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GENERAL M'^CLELLAN'S 
 
 PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, 
 
 Review of the Rp^port of the Committee on the Conduct of / 
 
 THE War relative to the Peninsula Campaign, 
 
 HIRA.M ketchum:. 
 
 OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 
 
 COUNSELLOR AT LAW. 
 
 1864. 
 

 TO THE PITBT.TO. 
 
 The following numbers were published in the Journal of Commerce through several 
 successive months, ending in May, 1864, undfr the signature of the Author. They were 
 designed to show that the Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War had done 
 gcreat injustice to MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. By request these 
 numbers are now collected and published in pamphlet form, and the Author asks for them 
 an attentive perusal, and a candid and impartial judgment. 
 
 HIRAM KETCHUM. 
 Ma2/ 16, 1864. 
 
RiWiW 
 
 The Joint Committee of th6 Senate 
 and House of Representatives on the 
 conduct of the war have made an ela- 
 borate report, apart of which is calcu- 
 lated, probably intended, to impair 
 public confidence in the military ca- 
 pacity of General McClellan. A re- 
 port from a committee derived from 
 80 high n source as the Legislative 
 Department of the government will, 
 as it ouglit, command public atten- 
 tion, and intluence to some extent the 
 mind of the country. The publica- 
 tio-n of that report preceded, by some 
 days, and even weeks, the publication 
 of the evidence upon which it pro- 
 fesses to be founded. The report has 
 been published in many newspapers, 
 and is industriously circulated in a 
 pamphlet form. The opponents of 
 General McClellan ought to be satis- 
 fled with the influence to his discredit 
 which this document was diffusing, 
 especiallj" as he has not interposed 
 one word to counteract that influence, 
 and check its progress. The general 
 has observed his characteristic silence 3 
 yet his persecutors are not content 
 with the amount of influence already 
 enlisted against him, but are constant 
 and perse vei-ing in their eff'orts to de- 
 stroy him. The New York Times, 
 published yesterday, Friday, has a long 
 and bitter article, in which, strangely 
 enough, it resorts to rebel testimony 
 taken from the Eiehmond Whig, to 
 depreciate the military character of 
 Gen. McClellan. Would the Times 
 be willing to admit testimony in favor 
 of his high military character from the 
 same source ? Such testimony the 
 Times well knows is at hand, but I 
 will not use it. 
 
 Now I have read the testimony an- 
 nexed to the report of the War Com- 
 mittee with some care, and in my 
 opinion tliat testimony, in connection 
 ;vith well known facts of public noto- 
 t'iety, does not authorize the conclu- 
 bions, uniavorablo to Gen. McClellan, 
 inade public by the committee in their | 
 
 report. It is evident to my mind 
 that there is a concerted, a party 
 effort, aided by the government, to 
 peiwert the truth, and by such per- 
 version to destroy General McClel- 
 lan. This' effort shall not succeed 
 if my oj)position, in concert with 
 other, can defeat it. When I see a 
 combination of the strong against the 
 weak, an exercise of the vast power 
 and influence of the government 
 against an individual citizen who is 
 innocent of any offence against that 
 government, my sympathies in every 
 such case are with the weaker party, 
 and in the present case, whatever of 
 power and influence I can exert, by 
 the open use of my own name, and 
 such reputation and chai'acter as I 
 happen to possess in a city where I 
 have lived for more than fifty years, 
 shall be put forth without fear and 
 without stint to accomplish a fair ad- 
 ministration of justice iu the case 
 under considei-ation. 
 
 I intend, with permission, through 
 the columns of the Journal of Com- 
 merce, to submit, with a^ much bre- 
 vity as is consistent with clear eluci- 
 dation, a fair and impartial examina- 
 tion of the material points connected 
 with the operations of General Mo 
 Clellan, brought out by the evidence 
 before the War Committee. There 
 are very few persons that have that 
 evidence at command, for it is very 
 voluminous. The newspapers could 
 not be expected to publish the whole 
 of it, but in making selections they 
 might manage to be impartial. Es- 
 pecially those who condemn McClel- 
 lan ought to publish his testimony, 
 but this they refuse to do. 
 NO. II. 
 
 My first proposition, which I mean 
 to prove to the entire satisfaction of 
 every reasonable man, is this : 
 
 If General McClellan's jflan hsvd 
 not been interfered with ; his plan set- 
 tled and concurred in by the govern- 
 ment before he left Washington for 
 
tbe peninsula, he would have cap- 
 tured Richmond certainly as early as 
 the month of June 1862, 
 
 The evidence in support of this pro- 
 position, to which I invite the candid 
 and careful attention of the reader, 
 shall now be given. 
 
 The testimony of Prince de Join- 
 ville, under his own name, was not 
 drawn forth by the committee, but it 
 was given to Europe and the world, 
 and must have been known to the 
 committee. This was the testimony 
 of a highly intelligent witness, wno 
 communicated the truth of what he 
 knew himself, and none can question 
 his truthfulness and impartiality. In 
 quoting from the Prince's statement, 
 I shall have to reproduce what has 
 lately appeared in the editorial col- 
 umns of the Journal of Commerce. 
 When G-en. MeClellan went to York- 
 town, he had no thought of besieging 
 that position. The siege of that place 
 was rendered necessary by causes en- 
 tirely unforeseen, and unexpected by 
 the general. He had made ample 
 provision for the turning of that po- 
 sition. Prince de Jonviile says (page 
 41) : " The enemy held the James with 
 the Merrimac and his gunboats; the 
 York was closed by the Yorktown 
 and Gloucester Point batteries. Ne- 
 vertheless, by a disembarkation on 
 the Severn, beyond Gloucester, he 
 might carry the latter position, and 
 open the way of the Federal gunboats 
 into the York Eiver. A subsequent 
 movement up the left bank, in the di- 
 rection of West Point, would put us so 
 far in the rear of the army cbai'ged 
 with the defence of the lines of York- 
 town that it would have been in a 
 most perilous position. This accom- 
 plished, the Confederates must have 
 abandoned Gloucester, and fallen back 
 hastily upon Eiehmond. The execu- 
 tion of this coup de rnain had been left 
 to a corps of the army commanded 
 by Gen. McDowell. This corps was 
 to be the last to embark at \yashing- 
 Ton, 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." The Prince pro. 
 ceeds : " Instead of finding it, Ave re- 
 ceived the inexplicable and as yet 
 unexplained intelligence that this 
 corps, 35,000 strong, had been sent to 
 another destination. The news loas 
 received in the army with stupefaction, 
 although the majority could not fore- 
 see the deplorable consequences of a 
 step taken, it must be su])posed, with 
 no evil intention, but certainly with 
 inconceivable recklessness. . . . 
 
 This step, taken xohen it was, deranged 
 a ivhole system of machinery fairly at 
 loork." 
 
 Here then, when the army was be- 
 fore Yorktown, and before the idea of 
 a siege had entered any man's head, 
 was a sore disappointment. One of 
 the foundations upon which the hope, 
 nay, almost certaint}^, of speedy suc- 
 cess had been reared, was suddenly, 
 unexpectedly removed by a power 
 winch the leader of the army could 
 not control. Let us pause here for a 
 single moment to consider what the 
 present position and fameof this com- 
 mander would be at this momeut if 
 his just expectations had not been 
 cruelly disappointed ; but what is of 
 infinitely more consequence, Avhat, at 
 this tune, would have been the posi- 
 tion of our country but for this fatal 
 step ! But disappointments do not 
 stop here. After the siege of York- 
 town, and after the army had reached 
 the front of liichmond, another oppor- 
 tunity was supplied by the vigilance 
 and skill of the commanding general 
 to retrieve the great error of the past 
 and to capture Richmond. By the 
 command of Gen. MeClellan, Gen.Fitz 
 John Porter, with a portion of our 
 array, marched in a fui'ious storm to 
 Hanover Court House, twenty miles 
 north of Richmond, routed the enemy, 
 some 8,000 or 10,000 strong, killed 
 200, took 700 prisoners, and captured 
 one piece of artillery. The victory 
 was gained on the 2Gth day of May, 
 The advance guard of McDov>^ell, says 
 Prince de Joinville, " was then ab 
 Bowling Green, fifteen miles from tluib 
 of Porter. It needed only an etfoir 
 of tlio will ; the two armies wertj 
 united, and the possession of IJicUai-ji/'J 
 
certain ! Alas ! this eifort was not 
 made. I cannot," says he, " recall 
 these fatal moments without a real 
 sinking of heart." 
 
 What loyal man in the country does 
 not at this day join in the lament of 
 the illustrious stranger? Here then 
 another opportunity was lost to se- 
 cure the great object of the peninsular 
 campaign. It has long since been ad- 
 mitted that if this opportunity had 
 been improved, Richmond must have 
 been taken, and in that case McClellan 
 would have been the idol of his coun- 
 try, for the rebellion against that 
 country would have been crushed. 
 Was it any fault of this general that 
 the opjiortunity was not improved ? 
 Certainl}^ not. Yet what man in the 
 country has suffered so severely for 
 the failure to seize an opportunity for 
 certain success, which his sagacity as 
 a military leader had created? Yet 
 his sufferings bear no comj^arison to 
 those of his beloved country, and I 
 doubt not he grieves far less for him- 
 self, for the loss of immortal renown, 
 than for that country. The Prince de 
 Join'^ille adds : 
 
 " 'Not only did the two armies unite, 
 but the order came from Washington, 
 to burn the bridges which had been 
 seized. This was the clearest way of 
 saying to the army of the Potomac, 
 and to its chiefs, that in no case could 
 they count on the support of the 
 armies of Upper Yirginia." This 
 statement of De Joinville is substan- 
 tially confirmed by evidence given 
 before the joint committee. General 
 Franklin icsiitics atpago 625 that the 
 primary cause of the "failure of the 
 peninsula campaign was " the detach- 
 ment of McDoiceU's corps from the army 
 of the Potomac, at the particular time 
 it was detached. I th i7ik the detachment 
 of that corps left General McClellan 
 on thepeninsula xoith all his plans dis- 
 arranged." Franklin was not ques- 
 iiioned further on this point, but the 
 ■committee immediately changed the 
 course of inquiry. The question which 
 called forth the above answer was put 
 by Mr. Odell, and seemed quite ac- 
 cidental. General Henry J. Hunt, 
 ^nief in command of the Artillery of 
 
 the Potomac, was a witness before 
 the committee. He yet remains in the 
 army of the Potomac, and is, I am 
 informed, much relied upon, not only 
 as an officer of great skill in bis line 
 of duty, but confided in as an intelli- 
 gent, truthful man, receiving the res- 
 pect of his brother officers. 
 
 Gen. Hunt fully concurs in the state- 
 ment above quoted from De Joinville. 
 The general says, (page 571) : 
 
 " As I understood it, McDowell's 
 corps, which was the last to embark, 
 was to move across to West Point, or 
 near to that place, a portion of it touch- 
 ing at Gloucester, so as to throw itself 
 between the enemy's works at York- 
 town and Eichmond. Of course the 
 withholding of that corps prevented 
 the plan, if tha^ was the plan, from 
 being executed as intended." He 
 further says: " The next cause for the 
 failure of that campaign was this : I 
 think if a junction of all our forces 
 had been made after the battle of Han- 
 over Court House, ice should have made 
 a sure thing of it." 
 
 Thus then it is made manifest by 
 the testimony and statements above 
 referred to, that if General McClel- 
 lan's plans had been executed, Eich- 
 mond would have fallen. I can find 
 nothing in Part I. of the committee's 
 Eeport, containing 754 pages of printed 
 matter, to countervail thts testimony. 
 Now I confidently submit to every 
 candid reader, was not General Mc 
 Clellan entitled to the benefit of this 
 fact in the report of the committee. ? 
 It might have been impracticable for 
 the government to furnish the means 
 promised, but even that should not 
 have deprived him of the credit of hav« 
 ing conceived and adopted those plans. 
 It might be, that though his ori- 
 ginal plans were interfered with, and 
 frustrated by those in authority over 
 him. yet still the plans were credi- 
 table, as their execution was certain 
 to lead to success. 
 
