed these losses as they were published. The sum total was 6,732 killed, wounded and missing. The "Richmond Enquirer" nevertheless, which had published these very lists, relying I suppose upon the arithmetical indolence of its readers, coolly announced the entire loss of the confed- erates on the 31st May and 1st June to have been but 2,300 men ! The official report was about 4,300. As to the rain storm of May 30th, the Prince may well speak of it as " terrible." Never, even in the tropics, have I seen a more sudden and sweeping deluge. The creek which flowed at the bottom of the hill below the house in which I lived, and over which in ordinary times, a boy might easily leap, filled the valley on the morning of May 31st, with a shallow lake more than 100 yards in width. Many confederate officers consoled themselves for the re- sults of the battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines as it is called at the South, by the consideration that in wounding General Johnston, and so compelling Mr. Davis to allow the command of the main army in the field to devolve upon General Lee, the federals had rendered them a great service. This was be- cause the southern army under Johnston, was known to be Bufiering severely in numbers and morale from the same lax- ity in organization for which the Prince, in so friendly a spirit, finds fault with our own forces. Lee was considered, I should say, to have more of the talent essential for organiza- tion than any man in the service of the South. APPENDIX. 115 NOTE K— Page 86. THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES. The phases of public feeling and of military opinion in Richmond during the progress of the operation by which General McClellan transferred his army from the Chickahomi- ny to the James, were highly interesting to me at the time, and it may be worth while for me briefly to describe them now. Let me premise by stating however, that the Prince is cer- tainly in error, when he speaks of General Beauregard as " lending the assistance of his capacity and his prestige " to the Southern army at this critical moment. General Beaure- gard was then at Eufaula, in Alabama, recruiting his health, shattered by two arduous campaigns, one in the East and one in the "West. Yery few, if any of the troops from his army were in Virginia. Reinforcements had been coming into the city for several days previously to the 25th, in very consider- able numbers, but they appeared to me to be mainly made up of new troops, and were generally understood to be so. Of the battle with Hooker on the 25th, in which the con- federates were defeated, nothing was heard in Richmond save the sound of the cannonade, and to that we had all become so much accustomed as not to be much excited thereby. The negroes, who always, by son^e mysterious system of commu- nication with the surrounding country, contrived to have news in advance of the published accounts, and whose reports I generally found to be quite as accurate as those of the " Dis- patch " and the " Examiner," whispered indeed on the morn- ing of the 26th in the servants' halls, from which the story soon ran up stairs, that something not altogether agreeable had happened the day before. But the popular rumor was, that a slight skirmish had taken place, with the inevitable re- sult of " skedaddled " and captured Yankees. 116 APPENDIX. About eight o'clock on the evening of the next day, the 26th, when after four hours of the nearest and most vivid firing, both with great guns and musketry that had yet been heard, the white wreatlis of the curling cannon-smoke began to be drifted by the wind up the Shockoe valley into the heart of the city, and the smell of the gun-powder could be plainly perceived in Capitol Square, affairs took a more serious turn. I witnessed the fight of this evening myself from a favorable position on the outskirts of the city. I saw the confederate lines recoil, and our own artillery advance until between eight and nine o'clock. I began to think that we had really reached the crisis of the siege, and that Richmond was on the point of falling into the hands of the army of the Union. A young ofiicer of artillery, a West PoiLter from the old army, and belonging then to a detached corps of the C. S. A., who joined me in my post of observation about that time, and recognized with me the fact that the confederates were fight- ing on a line considerably in the rear of the positions which they had held about four p. m., borrowed my glass, looked long and earnestly through the deepening twilight on' the scene before us, and then, turning to me, said m a hurried way, — " they will certainly be here to-night," and