 In my future numbers I shall inves- 
 tigate, first, whether there were good 
 and satifactory reasons for not allow- 
 ing General McDowell's command to 
 render the service which it was 1^0 
 perform ; and second, whether, not- 
 
-withstanding the abstraction of that 
 command, General McClellan ought to 
 have taken Eichmond. The object of 
 this paper is to show that the general's 
 plans were right. 
 
 It appears by the evidence, as shown 
 in my last number, that Kichmond 
 would have been taken a year ago, if 
 Gen. McClellan had received the aid 
 promised by the government. If 
 there is any fallacy in the argument 
 which reaches this conclusion, let it 
 be shown. I do not stx)p to notice 
 the theory of Gen. Ethan Allen Hitch- 
 cock: to that I may hereafter return, 
 only remarking that the theory is a 
 discovery of the General himself; he 
 would be entitled, ujion application, to 
 receive a patent for it, as tieto, but it 
 might fail of the other qualification 
 required in a patentable discovery, 
 that is in being useful. 
 
 The aid promised and withheld was 
 the co-operation of Gen. McDowell's 
 command. That this co-operation 
 was promised and not given, are facts 
 uncontradicted. The justification al- 
 leged for keeping back this command 
 is, that it was required for the protec- 
 tion of Washington. Let us see how 
 far this justification is supported by 
 the evidence. 
 
 At the time when, contrary to pub- 
 lic expectation. Gen. McDowell did 
 not march to the assistance of the 
 army on the Peninsula, he was much 
 censured; but it now appears, from 
 his full and apparently candid testi- 
 mony before the committee, that such 
 'censure was unjust. From that testi- 
 mony ^^e learn that McDowell's com- 
 mand was the last to be embarked 
 wv the Peninsula, that the corps first 
 sent down should have nothing to do 
 with his comand, which was to go be- 
 yond Yorktown, while the first shouL^. 
 go and threaten Yorktown. But after 
 Gen. McClellan had moved with the 
 army to Fortt'ess Monroe, and written 
 to McDowell that his corps should be 
 the last to move, the President be- 
 came apprehensive that if his com- 
 mand should go down below, the ene- 
 my might take advantage of the de- 
 fenceless condition of Washington, 
 and while our forces were goinix 
 
 6 
 
 against Riclimond, tney might come 
 against Washington. The President 
 therefore ordered that McDowell's 
 force should remain for the defence 
 of the capital ; it did not move to 
 Yorktown as promised. General Mc- 
 Dowell testifies without reservation, 
 that he personally used no influence, 
 nor in any way sought to be detached 
 from Gen. McClellan's command. He 
 remained to act purely on the defen- 
 sive, for the defence of the capital. 
 He afterwards, upon inquiry of the 
 Secretary of War, ascertained that it 
 would be within the scope of his de- 
 fensive instructions to go to Freder- 
 icksburg. At Fredericksburg he could 
 act for the defence of the capital. 
 This was a decision of the War De. 
 partment ; let 7iot this decision be for: 
 gotten. In accordance with this de- 
 cision, McDowell went down opposite 
 Fredericksburg, and afterwards, by 
 permission of the War Department, 
 put a small force, merely for a defen- 
 sive purpose, across the Eappahan- 
 nock into Fredericksburg, After ly- 
 ing some time in that city, the Gen. re- 
 ceived information that the President 
 intended to give nim authority to 
 move down iipon Eichmond whenever 
 Gen. Shield's division should join him. 
 This division did join him, and the 
 two generals were upon the eve of 
 moving towards Eichmond when a 
 telegram came announcing the raid 
 of ^the rebel general Jackson up the 
 Shenandoah Valley, Thus it is re- 
 lated in Mc-Dowell's testimony: 
 
 . " The President, or Secretaiy of War 
 in the name of the President, tele- 
 graphed to send a division up after 
 Jackson. I did so, although I replied 
 that it was a crushing blow to us ail. 
 The President ordered another brig- 
 ade to move up there, and then an- 
 other brigade, and then another regi- 
 ment. And finally the President put 
 the question to me in this way — if I 
 did not think that, as the department 
 commander, it was my duty to be 
 here in Washmgton. I replied that 
 I had not so thought, or I should cer- 
 tainly have been here; that I thought 
 my presence was most required down 
 below, buL as there was a doubt upon 
 
the matter I would come up. I had 
 hoped that I should not be diverted 
 from going to Eichmond." 
 
 Gen. McDowell also informed the 
 President, in answer to that telegram : 
 " While I should be too late to effect 
 any good up there, I should lose the 
 opportunity of doing any good down 
 below." 
 
 Just here let it be noted that Gen. 
 McClellan testifies : " When I heard 
 / of the advance of Jackson upon Gen. 
 Banks, I telegraphed to the President 
 that I believed the intention to be 
 simply to prevent reinforcements be- 
 ing sent to me. 1 had no idea it 
 meant a serious threat upon Washing- 
 ton." 
 
 It is thus evident, without referring 
 to other testimony, that General Mc- 
 Dowell desired that his command 
 should, in the first instance, go to 
 Yorktown, and secondly that he 
 should march from Fredei'icksburg to 
 Richmond. As military men, McClel- 
 ian and McDowell concurred in judg- 
 ment as to the steps to be taken for 
 the capture of Eichmond. The alarm 
 of the Tresident for the safety of 
 Washington prevented the taking of 
 these steps. The next inquiry is, — 
 was there any foundation for this 
 alarm ? This inquiry shall be pursued 
 in my next. 
 
 The question now to be discussed is, 
 Could McClellan have been sent to 
 Eichmond without endangering the 
 safety of Washington ? We have 
 seen Generals McClellan and McDow- 
 ell concur in the opinion that it could. 
 The question was one to be decided 
 by military men. I cannot find that 
 this question was put by the com- 
 mittee to any witness, who from his 
 military knowledge and experience 
 was presumed capable of giving a 
 reliable opinion — the opinion of an 
 expert. The question should have 
 been thus framed : — " Suppose the 
 command of General McDowell was 
 necessary to assure the taking of 
 Eichmond, could it have been sent 
 either to Yorktown when McClellan 
 Avent to that place, or afterwards to 
 Hanover Court House to unite with 
 Porter, ""-"'Sout endangering the capi- 
 
 tal ? " What must have been the jwis- 
 wer to that question? In the first 
 place, the strength of the enemy, and 
 the force at his command, which under 
 all the circumstances, he would pro- 
 bably bring against the capital, would 
 have been considered. The command 
 of McDowell, say 35,000 strong, il 
 was proposed to send to Eichmond. 
 If it had been sent, the fact would 
 have been well known to the enemy, 
 and this would have compelled him to 
 employ a larger force to defend Eich- 
 mond. We know from reliable testi- 
 mony that the enemy expected the 
 junction of McDowell and Porter on 
 the 26th of May, and McDowell's fail- 
 ure to come was ascribed by the enem.y 
 to a treasonable omisssion of duty on 
 his part. The junction of those two 
 commands would in the judgment of 
 the enemy have resulted in the cap- 
 tare of Eichmond. The testimony of 
 the Prussian oificer, then in the rebel 
 service at Eichmond, may be relied 
 on for this stateniient. Assuming, 
 then, that McDowell had moved down 
 to Eichmond, what force could the 
 rebels have spared to assail Washing- 
 ton ? Certainly not a large one, pro- 
 bably none at all. Then, -secondly, 
 what were the resources of the gov- 
 ernment for the defence of Washing- 
 ton, if McDowell's 35,000 troops had 
 been sent to Eichmond ? I aver, 
 without fear of contradiction, that ir 
 when McClellan went down to For- 
 tress Monroe in March, 1802, or at 
 any other time up to the first of June 
 in that year, the President had seen fit* 
 to wi-ite the governors of llSTew York, 
 Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, 
 throwing out all the other loyal New 
 England States, and New Jersey, that 
 he had been obliged to send away so 
 large a force to assist in the capture 
 of Eichmond, that fifty thousand men 
 would be required in the fortifications 
 at Washington to make a perfect de- 
 fence of the capital, that number, most 
 of them well discijjlined, well drilled, 
 and well appointed troops, would have 
 been in the capital in less than ten 
 days from the date of the call, ready 
 for immediate service. I know that 
 10,000 of *his number from the city 
 
of i^ew York alone would have res- 
 ponded to such a call in less than one 
 week. There did come a call for 
 troops from the War Department in 
 the latter part of May. It was re- 
 ceived by the 7th on the 26th day of 
 that month, the day before the cap- 
 ture of Hanover Court House, in the 
 evening of that day, Sunday, and oh 
 Tuesday morning this regiment, fully 
 armed and equipped, fit for immediate 
 service, was in Baltimore; the 22nd 
 New York was there the next day, 
 and several other regiments follow- 
 ed within a few days, when there 
 came an order countermanding the 
 call for troops, much to the disap- 
 pointment and chagrin of other regi- 
 ments in this city desirous and eager 
 to march. It was not in this city 
 only, but in Boston and elsewhei'e, 
 that this disappointment was felt. I 
 have spoken of troops not actually in 
 the field, whose services could have 
 been commanded by the government 
 in an emergency for the defence of 
 the capital. Let us now see what 
 troops were, at the time when Gen. 
 McUlellan left Washington, actually 
 in the service for this purpose. In 
 his examination before the Committee 
 on the conduct of the War, the fol- 
 lowing question was put to General 
 McClellan : — " When you took the 
 army to the Peninsula, how many 
 ti'uops were left for the defence of 
 Washington ; where were they sta- 
 tioned, and by whom were they com- 
 jnanded ? " To which he gave the 
 following answer: — "There has been 
 published a letter which I wrote on 
 board the steamer Commodore, on 
 the lirst day of April last. (1862), to 
 the Adjutant General, giving the 
 number of troops left and their sta- 
 tions. The numbers there given were 
 furnished to me by my adjutant gene- 
 ral, from the latest and most authen- 
 tic returns in his possession. I recol- 
 lect that the aggregate was something 
 over 70,000, but I cannot give the de- 
 tails." This statement was also tes- 
 tified to by Gen. McO ellan before the 
 McDowell Court of Inquiry. I am 
 aware that General E. A. Hitchcock 
 professed, in his testimony, before the 
 
 committee, to be much " amazed and 
 shocked at the testimony of Gen eral 
 McClellan, because he included in this 
 number of 70,000 not only the number 
 in Washington, but also thosa troops 
 employed to guard the approaches by 
 the enemy to the capital, though sta- 
 tioned and acting at some distance 
 from it. In the judgment of General 
 Hitchcock, a force could not act for 
 the defence of the caj^ital unless 
 posted in Washington, or on the op- 
 posite shore of Virginia, or some- 
 where in the immediate vicinity. 
 Gen. McClellan took a different view 
 of defensive forces ; he included all 
 those, wherever stationed, whose ob- 
 ject was to intercept advances upon 
 the capital, from which quarter so- 
 ever those advances might be antici- 
 pated. If for instance, an advance 
 on the city of New York was expect- 
 ed from an enemy in Canada, it might 
 well be that a force posted at Albany, 
 160 miles distant, could act for the 
 defence of this city. It was s(s I have 
 shown, the decision of the War De- 
 partment that General McDowell was 
 acting within the scope of hi^ orders 
 to protect Washington, although his 
 command was actually at Fredericks- 
 burg. The idea of General McClel- 
 lan evidently was that all troops oc- 
 cupying and guarding the avenues 
 leading to the capital, through which, 
 or some of them, the enemy was ex- 
 pected to ajiproach and assail the capi- 
 tal, in situations where they could be 
 easily rallied to the capital itself, 
 might, with propriety, be called troops 
 for the defence of the capital. Who 
 can dispute the soundness of this 
 view ? To show the actual location 
 of those forces, I will transcribe the 
 letter of the general, referred to in 
 his answer above quoted. The letter 
 is contained in the report of the com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Headquarters Army op the Poto- 
 mac, Steamer Commodore, April 1, 62. 
 Brig. Gen. L. Thomas, Adj. Gen., U.S. A. 
 
 General : — I have to request that 
 you will lay the following communi- 
 cation before the Hon. Secretary of 
 War. 
 
 The approximate numbers and po- 
 
9 
 
 sitioiis of the troops left near and in 
 .rear of the Potomac are about as fol- 
 lows. 
 ■*; Gen. Dix has, after guarding the 
 railroads under his chrw-ge, sufficient 
 to give him 5,000 for the defence of 
 Baltimore, and 1,988 available for the 
 Eastern Shore, Annapolis, &c. Fort 
 Delaware is very well garrisoned by 
 about 400 men. The garrisons of the 
 forts around "Washington 'amount to 
 10,G0O men; other disposable troops 
 now with Gen. Wadsworth being 
 about 11,400 men. 
 
 The troops employed in guarding 
 the various railways in Maryland 
 amount to some 3,359 men. These it 
 il designed to relieve, being old regi- 
 ments, by dismounted cavahy, and 
 to send them forward to Manassas. 
 
 Gen. Abercrombie occupies War- 
 renton with a force which, including 
 Col. Geary at White Plains, and the 
 ' cavalry to be at his disposal, will 
 amouut to some 7,780 men, with 12 
 pieces of artillery. 
 
 I have the honor to request that all 
 the troops organized for service in 
 Pennsylvania and Ncav York, and in 
 any of the Eastern States, may be 
 ordered to AVashington. I learn from 
 Governor Curtin that there are some 
 3,500 men now ready in Pennsylvania. 
 This foi'ce I should be glad to have 
 sent to Manassas. Four thousand 
 men from Gen. Wadsworth I desire 
 to be ordered to Manassas. These 
 troops, Avith the railroad guard above 
 alluded to, will make up a force under 
 the command of Gen. Abercrombie 
 of something like 18,639 men. 
 
 It is my design to push Gen. Blen- 
 ker's division from Warrenton upon 
 8trasburg. He should remain at 
 Strasburg long enough to allow 
 matters to assume a definite form in 
 that region, before proceeding to his 
 ultimate destination. 
 
 The troops in the valley of the She- 
 nandoah will thus (including Eien- 
 ker's division, 10,028 strong, with 
 24 pieces of artillery ; Banks' 5th 
 corps, which en\l)race3 41 guns, some 
 3,652 disposable cavalry, and the 
 .railroad guard, about 2,000 men) 
 ^ amount to about 35,468 men. 
 
 It is designed to relieve General 
 Hooker by. one regiment, say, 850 
 men, being with some 500 cavalry, 
 3,350 men on the Lower Potomac. 
 
 To recapitulate — 
 
 At Warrenton there is to be - 7,780 men. 
 
 At Manassas, say 10,859 " 
 
 In the Valley of the Shenaudoali 35,859 " 
 On the Lower Poiomac - - - 1,350 " 
 
 In all 
 
 55,4.56 
 
 There would thus be left for the 
 garrisons and the front of Washing- 
 ton, under General Wadsworth, some 
 18,000 men, inclusive of the batteries 
 under instruction. 
 
 The troops organizing or ready for 
 service in New York, I learn, will 
 probably number more than four 
 thousand. These should be assem- 
 bled at Washington subject to dispo- 
 sition where their services may be 
 required. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 your obedient servant, 
 GEO B. McCLELLAiN', 
 Maj.-Gen. Commanding. 
 
 This topic shall be pursued in my 
 next number. 
 
 I have shown, and the Committee 
 on the conduct of the War had suffi- 
 cient evidence before them to prove, 
 that there was no cause for the alarm 
 exhibited by the President, which kept 
 him from sending McDowell's com- 
 mand to Yoi-ktown, or to Hanover 
 Court House. That this alarm was 
 really felt b}^ the President, I am bound 
 to believe. The question noAv is, who 
 awakened this feeling of apprehen- 
 sion ? Who is responsible for it? I 
 have no doubt that Generals James S. 
 Wadsworth and E, A Hitchcock are 
 the persons. 
 
 On the 21st day of April, 1862, Gen.. 
 Wadsworth made a report to the Sec- 
 retary of War; the next day he tes- 
 tified before the committee and veri- 
 fied the accuracy of his report. This 
 document states the number of men 
 left under his command for the defence 
 of Washington, to be 19,022 j^resent 
 for duty. This does not differ mate- 
 rially from Gen. McClellan's lettei 
 above copied ; but the essential difior- 
 ence between these reports is this, cnie 
 
10 
 
 states only the number of troops in a 
 very limited command, while the pther 
 defines the number, in other far more 
 extensive commands, all for the de- 
 fence of Washington, The President 
 was led to believe that Wadsworth's 
 19,022 troops was the aggregate force 
 left for the defence of the capitol. He 
 says in a communication to Gen, Mc- 
 Clellan dated April 9, 18G2_, "Do you 
 really think I should permit the line 
 from Eichmond via Manassas Junc- 
 tion, to this city, [Washington] to be 
 entirely open, except what resistance 
 could be presented by less than 20,- 
 000 unorganized troops ? This is a 
 question "which the country will not 
 allow me to evade." Thus, it is proved 
 that the President was fully possessed 
 with the idea that there was no force 
 for the defence of the capital but that 
 reported to be under General Wads- 
 worth. He supposed the whole line 
 from Richmond via Manassas Junction 
 to Washington to be entirely open, 
 and that the enemy on that line would 
 encounter no resistance except from 
 Wadsworth's command. No wonder 
 he felt some apprehension. It seems 
 impossible that the President could 
 ever have seen McClellan's letter da- 
 ted April 1, then on file in the War 
 Department. From that report he 
 would have learned that at Manassas 
 and Warrenton almost in front of 
 Washington, and directly on the line, 
 to Richmond there were besides those 
 under Wads worth's, 18,639 troops, 
 and twelve guns, or 36,639 men and 
 4-1 field . guns directly apjjHcable to 
 the defence of Washington, without 
 counting the 1,350 men on the lower 
 Potomac, who could also have been 
 drawn in if an attack was imminent. 
 Besides all this there were 35,467 
 troops and 65 guns in the Shenandoaii 
 Valley ready to move to the defence 
 of Washington if necessary. There 
 were in fact all told 77,500 men and 
 103 field guns for the defence of Wash- 
 ington and its approaches, without 
 counting the force under Gen. Dix at 
 Baltimore, which amounted to ten 
 regiments and two battalions of in- 
 fantiy, one regiment of cavalry, and 
 live batteries. These numbers are 
 from official returns. 
 
 Gen. Wadsworth testifies before the 
 War Committee that he had with- 
 in his jurisdiction ^'•everything for 
 the defence of Washington'' and fur- 
 ther testifies that the total amount 
 of men present for duty under his 
 command was 19,022. The general 
 evidently left the impression upon 
 the minds of the Committee that these 
 troops were the sole reliance for the 
 defence of the capital; the same im- 
 pression must have been received by 
 the President, and contributed to the 
 delusion under which his mind Li- 
 bored. Wadsworth 's report was 
 brought to his attention, and, basing 
 his suggestion upon this reporj], Hitch- 
 cock intimated to the Secretary of 
 War that McClellan had left the capi- 
 tal defenceless; that he had violated 
 his orders, and rendered himself re- 
 sponsible for all the consequences. 
 Here was a mare's nest. Hitchcock 
 says : — "When this state of tilings be- 
 came known to the Secretary of War, 
 Mr. Stanton, he required General 
 Thomas and myself to make a report 
 upon the execution of the President's 
 order, the letter of Gen. McClellan of 
 the Ist April, the report of General 
 Wadsworth of the 2d April, and one 
 or two other papers requiring us to 
 give an opinion whether Gen. 3Ic0lellan 
 had complied, or not, with the require- 
 ments of the order of the President.'* 
 Who made this state of things known 
 to the Secretary of War? General 
 Hitchcock himself, doubtless. A court 
 of inquiry, in fact, though not in name, 
 was thus instituted to report whether 
 or not McClellan had obeyed orders. 
 All that a court of inquiry has power 
 to do, is to inquire and report to the 
 power appointing it. 
 
 That court made a report to the 
 War Department. Hitchcock testifies: 
 " The report went of course to the 
 President, and, on the next day, if I 
 mistake not, the 3d of April, the Pre- 
 sident came to the war office and held 
 quite a long conversation with the 
 chiefs of the various bureaus of the 
 War Department, the Secretary of 
 War being present. At the conclusion 
 of that "consultation the President 
 himself ordered that one of the Corps 
 
11 
 
 of tlie Army of the Potomac wliich 
 "were then in front of Washington 
 should be detained for the defence of 
 the capital. The selection was left 
 with the Secretary of War who desig- 
 nated the Corps commanded by 
 McDowell. I will mention," says 
 Hitchcock, "that Gen. McDowell him- 
 self was not present, and I believe 
 knew nothing of the steps which led 
 to his detention here until after the 
 oi'der was issued. As soon as General 
 McClellan heard of this he complained 
 of it. He wished the whole of McDow- 
 ell's Con)S sent to him." 
 
 Now I call upon every officer of the 
 army, and upon every American eiti- 
 zen to give his attention for a brief 
 space of time to the scenes hei-e de- 
 scribed. 
 
 George B. McClellan, a yoimg 
 general with little experience in ac- 
 tual service, without an}^ solicitation 
 on his part, is called b}^ his govern- 
 ment to a post of the highest respon- 
 sibility. He is placed in command of 
 the largest army b}^ far ever brought 
 together in his native land, an arm}'- 
 organized for the purpose of suppres- 
 sing an insurrection the most formid- 
 able the world has ever beheld, an in- 
 surrection which threatened the over- 
 throw of the government, and the ex- 
 tinction of popular liberty. At a 
 distance from the capital; in the very 
 face of the enemy, anxious beyond all 
 expression for success; excited and 
 agitated by the consciousness that 
 the ej-es of his countrj'-, and the whole 
 civilized world are eagerly fastened 
 ui)on him, scanning and criticising all 
 he does, and all he leaves undone. 
 This is one scene in the drama. Now 
 turn to another. At the capital of 
 his country this same young com- 
 mander, in his absence is charged 
 with having disobej-ed the order of 
 his supei'ior in command, in neglect- 
 ing to secure the safety of that capi- 
 tal against an invading foe ; a grave 
 offence. A court or commission of 
 inquirj' is instituted before which he 
 has no notice to appear, of its vely 
 existence he is not aj)prised. Ignor- 
 ant of any charge brought against 
 him, with no counsel or friend to 
 
 speak for, or defend him, he is tried 
 before the court, a report condeming 
 him is brought in. The President 
 and all the officials of the War De- 
 partment are assembled to hear and 
 cogitate upon this report; the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief approves of it and 
 passes sentence upon the absent ac- 
 cused. The stiletto has been thrust 
 into his back, and he is ignorant of 
 the assault until he finds himself faint- 
 ing from the loss of blood That 
 sentence is that he shall be denied the 
 co-operation of a corps which had 
 been promised him, and which he 
 deemed essential to success, because 
 he had violated express directions in 
 neglecting the safety of the capital. 
 