then, half laughing with an air of somewhat aflfected indifference added, as he tap- ped his light grey uniform coat, " had n't I better take this off and ' skedaddle ' to Danville ?" By nine o'clock, however, and, so far as we could see, with no change in the relative strength of the firing on either side, the federal artillery still maintaining its plain and tremendous preponderance — the line of the federal fire began to recede. By half-past nine the affair was over, and after an hour or two of spasmodic and still receding discharges, mainly of shell, which burned in magnificent curves against the darkening sky, e'^erything was once more quiet. The next day was an anxious cue to the people of Rich- APPENDIX. , 117 raond. It was evident now that a general action was either . immiient or actually in progress. The stories from the battle field of Gaines's Mill came in, announcing a great victory, and anxiety gradually turned into exultation, which grew as the prisoners began to arrive in small squads, and the people be- came convinced that the army of McClellan was actually re- treating. For the next day or two, this mood was in the ascendant, and nothing was talked of but the capture or annihilation of the whole "invading horde." Much was made of the two captured Generals Eeynolds and McCall, who naturally grew into four, five or six, according to the strength of the speak- er's patriotism, and of his imagination. General McClellan was killed three or four times, and General Sumner was cer- tainly wounded and a prisoner at Savage's station. Jackson's corps, which had not been engaged as the Prince seems to suppose on the 26th with McCall, the fight of that day being maintained on the confederate side by the troops of A. P. Hill and Longstreet in the advance, had come into action upon the federal retreat on the 28th, and this intelli- gence of itself would have stifliced to convince the most skeptical that the doom of the Yankees was sealed, and that the tobacco warehouses of Richmond would be too small to contain the prisoners that were about to arrive. By the 30th, however, it began to be whispered that all was not going satisfactorily. It was then known to a few that McClellan had not been cut to pieces in detail ; that on the contrary, he had succeeded in effecting the concentration of his whole army, and was moving on a line of retreat whicli, as it was not thoroughly understood, might perhaps, prove to be a new line of advance. The fearful tidings of the repulse and slaughter at Malvern Hill at last forced its way through the popular hope and passion, and the news that the gunboats in the river l\ad joined their fire with that of the artillery of 118 . APPENDIX. the federal laud forces converted the rejoicings of the Yir- ginians into doubts and disappointments. For some time it ivas supposed McClellan would resume his attack on the line of the Charles City road ; then, that he would shift his whole force to the south side and throw himself irresistibly from City Point upon Petersburg. The results of the terrible six days' fighting were not regarded as at all decisive, and General Lee, while honored for his success in relieving the immediate pres- sure upon the city, and in " chastising the Yankees " tre- mendously, was loudly charged with having been outwitted by an adversary whose escape he ought to have rendered im- possible. The final movement which transferred the whole federal army from Harrison's Landing to the Potomac, and which was going on when I left Richmond was hardly credited at that time in that city. It was certainly felt that if real, it would be a substantial relief from all formidable operations against the place, at least for the next year. As to the confederate forces engaged in these sanguinary battles before Richinond, it is my impression that the armies united under Lee before tGe amval of Jackson from the Shen- andoah, numbered 90,000 men ; and the Prince's estimate of Jackson's force at 30,000, I take to be not far from the truth. Tlie prisoners taken from our army, including the wounded, whom we w^re forced to abandon, were estimated at bet\yeen 7 and 8,000, of whom only about 4,500, however, were actually known to have been sent on to Richmond. On their own side, the most candid and best-informed confederates admitted a total loss in killed, wounded, and missing of about 16,000 men. '''mMK(<&wMM:^^^'^m:^ M(&3Z<^^L^-:. ^mm -^■^ ' <^ XSr^Clfc" <:«:rr^:C/C- ':'^m(:^('^' «lCg05S ^S^^^>^^iP^ifyiamwfc^i(^M(i^'U^mm.lMi(L t^i.Nysi&. . .v...Si:m^:c^^::- j^t«sJ^^a£S WM-a(:cr^m^L4M^- w&^^ ^ ^mzm^ "mmms^BCS^^ o ■ .1. 111111111111111111111 ^4 013 706 638 5 ■1'- ^ • • 's?' ^'"'^^ t"'-'^ii