 Now let us see whether General 
 McClellan was in truth guilty of the 
 charge preferred against him. The 
 charge was that he had violated an 
 order " that Washington should be 
 perfectl}^ secure." But who shall say 
 in what "security" consists? The 
 President says : " My explicit direc- 
 tions that Washington should, in 
 the judgment of all the commanders of 
 corps, be left entirely secured, had 
 been entirely neglected." The com- 
 manders of corps were therefore made 
 sole judges of what was required for 
 security. These commanders were 
 Generals Keyes, Heintzelman, Mc 
 Dowell and Sumner. Thej^ were ab- 
 sent, with the exception of McDowell, 
 on the peninsula, with McClellan. 
 We have seen what McDowell's opinion 
 was. All these commanders of corps 
 were examined before the War Com- 
 mittee, but none of them was asked 
 whether he considered the forces ac- 
 tually ♦left by Gen. McClellan, suffi- 
 cient to ensure the safety of the capi. 
 tal. The testimony of neither of 
 them was before Generals Hitchcock 
 and Thomas, and there is little doubt 
 that every one of them would have 
 admitted the force, actually left there, 
 to be sufficient to secure the safety of 
 Washington. There was thei-efore no 
 authority for the decision that in the 
 judgment of commanders of corps 
 \Yashington Avas left unsafe. 
 
 General Hitchcock testified that 
 Gen. McClellan complained of that d<»- 
 
12 
 
 cision mado in the office of the Secre- 
 tary of War on the 3d of April, ^es, 
 he did complain : his letter to the 
 i. President is in the following words: 
 i Near Yorktown, April 5, 7 1-2. p.m 
 *' The enemy are in large force along 
 our front, and apparently intend ma- 
 king a determined resistance. A re- 
 connoisance just made by Gen. Bar- 
 nard shows that their line of works 
 extends across the entire peninsula 
 from Yorktown to Warwick river. 
 JMany of them are very formidal)le. 
 Deserters say they are being rein- 
 forced daily from Richmond and from 
 Norfolk. Under these circumstance^ 
 I beg that you will reconsider the or- 
 der detaching the first corps from my 
 command. In my deliberate judg- 
 ment the success of our cause will be 
 imperiled by so greatly reducing my 
 force Avhen it is actually under the fire 
 of the enemy, and active operations 
 have commenced. Two or three of 
 my divisions have been under fire of 
 artillery most of the day. I am now 
 of the ojnnion that I shall have to fight 
 all the available force of the rebels not 
 far from here. Do not force me to do 
 80 with diminished numbers ; but 
 whatever your decision may be, I will 
 leave nothing undone to obtain suc- 
 cess. G-. B. McClellan, 
 
 Major General. 
 A Lincoln, President. 
 
 This letter speaks for itself, it needs 
 no comment. 
 
 The rejoort and testimony of Gen. 
 James S. Wadsworth might be sub- 
 jected to severe animadversion. His 
 statements are contradicted by relia- 
 ble testimon3^ The report of Col. 
 William B. Green to General Barry, 
 Inspector of Artillery, has been exten- 
 sively published. It shows conclu- 
 sively the gross inaccuracy of General 
 Wadsworth. Moreover, the opposi- 
 tion, if not bitter hostility of General 
 Wadsworth to General McClellan is 
 well known in military circles at 
 Washington; it can be shown that 
 Wadsworth did not wish Ptichmond 
 to be taken by McClellan. But I shall 
 not dwell upon this topic ; my object 
 in these comcannications is single, and 
 I shall not bo diverted from its pur- 
 suit. 
 
 JSTow I submit to all men whetlier 
 these two points have not been estab- ■ 
 lished by the testimony contained in 
 the re^^ort of the Committee on the 
 conduct of the war. 
 
 1. If General McDowell's command 
 had not been denied General McClel- 
 lan, he would have taken Richmond 
 a year ago. 
 
 2. There was no justifiable reason 
 for withholding ihat command. 
 
 Beyond all controversy, the Com- 
 mittee were authorized by tha evi- 
 dence, to report these conclusions, 
 and in failing to do so, they have done 
 General McClellan signal injustice. I 
 arraign that committee, collectively 
 and individually, at the bar of public 
 opinion, and charge them with that 
 injustice. 
 
 I shall next proceed to show that 
 General McClellan did the best he 
 could with the foi'ces under his com- 
 mand. 
 
 YORKTOWN. 
 
 The next duty is to inquire whether, 
 although deprived of the co-operation 
 of McDowell's command, McClellan 
 ought, under all the circumstances, to 
 have taken Richmond Avith the force 
 under his command. It has been as- 
 serted with great confidence that he 
 ought; the Committee on the Conduct 
 of the AVar unanimously censure, nay 
 condemn him for not having taken the 
 rebel capital, and captured the army 
 which defended it. It is obvious that 
 this condemnatory sentence cannot be 
 met successfully by a general denial; 
 the grounds upon which it rests must 
 be carefully examined, step by step, 
 first at Yorktown, then from York- 
 town to RiclMuond. then before Rich- 
 mond, &c. I shall pursue this inquiry 
 in the light of such evidence as was 
 furnished by the state of things exist- 
 ing at the times respectively when the 
 movements of the army were made. 
 It would be unfair to view these move- 
 ments in the light of information sup- 
 plied since General McClellan was or- 
 dered to leave the PenLnsuJa, and not 
 accessible before that time. I shall be 
 pardoned, it being unavoidable, for 
 giving some details of evidence which 
 may seem dry and tedious to such of 
 
13 
 
 my readers as are in a hiivry and can 
 onl}^ read short paragraphs. There 
 are some of my country-men, even in 
 these times of agitation and bustle, 
 Avho are willing to be at pains to in- 
 vestigate, and ascertain, if they can, 
 the truth on a subject like that under 
 consideration. To such 1 must be con- 
 tent to address myself. The tirst po- 
 sition to be examined is Yorkfoicn. 
 
 It is admitted that Gen. MeClellan 
 appeared before Yorktown with an 
 army consisting of 107,000 ti'oops, 
 well equipjied, well drilled, well sup- 
 plied, and composed of men of physi- 
 cal, intellectual, and moral power, 
 each as have never been surpassed in 
 any military organization. This army 
 deserves the highest wi'ought eulogy 
 that has ever been passed upon it. 
 Tliis eulogy has been recorded b}' the 
 Commanding General of the Army of 
 the Potomac, and histor}^ will trans- 
 mit it to future generations. 
 
 Let it be remembered, for the fact 
 seems to have been kept studiously 
 out of mind, that the army which this 
 loyal and ever to be honored host 
 went to subdue wei-e composed of 
 American citizens, most of them na- 
 tive born, numerically equal, probably 
 superior to our own, well officered, 
 Avell drilled, under strict discipline, 
 fighting behind entrenchments, on soil 
 claimed to be their own, and animated 
 Avith a zeal which the resistance of an 
 invading enemy alone can inspire. 
 Now although the loj-al army sur- 
 passed the rebels in the material of 
 Avar, this was counterbalanced by the 
 liard lessons they had learned in the 
 school of privation and sufferings 
 tkey were at home fighting on the 
 defensive, in positions chosen by them- 
 selves, behind ramparts of their own 
 construction. Men versed in the art 
 of war have learned from the records 
 of former military conflicts, to com- 
 puve Avith mathematical accuracy the 
 adA^antages and disadvixntages of ar- 
 mies in such circumstances, composed 
 of the same race of men, neither supe- 
 rior to the other in spirit or militarj- 
 ]M"owess. With sucli an enemy in 
 front discharging his fire, wcW miglit 
 McClcllan implore the President, do 
 
 not force me to fight with diminished 
 numbers. 
 
 General MeClellan in all liis milita- 
 ry operations has acted under tlie in- 
 spiration and guidance of tAVO gene- 
 ral principles. 
 
 1. The rebellion had assumed a 
 character so formidable as to place the 
 country in a state of civil Avar. Ar- 
 my Ava^ arrayed against army in the 
 tield. The rules for the government 
 of belligerent parties which modern 
 civilization furnishes, were of binding 
 force. General MeClellan had receiv- 
 ed the education of a soldier ; he was 
 well-instructed in these rules. He 
 had before him the example of Gen. 
 Scott, who had always conducted war- 
 fare in conformity to these rules, nev- 
 er for an instant departing trom their 
 injunctions, and this great General 
 had, received the approbation of his 
 country for his course. On no consid- 
 ei'ation, to gratify no man, or set of 
 men, Avould Gen. MeClellan violate 
 these rules and deviate from ihe path 
 pursued by his illustrious predecessor 
 under Avhom he had learned the art 
 of Avar. Such a violation, such a de- 
 parture, would fix a stain upon his 
 character as a soldier, Avhich no suc- 
 cess could efface; besides it would dis< 
 honor the flag of the Christian nation 
 which he served. To do this was im- 
 possible for George B. MeClellan. 
 
 2. MeClellan, Avhile he meant to do 
 Avhat he could to put doAvn the rebel- 
 lion, to exert every nerve to accom- 
 plish this object, 3-et was anxious to 
 do it without any unnecessary loss of 
 life of the soldiers led by him; he 
 kncAv Avho these soldiers Avere, whence 
 they came, how they Avei'e connected 
 in their respective homes and neigh- 
 borhoods, and what \^alue to set upoii 
 tbeir lives. 
 
 These were his principles; and, be- 
 sides these, as a matter of ftict, he had 
 the conviction that the enemy was a 
 very formidable one ; others could af- 
 ford to despise him, but he could not. 
 He could haA'e Avished it otherwise^ 
 but his personal knowledge of the of- 
 ficers who led that enemy, and the 
 spirit and prowess of the troops led 
 by them, forced this conviction on his 
 
14 
 
 tinderstjinding; he could not ia-noreit, 
 bul us a soldier he felt his obligation 
 to act upon it. 
 
 All these composed the creed of 
 Gen. McClellan ; and if the tirades of 
 abuse amounting almost to the ravings 
 of lunatics, which have been spoken 
 and written against him, from Sena- 
 tor Chandler's speech on the floor of 
 the Senate, down to the late editoi'ial 
 article in the New York Times, shall 
 be closely analyzed and examined, it 
 will be seen that this creed is that 
 which mainly' stirs up the ire of his 
 opponents. 
 
 McOlellan marched from Fortress 
 Monroe towards Yorktown on the 4th 
 of April 1862, and soon reached the 
 fortitled position which was evacuated 
 by.the enemy in great precipitation 
 on the 4th day of May, one month 
 thereafter. The retreat of the ene- 
 my from a very strong and well forti- 
 fied position was compelled by our ar- 
 my in one month. 
 
 The charge against the command- 
 ing general is that he spent too much 
 time before Yorktown — that he should 
 have taken it immediately on his ar- 
 rival before itb}^ assault, and not wait- 
 ed the operations of a siege. 
 
 What is the testimon}'- upon this 
 point ? It shall be fairly given. The 
 Prince de Joinville, an eye witness, 
 says: — " We reached the Confederate 
 lines which opened on us at once, with 
 a sharp fire of artillery. We replied, 
 but without making any imjiression 
 on the well defined works which cov- 
 ered the hostile cannon. The creek 
 had been reconnoitered and found im- 
 passable by infantry, both on account 
 of the depth of water, and of its marshy 
 borders, in which the troops would 
 have been under a cross-fire of num- 
 bers of sharpshooters concealed in the 
 woods and behind the embankments. 
 
 •' Throughout the seven miles of 
 Confederate lines he encountered the 
 same attitudeof alert defence. Every 
 vv^herc cannon and camps. Of course 
 the inference was that we were ar- 
 rested by forces apparently formid- 
 able, and before a position not easily 
 carried." 
 . General McCiellan before the com- 
 
 mittee testifies : " Question. Could 
 not the line of vs^orks have been as- 
 saulted when you arrived before them 
 in full force M'ith a ft^ir prospect of 
 success? — Answer. I think not. 1 
 resorted to the operations of a siege, 
 after a more careful personal exami- 
 nation than a commanding general 
 gives to such things j and I was ful- 
 ly satisfied that the course I adpoted 
 was the best under the circumstan- 
 ces." 
 
 " Question. — You did not open your 
 batteries as they were finished, one 
 by one, but waited until all were 
 ready, did you not? — Answer. We 
 did, and expected to open fire from 
 them all on Monday morning. A few 
 shots were fired for a sj^ecial purpose 
 from battery No. 1 against vessels 
 landing at the wharf." 
 
 " Question. Would it not have been 
 better to have ojDcned your batteries 
 as they were completed, without w^ait- 
 ing for the completion of all of them ? 
 — Answer. I think decidedly not; be- 
 cause they would probably have been 
 overwhelmed by the concentrated 
 fire of the enemj'". The object was to 
 %vait until we had such an overwhelm- 
 ing force at our disposal as would 
 crush everything before us." 
 
 General John C. Bai'uard, chief of 
 General McClcllan's engineer corps, 
 who next to the general command- 
 ing, is the highest authoritj^, reported 
 at the time: — '-It was not deemed 
 practicable considering the strength 
 of that line and the difficulty of 
 handling our forces (owing to the im- 
 practicable character of the country), 
 to bieik the line across the isthmus, 
 and too hazardous to attempt the 
 reduction of the place " (Yorktown> 
 " by assault." — " The forcing of sucti 
 a line with so little loss, in itself is an 
 exploit less brilliant, perhaps, but 
 more worthy of study thaii would 
 have been a murderous assault, even 
 if it had proved successful." These 
 are extracts from the engineer's re- 
 port now made public, I believe, for 
 the first time, but that report was ac- 
 cessible to the committee. 
 
 General Erastus D. Keyes com- 
 manded a division iu the Army of the 
 
15 
 
 Peninsula. He av^s before Yorktown. 
 His advance was stopped by a line of 
 defence nine or ten miles long, forti- 
 fied by breast works, erected, nearly 
 the whole distance behind a stream, 
 or succession of ponds, nowhere ford- 
 able; one terminus behind Yorktown, 
 and the other ending in the James 
 Eiver which is commanded by the 
 enemy's^ gun boats. He says : — " York- 
 town is Ibrtified all around with bas- 
 tioned works, and on the water side, 
 it, and Gloucester, are so strong that 
 the navy are afraid to attack either. 
 The approaches on our side are gen- 
 erall}' ihrough low, swampy or thickly 
 wooded grounds; over roads which 
 we are obliged to repair or make 
 before we can get forward our car- 
 riages. The enemy is in great 
 iorce, and is constantl}^ receiving re- 
 inforcements from the two rivers. 
 The line in front of us is therefore 
 one of the strongest ever opposed to 
 an invading foce in any country. In- 
 dependently of the strength of the 
 lines in front of us, and of the force 
 ot the enemy behind them, we cannot 
 advance until we get command of 
 either York (n- James River." 
 
 Generai/ Fitz John Pouter who 
 commanded the advanced corps and 
 who also conducted the siege of York- 
 town, reported : " Personal recogni- 
 zances confirmed by the reports of 
 engmeer officers, and the troops, show- 
 ed the York'itown defences to be 
 strong, and Avell armecl, and connect- 
 ed with those on the Warwick by 
 field works for artillery and infantry'-* 
 that the bridges were destroyed and 
 the approaclies to the dams which 
 bad backed up the water to overflow 
 +he banks were obstructed by abbatis 
 and defended on the right bank by 
 stone forts, wliich were Avell armed 
 and manned and connected by infantry 
 parajDets." — '• Officers on picket re- 
 ported the enem}^ apparently in great 
 numbers and very active, while desert- 
 ers stated that troops at Yorktown 
 and vicinity, originally about 15,000, 
 had been greatly increased by arrivals 
 from Norfolk and Eichmond, and were 
 confident of successfullv defending the 
 place.'' 
 
 In opposition ro tliis is the testi- 
 mony, 1st, of Gen. Silas S, Casey. 
 He says : " That part of the army 
 that went to Yorktown, I think, should 
 have stormed the works, as from the 
 information I received afterwards 
 there were but about 7,000 or 8,000 
 men on the arrival of the first corps 
 on the peninsula." This is all this 
 witness says about storming the 
 works. If General Casey had c-om. 
 manded the ai-my, he would not have 
 acted on information received after- 
 wards. 
 
 2. General Samuel P. Heintzle- 
 MA". The following testimony tran- 
 scribed from the report was read by 
 the General; "Question. If there was 
 onl}^ about 7,000 men in Yorktown, 
 and you had so large an arm}', what 
 military objection had you to isolating 
 the place and attacking further up the 
 Peninsula? Answer. By the time we 
 got to Yorktown their army had been 
 largely reinforced there, though 
 nothing like as fast as ours. Question 
 What was the estimated strength of 
 our army there ? Answer. I never 
 heard. I was always of opinion that 
 we could have forced their lines; and 
 from information that I got at the 
 Adams House, about two miles from 
 Williamsburgh, the day before the 
 battle there, I was satisfied we could 
 have done so." 
 
 3. General Joseph Hooker testi- 
 fied : " Prom my examination of the 
 works at Yorktown, and reaching 
 away beyond the position that I occu- 
 pied, I felt that their lines could be 
 pierced without any considerable loss 
 by the corps with which I was on du- 
 ty- — Heintzleman's corps. We could 
 have gone right through, and gone to 
 the rear of the enemy. They would 
 run the moment we got to their rear, 
 and we could have picked up the pris- 
 oners. Eight there at Yorktown the 
 enemy had expended a great deal of 
 labor. But I would have marched 
 right through the redoubts which was 
 a part of the cordon they hnd, and got 
 on the road between Yorktown and 
 Eichmond and thus compelled the ene- 
 my to fight me on my ground, and not 
 have fouiJ-ht them on theirs." Thisi 
 
testimony is characteristic of this wit- 
 ness ; and he would undoubtedly have 
 marched right through the redoubts, 
 always provided the enemy had not pre- 
 vented him. He would, too, have com- 
 pelled the enemy to fight him on his 
 own ground, -pYOviAQd he could have got 
 -possession of the ground, ajid kept it. 
 
 So then it will be seen that the wit- 
 nesses in favor of beseiging Yorktown 
 are : 1. Prince de Joinville, 2. General 
 McClellan, 3. G-en. Barnard, 4. Gen. 
 Keyes, and 5. Gen. Porter. In favor 
 of stoi'ming the works. Generals Heint- 
 Lelman, Casey, and Hooker. This 
 being a question to be decided by the 
 opinions of military men. I take into 
 consideration such opinions only, the 
 opinions of what the law terms experts; 
 other oj)inions are not competent evi- 
 dence. It ought perhaps to be stated 
 in this connection that General Bar- 
 nard, although he gave the opinion 
 above quoted from his report made at 
 the time of the siege, yet afterwards 
 changed his mind. The evidence oi 
 this change was furnished by a most 
 extraordinaiy report made by him to 
 General McClellan long after the siege 
 of Yorktown; after it was well un- 
 derstood what testimony the commit- 
 tee Bought in respect to General 
 McClellan, and, strange to say, even 
 after this general had been relieved o.' 
 his command, and when it was sup- 
 posed he was not in favor with the ad- 
 ministi-ation. It must have been pain- 
 ful to General Barnard to feel himself 
 compelled to attempt the ruin of a 
 brother officer at such a time, and un- 
 der such circumstances; but let the 
 veteran engineer console himself with 
 the assurance I now give him, that 
 General McClellan is not ruined in re- 
 I piitation ; he is not dead. He may be 
 annoyed, but he is not in disgrace, nor 
 j6 ho friendless, 
 
 BBFOEE YOEKTOWN. 
 
 I did suppose that what had been 
 . ?aid in my last number would have 
 been sufficient to show that General 
 McClellan was deserving of commen- 
 dation, rather than censure, for decid- 
 ing to besiege the enemy's works at 
 Yorktown in preference to carrying 
 
 16 
 
 them by what, in the opinion of Gen- 
 eral Barnard, would have been a mur- 
 derous assault even if successful. The 
 country has since had some experience 
 of such assaults at Fredericksburg. 
 The sole consolation for our disasters 
 in these conflicts is found in the fact 
 that, although we lost many thous- 
 ands in killed and wounded, yet per- 
 haps the enemy suffered as severely 
 as ourselves. But, on referring again 
 to the report of the committee, I see 
 that a sti'ong point is attempted to be 
 made against the general for what is 
 termed his " delay before Yorktown." 
 The following paragraph is taken from 
 the pamphlet edition of the committee, 
 published and sold in the office of the 
 JVeio York Tribune. The capitals and 
 italics are also copied : 
 "DELAY BEFOEE YORKTOWN. 
 
 " All the testimony goes to prove 
 that when our troops first landed on 
 the Peninsula the force of the enemy 
 there consisted of Magruder's com- 
 mand, variously estimated at from 
 7,000 to 12,000 men, except by Gene- 
 ral McClellan, who estimated it at 
 from 15,000 to 20,000. The Hon. Le- 
 muel J. Bowden, U. S. Senator from 
 Virginia — then living within the rebel 
 lines, near Williamsburg, — testifies 
 that the rebels did not determine to rein- 
 force Magruder until it ivas apparent 
 that our forces intended to stop before 
 Yorktown, and intended to commence a 
 regular siege o the place. It is now 
 evident, whatever may have been the 
 opinion of our officers at the time, that 
 oiir forces when they first appeared be- 
 fore Yorktown could have pierced the 
 line of works across the Peninsula there 
 without much difiicxdty, isolating York- 
 town and cutting off reinforcements, 
 when the place must have fallen in a 
 very short time. Some of our generals 
 expected and desired that that should 
 be done. Gen. Heintzelman forwarded 
 to Gen. McClellan the application of 
 Gen. Hamilton, commanding a divi- 
 sion, for permission to force the ene- 
 my's lines. No answer was received 
 to the application." 
 
 I shall refute these statements in 
 their order. It is not true that the 
 rebels did not intend to reinforce Ma- 
 
17 
 
 gruder until it was determined to com- 
 mence a regular siege of "Yorktown. 
 PROOF. 
 
 ^ General McClellan did not contem- 
 plate the necessity of a siege when he 
 first advanced (April 4th) upon York- 
 town, after landing on the Peninsula; 
 he then expected to be joined by 
 McDowell's command. On the 4th of 
 April he issned orders for the contin- 
 ued march of the army at an early 
 hour the next morning. General 
 Keyes', General Couch's, and General 
 
 /Smith's divisions were ordered to 
 
 f)Ositions on the Yorktown and Wil- 
 amsburg road, which would enable 
 them to prevent the escape of the gar- 
 rison at Yorktown, and to intercept 
 reinforcements coming in. But Gene- 
 ral Keyes reported the impossibility 
 of carr^'ing those orders into effect, 
 apetcifj'ing, among other things, tiiat 
 "the enemy is in great force, and is 
 constantly receiving reinforcements from 
 the two rivers. The line in front of us 
 is their new one of the strongest ever op- 
 posed to an invading force in any coun- 
 try." This report bore date April 7lh. 
 On the 5th and Gth of April ho had 
 prevlousl}' reported that the enemy's 
 works (^Lee's Mills) in front of Smith, 
 cannot oe carried by assault. General 
 Keja^s was not before Yorktown, but 
 in front of the enem}'^, on the War- 
 wick. General McClellan himself tes- 
 tified: " \Ye did not know, before we 
 landed on the Peninsula, of the line of 
 works along the Warwick. We knew 
 that Yorktown was surrounded by a 
 continuous line of earthworks, but we 
 did not know of the line of the AVar- 
 wick." 
 
 General Casey, who it will be re- 
 membered, acted under General Keyes, 
 Hnd did not join for several days after 
 Keyes, says : 
 
 " From information I received after- 
 wards," (that is after the evacuation 
 of Yorktown), " there were but 7.U0U 
 or 8,000 men there on the arrival ot 
 the five corps " (not before Yorktown. 
 but) ''onthe Peninsxda" General Heint- 
 zelman says : " B}' the ^time we got to 
 Ydrkrown their army (the enemy's) 
 had been largely reinforced.'^ General 
 McClellan, in answer to the inquiry, 
 
 " What was the force of the enemy 
 when Heintzelman lauded on the Pe- 
 ninsula ? " says : " I do not know posi- 
 tively ; but my belief is that there 
 was not at that time much more than 
 Magruder's original command, which, 
 I think, we had always estimated at 
 from 15,000 to 20,000 men. Move- 
 ments of troops had been going on 
 across the James River to the Penin- 
 sula some days before my arrival. I 
 remember that immediately upon my 
 arrival at Fort Monroe, I was told that 
 quite a large number of troops had been 
 crossed over to Yorktown from the sonth 
 bank of the James. I therefore hur- 
 ried my own movements, and started 
 from Fort Monro sooner than I would 
 liave done. From the best informa- 
 tion that I have been able to get, I 
 think that large masses of reinfoix'e- 
 ments arrived at Yorktown from one to 
 two days before I reached 'its vicinity. 
 Johston himself arrived there the day 
 before I did." 
 
 Thus much for the proof in opposi- 
 tion to the testimony quoted from 
 Hon, Lemuel J. Bowden (United 
 States Senator !) The senator says 
 he practiced law for a number of 
 years, from Willimsburg down to 
 Hampton, including Yorktown. He 
 is asked by the committee : " In your 
 judgment what would have been the 
 result had a vigorous attack been 
 made upon YorktOAvn proper, or a 
 flank attack made?" The law gives 
 value to the judgment of none but 
 experts ; it does not allow such judg- 
 ments or opinions to be given in evi- 
 dence, except perhaps when the wit- 
 ness is clothed with the dignity of " a 
 Senator," and I freely admit that the 
 "judgment" of Senator Bowden is of 
 as much value as the judgment of 
 Senator Chandler, or Senator Sher- 
 man ; Senators all ! But let us hear 
 the reply of the witness. He could 
 not forget that though a senator, he 
 had practiced law ; he therefoi*e says : 
 "I have vftr}' little skill, if any, in 
 military affairs, but my decided im- 
 pression is," &c. This answer was a 
 rebuke as severe as couid have been 
 given, for putting such a question to 
 sach a man. If there had been any 
 
11 
 
 holiest lawyer on that committee, with 
 even the elementary knowledge of the 
 law of evidence, he would have said to 
 the witness : " You are excused from 
 giving any further answer; if you 
 are not a militar}^ man, your opinion 
 is no evidence, and if you are a mili- 
 tary man, your impression would not 
 be evidence." But the witness was 
 not interrogated, and he proceeds to 
 tell, not what he knew but what ho 
 had heard from other Union men, bet- 
 ter qualified to judge than himself; 
 he concludes his narration of hearsay 
 testimony in these words : " This I 
 gathered from others, for 1 did not 
 myself go to Yorktown after the Con- 
 federates took possession of it until 
 they evacuated it." If any one ol 
 my readers desires to know what, in 
 particular. Senator Bowden "gather- 
 ed from others," I will refer him to 
 the report of the committee, page 583. 
 I beg leave to take leave of the Sena- 
 tor, with commendation for his modes- 
 iy. and I will say for him that I re- 
 gard his judgment in military mat- 
 ters as highly as I do any other law- 
 3'er of my acquaintance. 
 
 But the committee say : — •' It is now 
 evident, whatever may have been the 
 opinion of our officers at the time, 
 that (here come the italics) our forces^ 
 when they first appeared before York- 
 town^ could have pierced the line of 
 works, &c." 
 
 I have just show^n what the officers 
 at the time thought, but I do not find 
 in the report that any, but General 
 Ilointzelman, were as wise after the 
 time as the committee represent. This 
 General says, I was always of the 
 opinion that we could have forced 
 their lines, and from information I 
 got at the Adams House, ar;uut two 
 miles from Willimsburg, the day be- 
 fore the battle there, I was satisfied 
 we could have done so. The veteran 
 general does not tell the committee 
 from whence he derived this infoz-ma- 
 tion; perhaps it was Senator Bow- 
 den, for he lived up there. If the 
 general did get his information from 
 this source, he certainly shows proper 
 respect for the " civil authority," a 
 commendable trait in a military man. 
 
 The report at the conclusion of the 
 paragrapn quoted says : 
 
 '• General Heintzelman forwarded 
 to General McClellan the application 
 of General Hamilton, commanding a 
 division, for permission to force the 
 enemy's lines. No answer was re- 
 ceived to the application." This pas- 
 sage of the report is founded on the 
 following testimony given by General 
 Heintzelman: "We were willing to 
 tiy to force the lines with a single 
 brigade. General Hamilton made the 
 application, and I forwarded it to the 
 commanding general." 
 
 On the 16th April Brigadier Gen- 
 eral Hamilton reported that the line 
 ot rebel works for three quarters of a 
 mile could have been carried by a sin- 
 gle brigade, with very little loss, and. 
 " I further report that I believe 1 can 
 carry these works and hold them 
 without much loss." This is the ap- 
 plication made by Gen. Hamilton. 
 Gen Hamilton, when lie made this re- 
 port, was under the impression that 
 the artillery in our batteries Nos. 7 
 and 8 had driven the enemy from 
 Winn's Mills works, which was erro- 
 neous. No answer or direction was 
 given to Gen. Hamilton in reply to 
 his suggestion, because it was well 
 known, and it had been reported by 
 the general conducting the siege, that 
 it had been found impracticable to 
 cross the Warwick anywhere in the 
 vicinity of Winn's Mills, this river not 
 being fordable and the bridges de- 
 stroyed ; also that " a close and tho- 
 rough reconnoissance on the 25th 
 made by that excellent officer of the 
 army. Col. Jesse Gove, with his regi. 
 ment, the Twenty-Second Massachu- 
 setts Volunteers, confirmed his for- 
 mer report of the 5th and 11th, that 
 the Warwick was not fordable, the 
 bank swampy, and the dams near its 
 headwaters, on account of artificial 
 obstructions, unapproachable in face 
 of the enemy on the opposite banks." 
 Gen. Grover, part of lleintzelman's 
 command, after carrying a small 
 work, defending a dam east of the 
 Warwick, near Winn's Mills, drew^ off 
 his forces because the Warwick could 
 not be crossed, the narrow dam at 
 
19 
 
 that point being defended oy several 
 strong works well manned Winn's 
 Mills were near the headwaters of the 
 "Warwick. Gen. Barnard ?ays in his 
 report: "The first group of works 
 (the enemy's) is at Winn's Mills, 
 where there is a dam and a bridge. 
 This bridge the enemy destroyed." 
 
 Thus I have examined and refuted 
 sentence by sentence — the reader will 
 see that this detail was necessary — 
 the italicised libel of the committee 
 which has been circulated by thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands, by the 
 aid of a metropolitan press, and the 
 machinery of the United States gov- 
 ernment, and all for what ? to destroy 
 the reputation, as a soldier, of Geo. B. 
 McClellan. 
 
 I have seen a copy of General Bar- 
 nard's report, bearing date May 6, 
 1862, and of Gen. Barry's, bearing 
 date May 5, 1862, and of General Fitz 
 John Porter, bearing date May 8, 
 1862. These reports seem to me to 
 give evidence of professional talent of 
 a high order. The words in which 
 (kis report of Gen. Barnard concludes 
 have been quoted, and shall not be re- 
 peated. Rut the following additional 
 qtjotations fi'oni the same report may 
 be aptly given here. " If we could 
 have broken the enemy's lines across 
 the isthmus, we could have invested 
 Yorktown, and it must, with its gar- 
 rison, soon have fallen into our hands. 
 It was not deemed practicable, con- 
 sidering the strength of that line and 
 the difficulty of handling our forces 
 (owing to the impyacticable chai'acter 
 of the country) to do so. If we could 
 take Yorktown, or drive the enemy 
 out of that place, the enemy's line 
 was no longer tenable. This we could 
 do by a single operation It was 
 deemed too hazardous to attempt the 
 red^iction of the place by assault," 
 Pei'liaps General Hooker would not 
 have deemed it " too hazardous/' but 
 here let me say what I declare upon 
 reliable authority, that this same gen- 
 eral nevcT saw the defences of the 
 enemy behind the Warwick. General 
 Barry, fully confiding in the artillery 
 placed and pointed under his com- 
 mand, reported that our batteries, 
 
 when opened, •' would have compelled 
 the enemy to surrender in 12 hours." 
 But the committee did not call Barry 
 and Porter to the witness' stand, — they < 
 selected their own witnesses; yet it ! 
 must have been known to them that 
 these generals knew a great deal 
 about the siege of Yorktown. The 
 enem}^ did not give General Barry an 
 opportunity to try his well-placed 
 guns, and demonstrate the power and 
 efficiency of his batteries, but directly 
 decided to evacuate before they were 
 opened. What a tribute was this eva- 
 cuation to the unsurpassed skill and 
 generalship of McClellan! A force of 
 equal, if not superior number retires, 
 precipitately, from their own chosen 
 and deliberately constructed fortifica- 
 tions, without firing a gun. Who for 
 a moment imagined that Major Gen- 
 eral McClellan would, under similar 
 circuinstances, have retired fi'om for- 
 tifications erected for the defence of 
 any loyal city under his command? 
 This young genei-al would never have 
 evacuated had he been behind such 
 fortifications with an army numeri- 
 cally equal in his, front. It cannot be 
 denied that this siege and its result 
 was an eminent military success. Why 
 was not that great captain, Lieut. 
 Gen, Winfield Scott, asked his profes- 
 sional opinion of the operations before 
 Yorktown? The reply is easy — be- 
 cause the committee well knew he 
 would not give an answer to suit their 
 purpose. Yet while the siege of York- 
 town, as a military enterprise, is re- 
 garded with admiration by distin- 
 guished soldiers at home and abroad; 
 while it illustrates in a remarkable 
 degree the proficiency of our country 
 in the science and art of war, a com- 
 mittee of an Araei'ican Congress make 
 it a theme of censure, and strive by 
 the most studied arts to defame 
 and degrade their own illustrious 
 countryman who suggested the plan 
 and supei'vised the whole conduct of 
 that siege. Shame ! shame ! 
 
 The joint committee must have in- 
 tended to rebuke the action of the 
 House of Eepresentatives, which on 
 the 9th May, 1862, passed the follow, 
 in<r i-esolution of thanks: — "Eesolved 
 
20 
 
 'I*hat we receive with profound satis- 
 faction intelligence of the recent vic- 
 tories achieved by the armies of the 
 Potomac, associated from their locali- 
 ties with those of the Eevolution, and 
 that the sincere thanks of this House 
 are hereby tendered to Major General 
 George B. JAcClellan, for the display 
 of those high military qualities which 
 Secure important results with but lit- 
 tle sacrifice of life. 
 
 I have done with Yorktown, unless 
 the committee or some of its members 
 see fit to reply to what is here record- 
 ed. I do not wish to be considered 
 the defender of General McClellan. 
 He needs no defence. The simple un- 
 varnished narrative of what he has 
 done, and what he has left undone, in 
 the service of his country, and his rea- 
 sons for his action and non-action, 
 will form not only his defence but his 
 eulogy. My office is to arraign before 
 the American people and the world, 
 the joint committee of Congress. It 
 will aiford me sincere gratification to 
 be convinced that this committee does 
 not deserve the marked reprobation of 
 all intelligent and honorable men. 
 
 Since I sent my last number to the 
 press I have been addressed by a mer- 
 chant of high position and respecta- 
 bility, substantially as follows : " Well ! 
 I see you have turned military man, 
 and are engaged in the discussion of 
 inilitary questions." My reply to 
 snch a question is — I am no military 
 man, and am no judge of military 
 matters ; that is to say, my judgment 
 is not the result of such theoretical 
 and practical knowledge as entitles 
 my opinions to be received as evi- 
 dence to guide the judgment of others. 
 I am not an expert. But I do profess 
 to some knowledge of the rules of 
 evidence, and also to some £,cquaiut- 
 ance with the Constitution of my 
 country, and to the duties -imposed 
 upon public officers by that Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 1. As to the rules of evidence. 
 Every witness may testify to facts 
 which have fallen under his own ob- 
 servation, or which he personally 
 knows ; but information derived from 
 others is hearsay evidence, and is 
 
 open to many objections. It is very 
 unsafe to form conclusions from such 
 testimony. 
 
 As I have before shown, opinions 
 can only be received as evidence when 
 they proceed from witnesses who have, 
 from theory and practice, peculiai 
 knowledge of the subject upon which 
 they testify. These rules are the re- 
 sult of long experience in the prac- 
 tical business of mankind, especially 
 in controversies brought before courts 
 of justice, and they have been estab- 
 lished with the view to aiding the hu- 
 man mind in the endeavor to arrive at 
 truth through the medium of human 
 testimony. Another rule is, that 
 leading questions shall not be put to 
 a witness J that is to say, a question 
 shall not be asked which suggests to 
 the witness the answer which is de- 
 sired and expected. Considering that 
 the joint committee was composed of 
 members, a large majority of whom 
 were known to be unfriendly to Mc- 
 Clellan, and were intent upon his deg- 
 radation, and considering too, that 
 most of the witnesses were dependent 
 for their positions, and especially for 
 their promotion, upon the favor of 
 the Administration, leading ques- 
 tions would not be likely to elicit the 
 truth. Witness the single case of 
 General Barnard, in illustration of 
 this remark. Now I affirm, from a 
 thorough and attentive perusal of the 
 evidence contained in No. 1 of the 
 committee's report, that all these 
 rules have been grossly and repeatedly 
 violated by the committee in taking 
 testimony. To specify : A great deal 
 of improper and hearsay evidence 
 has been received in answer to ques. 
 tions put by the committee. Numer- 
 ous opinions have been drawn forth 
 and recorded, from witnesses whose 
 opinions were not evidence. The re- 
 port abounds with leading questions 
 which plainly suggest to the witness- 
 es the answei's desired, and the ans- 
 wers are, for the most pai't, given as 
 desired. 
 
 2. As to the Constitution, and du- 
 ties of official agents of the govern- 
 ment : 
 
 The President, the chief of theso 
 
official organs, is by virtue of his 
 office, commander in chief of the 
 army, hut that of itself, does not 
 qualify him to take command of the 
 army or to interfere in military opera- 
 tions. The idea, that because he is 
 the constitutional conmander in chief 
 of the army, he shall take command 
 in fact, is absurd, according to the 
 theorj'' of our constitutional govern- 
 ment. The country has been engaged 
 in three wars with foreign nations 
 since the Eevolution. The short war 
 with France, under John Adams, se- 
 cond Pi'esident of the United States, 
 the' war with Great Britain, under 
 Mr. Madison's Administration, and 
 the war with Mexico, under Mr. Polk's 
 Administration. Neither of these 
 Presidents ever for a moment under- 
 took to interfere directly with troops 
 or regiments in the field. The idea of 
 John Adams, or James Madison, emi- 
 nent statesmen as they were, bestrid- 
 ing a horse and reviewing an army, 
 would strike any American citizen of 
 their day as ridiculous. A President 
 may put in office, by consent of the 
 Senate, the incumbents of the War 
 Department; but when duly filled with 
 officers, constitutionally chosen, this 
 department must manage and control 
 military operations in time of war. 
 The like is true of every other depart- 
 ment. Who expects the President to 
 control the operations of the Treasury 
 Department? Would Mr. Chase al- 
 low for a moment such interference or 
 oonti'ol? Certainly not. President 
 Lincoln has pi'actieally violated this 
 established theory of our government. 
 He has interfered directly, in his own 
 proper person, with military opera- 
 tions ; he has personally directed gen- 
 erals in command what they ought 
 to do, and what they ought to leave 
 undone. What has been the result ? 
 Nothing but evil and disaster. I have 
 shown, beyond the possibility of refu- 
 tation, that but for the interference of 
 the President, General McClellan 
 would have taken Eichmond a year 
 ago. Unless this war is conducted by 
 military men, upon militar}- princi- 
 ples, it needs no prophet to tell us it 
 can never succeed. It is a well known 
 
 21 
 
 fact that the General-in-Chief at 
 Washington does not control the mil- 
 itary operations of the country, ]y\i% 
 he is constantly interfered with -and 
 controlled by the constitutional Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and this constitti- 
 tional commander is constantly under 
 an outside pressure, not directed by 
 military science, which he has more 
 than once acknowledged his utter ina- 
 bility to resist. Is it possible that our 
 cause should prosper when these 
 things exist ? My remedy is : — ^Let 
 George B. McClellan be made Gene- 
 ral-in-Chief and Acting Secretary of 
 War, and then let him control the 
 operations of the war, without inter- 
 ference, just as Ml*. Chase now con- 
 trols the operations of the Treasury 
 Department without interference. 
 Then success will follow, and confi- 
 dence will be felt that military opera- 
 tions will be properly conducted. 
 
 This number is an episode sug- 
 gested by the question casually put to 
 me as above stated. I shall accom- 
 pany the Army of the Potomac from 
 Yorktown to Williamsburg in my next 
 number. 
 
 FEOM YOEKTOWN TO 
 WILLI AMSBUEG. 
 
 Yorktown was evacuated on the 
 4th of May, 1862 ; suddenly, unex- 
 pectely, precipitately evacuated. What, 
 then, was the duty of General Mc 
 Clellan, and did he perform that duty ? 
 It is obvious that fresh, hot, and vig- 
 orous pursuit was one branch of that 
 duty. By this means the enemy, or 
 a part of his force, might be encoun- 
 tered and captured. Another and 
 more important branch of his duty 
 was, if posaible, to intercept the re- 
 treat of the enemy by throwing a 
 force between him and Eichmond. 
 Let us see what the general actually 
 did ; his own testimony on this point 
 is too clear and comprehensive to re- 
 quire elucidation or abridgment. Here 
 it is : " As soon as I knew that 
 the enemy had evacuated Yorktown. 
 I ordered the cavalry under General 
 Stouemau, with the horse-artillery in 
 pursuit. I directed the divisions of 
 Kearney and Hooker to move by the 
 direct road from Yorktown to Wil 
 
liamsburg, while the divisions of 
 Smith, Couch, and Casey, were order- 
 ed by the road from Warwick Court 
 House to Wiliiamsburgh. Franklin's 
 division, which was on the Transports, 
 was ordered up to Yorktown, with 
 the intention of moving it to the vi- 
 cinity of West Point, in order to in- 
 tercept the retreat of the enemy. The 
 divisions of Eichardson, Sedgwick, 
 and Porter were moved to the imme- 
 diate vicinity of Yorktown, ready 
 either to support the troops who had 
 advanced by land, or to go by water, 
 as circumstances might render advisa- 
 ble. The general instructions given 
 to the troops ordered in pursuit were 
 to overtake the enemy and inflict as 
 ■much damage as possible. This was 
 on Sunday. That night 1 heard that 
 the cavalry had come up with the ene- 
 my in the vicinity of Williamsburg, 
 and that the infantry were within a 
 half hour's march, rapidly approach- 
 ing, and would undoubtedly earry the 
 position. Gen. Sumner was in com- 
 mand of the troops ordered to the 
 front. I remaiiLed at Yorktown on 
 Sunday, and on Monday morning en- 
 gaged in arranging for the forwarding 
 of Franklin's division to West Point, 
 and in consultation with the naval 
 commander, as well as other duties 
 incident to my position. 
 
 I heard nothing from the front on 
 Monday morning that gave me any 
 idea that there was anything serious 
 involved. I heard nothing from Gen- 
 eral Sumner. The first intimation I 
 had that there was anything at uU se- 
 rious was from Governor Sprague, 
 ■who came to me at Yorktown and told 
 me that things were not going on well 
 in front. This was. I think, about 
 noon ; it may have been half an liour 
 or an hour one way or the other. lie 
 told me that things were not going 
 well, and that my presence in front 
 was necessary. As soon as I heard 
 that I took a boat, went down to camp 
 where my horses were, and immedi- 
 ately left for the front, meeting on 
 the way the Prince de Joinville, and 
 an aid of General Sumner, who had 
 been sent back to hurry me up. Up 
 to this time 1 had had no information 
 
 22 
 
 from General Sun^iier or any one in 
 command, that there was anything at 
 all serious in front. 1 arrived on the 
 ground, I should thmk, about an hour 
 or an hour and a half before dark. I 
 acquainted myself, as rapidly as pos- 
 sible, with the state of affairs, and 
 immediately oi-dered reinforcements 
 to General Hancock, who was heavily 
 engaged when I arrived, and I endea- 
 vored to communicate with General 
 Heintzelman, who was on the left of 
 our position. I was told that it was 
 impossible to communicate directly 
 with our left under General Heintzel- 
 man. I sent an officer, Capt. Alexan- 
 der, with a company to endeavor to 
 open communication with General 
 Heintzelman, that I might learn the 
 state of affairs there. He returned 
 after dark with the information that 
 it was impracticable to get through 
 the marsh. I tnen went round some 
 seven or eight miles, by way of the 
 rear, to communicate. 
 
 During the night I heard from Gen- 
 eral Heintzelman that Hookei*'s divi- 
 sion had been badly cut uj), and could 
 not be relied upon for very heavy 
 work in the morning; that Kearney's 
 division, although it had suffered se- 
 verely, could be fully relied upon to 
 hold its own; and that no advance 
 could be made in that quarter without 
 having reinforcements. 
 
 I felt satisfied, from what I knew of 
 Hancock's jDOsition, that the battle 
 was won : that he had occupied the 
 decisive point, and gained possession 
 of a portion of the enemy's line; and 
 that they must make a night retreat 
 or we would have greatly the advan- 
 tage of them in the morning. So fully 
 was I satisfied of that, that I counter- 
 manded orders that I had given in the 
 afternoon, for the advance of Richard- 
 son's and Sedgwick's divisions to the 
 front and sent them back to Yorktown 
 to go by water; feeling sure that the 
 battle was won." Here is the whole 
 story, uncontradicted by any reliable 
 testimony. The (jommittee make no 
 open and direct attack upon General 
 McClellan for failui-e of duty in pur- 
 suing the enemy to Williamsburg, but 
 they make insinuations by which they 
 
23 
 
 mean to leave an impression that he 
 was remiss in duty. The most salient 
 of these indirect attacks are italicised 
 by the Tribune in his edition of the 
 report. The passages thus made prom- 
 inent are these: •' Gen. McClellan re- 
 mained behind in Yorktoion to superin- 
 tend the sending of two divisions up the 
 York River to West Point." * * 
 " He" (Gov. Sprague) "testifies that 
 when Gen. McClellan was told the 
 condition of affairs at the front, he re- 
 marked that he had supposed ' those 
 in front could attend to that little 
 matter.' " The report of the commit- 
 tee adds : "After some time General 
 McClellan started from Yorktown. and 
 reached the vicinity of Williamsburg 
 about 5 o'clock in the afternoon." 
 
 The charges are, then : 1. General 
 McClellan remained behind^ &c. The 
 committee mean to imply th?.t he 
 ought to have been in front, facing the 
 danger, 2, Upon being informed of 
 the collision at Williamsburg, he made 
 light of it; and 3. He was slow, when 
 informed there was trouble in front, 
 in giving relief 
 
 1. General McClellan, instead of 
 going himself in pursuit of the re- 
 treating enemy, sent several of his 
 corps commanders, men of high mili- 
 tary reputation, and of experience, 
 while he remained at Yorktown to 
 dispatch a body of troops by water to 
 intercept the retreat ol the enemy, by 
 netting between him and Richmond. 
 Before the evacuation of Yorktown it 
 was impracticable for our naval force 
 to go up York River. At a narrow 
 pass in this river, between Yorktown 
 and Gloucester Point, there were very 
 formidable fortifications and arma- 
 ments on both sides — on the side of 
 Yorktown and on the side of Gloucester 
 Point; these were under the control of 
 the enemy before the evacuation. If 
 either of these positions was in our 
 hands the obstacle in the \-iny of our na- 
 val opei'ations up York River would 
 have been removed. The original pur. 
 pose was that McDowell's force should 
 take Gloucester Point, when Yorktown 
 could not have liailod to be evacuated, 
 and a free passage to Eichmond made 
 for our army not only by land, up the 
 
 Peninsula, but also up the York River. 
 The execution of this purpose having 
 been defeated, as we have seen, the 
 next thing to be done was to gain the 
 works on the Yorktown side, and the 
 same result would have been ba-ought 
 about. After the evacuation York 
 Eiver was unobstructed, and now it 
 became a very desirable object to em- 
 bark a force at Yorktown, send it up 
 York River to West Point, and thus 
 intercept the retreat of the enemy to 
 Richmond. For this purpose it be- 
 came necessary to make suitable ar- 
 i-angement-s with the naval command- 
 er, and get the troops on board and 
 under way. McClellan judged that 
 the best interests of the service re- 
 quired him to remain, and personally 
 supervise the accomplishment of this 
 work, for there were difficulties in the 
 .way which required to be removed. 
 Who can queston the soundness of 
 this decision ? Yet this prevented the 
 general from being at or near Wil- 
 liamsburg Avhen an actual collision 
 occurred. When he was sent for, and 
 appi'ised of the danger, he went 
 promptly. But because a collision did 
 occur — and it would not have occurred 
 if Gen. Stoneman had been more tar- 
 dy in pursuit — and because there was 
 dano-er which General McClellan was 
 not present to share, the committee 
 most unfairly, most unmanfully, think 
 a proper opportunity is afforded, 
 which they are prompt to improve, to 
 insinuate that the general shrinks at 
 the prospect of danger, and is deficient 
 in personal courage. I say an " insin- 
 uation" is made ; it would have been 
 imprudent, probably unsafe, for the 
 committee to make a direct charge of 
 cowardice; they theretbre find it con- 
 venient to deal in insinuations; "un- 
 safe," not that Gen. McClellan would 
 liave noticed it, but there are proba- 
 bly many brave men in the army less 
 discreet, exercising less self-control 
 than the general, wlio might have re- 
 sented it by chastising the authors of 
 such a charo-e. Similar insinuations 
 are made in other parts of the com. 
 mittee's report, intended to wound 
 the sensibilities of a soldier, which 
 shall be noticed hereaftei'. 
 
24 
 
 The committee seem to think thai 
 the commander-in-chief of 100,00( 
 men can best prove his fitness for his 
 high position by rushing into danger, 
 and exposing his own life; the Joint 
 Committee of Congress need instruc- 
 tion on this point, and any corporal 
 in the army could give them that in- 
 struction. 
 
 2 The general " made light of it." 
 That expression is incorporated in the 
 report, being extracted from the tes- 
 timony of. Grovernor Sprague, who 
 testifies: "With one orderly I left the 
 advance at 12 o'clock to go to York- 
 town and communicate the condition 
 of aftairs to G-eneral McClellan, who 
 was supposed to be at Yorktown, 
 though no communication had been 
 received from him since early the day 
 before. I reached Yorktown in about 
 one hour and a half and found Gene-, 
 ral McClellan with General Fitz JFohn 
 Porter and General Franklin. I com- 
 municated to him the condition of af- 
 fairs at the front, and urged him to go 
 up there at once. His reply was that 
 he thought they could take care of 
 this little matter, but he said he would 
 immediately leave for the front." " I 
 afterwai'ds ascertained that General 
 McClellan arrived at the front about 
 five o'clock." 
 
 This testimony of Governor Sprague 
 was thought worthy of being incor- 
 porated in the report, and of being 
 made pi'ominent in the Tribune's edi- 
 tion, and yet the committee could 
 hardly have relied on the accuracy of 
 the witness Sprague, for according to 
 his testimony the general must have 
 been with the army in five hours after 
 he, Sprague, left Williamsburg, a dis- 
 tance of twelve miles, and traveled 
 over a road almost impassable. Yet 
 the committee say, '• after some time 
 Gen. McClellan started from York- 
 town, &c." Yet it did so happen that 
 after the general hail ai'rived at Wil- 
 liamsburg, reinforcements were sent 
 in the proper direction, order and con- 
 fidence were restored, lie saw at 
 once that the enemy had been 
 whipped, and . in-imediately ordered 
 several genei-als to return at once to 
 Yorktown and embark with Fraiiklin. 
 This will do lor Williamsburg 
 
 FROM williamsbuhg to 
 
 CHICKAHOMINY. 
 
 It has been shown in these papers 
 that General McClellan would have 
 taken Eichmond a year ago, if he had 
 been permitted to execute the pur- 
 poses he had formed M'ith the concur- 
 lenco of the Administration. This is 
 not denied by the opponents of Gen. 
 McClellan ; but they say, first, that 
 there were good grounds for the with- 
 holding of McDowell's command, and, 
 secondly, that, without the aid of this 
 command, there were several oppor- 
 tunities for taking Richmond, which 
 the general failed to improve. Among 
 other opportunities neglected was 
 that which occurred immediately af- 
 ter the battle at Williamsburg, when, 
 it is said, our army could have entered 
 Richmond. 
 
 The first of these grounds has been 
 replied to. 1 now come to the second; 
 which shall be examined in the light 
 of the testimony and contemporane- 
 ous history, with as much candor, 
 fairness and impartiality as I can ex- 
 ercise. 
 
 After describing the battle of Wil- 
 liamsl>urg, in which he bore a con- 
 spicuous part. General Hooker is asked 
 by the committee this question : " I3 
 it your judgment that you could have 
 gone into Richmond then ? " To 
 which he answei-s : " I think we could 
 have moved right on, and got into 
 Richmond by the second day after 
 that battle without another gun being 
 fired." General Keys is asked.: "Do 
 you know why there was not an im- 
 mediate and general pursuit of the 
 enemy after the battle ? " He replied : 
 " I do not." Again : " In 3'our judg- 
 ment, as a military man, should or 
 should not there have been an imme- 
 diate 2)ursuit?" Answer — "My opi- 
 nion, as a military man, is that the 
 most vigorous and immediate pursuit 
 should i\ave been made after the bat- 
 tle of Williamsburgh." Question — 
 "In your judgment, if an immediate 
 and vigorous pursuit had been made, 
 what would have been the result?" 
 Answer — " If an immediate and vig- 
 orous pursuit of the enemy had been 
 made, 1 think we should have over- 
 
m> 
 
 taken portions of liis troops, and have 
 been able to ca^jture such baggage as 
 he took with l)im. I think also it 
 •would have hastened our arrival in 
 the ueigbborhood of IJichniond, and 
 "vve should have been able to attack 
 the enemy before he had made the 
 preparations for defence and obtain- 
 ed the reinforcements which our delay 
 gave him an opportunity^ of doing." 
 
 General McClellan testifies that it 
 is about fifty miles from Williams- 
 burg to the Chickahominy, that is to 
 Ifew Bridge. He is then asked : " It 
 has iieen stated that some two weeks 
 were occupied in the movement from 
 Williamsburgh to the Chickahoiminy ; 
 will you explain the reason for that ?" 
 Answer — " I do not remember the 
 exact time; I can only say that we 
 w^ere very much delayed after the 
 affair at Williamsburg by the condi- 
 tion of the roads, and the diffiult}'^ in 
 bringing up supplies. We had a great 
 deal of trouble of that kind before 
 reaching the Chickahominy. I think 
 the movemeht was made as rapidly as 
 possible under the circumstances." 
 Question — " After leaving Williams- 
 burg you met with no serious resist- 
 ance fron\ the enemy until after cross- 
 ing of Bottom's Bridge, did you ? " 
 Answer — " Merely cavalry affairs. 
 Tbcre w^ere some sharp cavalry af- 
 fairs, but no resistance in large force." 
 
 " Several of the generals testif}'^ that, 
 had the anemy been promptly fol- 
 lowed up after the battle of Williams- 
 burg, they could be followed into 
 liicliinond — one of tbeni says with- 
 out firing a gun. Gen. McClellan 
 says that the roads were so bad in 
 consequence of the rains, that it was 
 nnjiracticabje to make a vigorous pur- 
 
 bUiL." 
 
 -All the testimony bearing upon the 
 point under i-eview, and the reference 
 of ihe committee to the same, is here 
 transcribed. General McClellan is at 
 issae with Generals Hooker and 
 K eyes, and the committee evidently 
 fiwvor the testimou}- against McClel- 
 lan. 1 hope my readers will patiently 
 lollow me while I investigate the 
 question — is the bias of the commit- 
 tee in the right direction ? 
 
 It IS ti'ue that tne roads were bad 
 in consequence of the rains, and that 
 made it impracticable to pursue the 
 enemy vigorously. On the night 
 when the rebels evacuated Williams- 
 burg, Prince de Joinville says " that 
 the rain was falling in torrents," and, 
 before that time, and ever since the 
 leaving of Yorktown, there had been 
 copious rains. On the night before 
 the battle at Williamsburg, General 
 Hooker says " that the roads had be- 
 come so very muddy — raining very 
 hard — the mud was knee-deep, and 
 my men had become eo fatigued that 
 I halted right in the road, intending 
 to renew the march at the dawn of 
 day in the morning." But the condi- 
 tion of the roads was not the only 
 eause why General McClellan could 
 not proceed on the morning after the 
 battle. He says he was prevented 
 " by the condition of the roads, and 
 the difficulty in bringing up supplies." 
 It will be remembered that the base 
 of supplies for our army was York- 
 town, and the base of supplies for 
 the rebel iirmy was Richmond. 
 
 We were marching from our base 
 of supplies, and the enemy was march- 
 ing to his base of supplies. Our army 
 left Yorktown in great haste to pur- 
 sue the retreating enemy; it took as 
 small an amount of provisions and 
 ammunition as conld be conveniently 
 
 The committee say in their report : ' transported in a rapid march — the 
 
 roads being in a wretched condition 
 for travel. General Casey testifias: 
 " On the morning of the 4th of May, 
 when there^ was some evidence that 
 the enemy was about evacuating their 
 lines, I was ordered at a half hour'b 
 notice Lo go to the river and leave 
 everything behind — tents, blankets, 
 knapsacks and everything. When 
 I got there the enemy had evacuated 
 their works. I then intended to send 
 back for the tents, blankets and knap- 
 sacks for my men. But I got a per- 
 emptory order from General Sumner 
 to push on after the enemy, without 
 waiting for anything. The conse- 
 quence was that my division — a great 
 many of them — were without blank- 
 ets and knapsacks for severl weeks. 
 It was raining terribly all the time, 
 
26 
 
 and the consequence was that I lost 
 a great many men from that exposure, 
 as they were obliged to lie down in 
 the mud, exposed to the rain, without 
 any protection whatever." Gov. 
 Spragne says : " We had started off 
 to Yorktown so hurriedly that no 
 preparations for rations had been 
 made, aud many of the regiments had 
 nothing to eat." Gen. Heintzelman 
 says : " Most of the troops were out 
 of ammunition." Heintzelman, as 1 
 am informed, reported on the 5th of 
 May that all his provisions would be 
 exhausted that night, and that Hook- 
 ers's and Kearney^s commands were 
 so much exhausted and injured by the 
 contest as not to be reliable for service 
 the next morning. Kearney's ammu- 
 nition and provisions were mainly 
 exhausted. These being the facts, 
 who can fail to see that it was utterly 
 impracticable to pursue the enemy 
 immediately after the battle of Wil- 
 liamsburg. On the 4th of May about 
 45,000 troops started from Yorktown 
 by land in great haste to pursue a re- 
 treating enemy, carrying with them 
 such ammunition and supplies only as 
 could be carried on a rapid march. 
 Generals Franklin, Sedgwick and 
 Porter went up the York Eiver with 
 their commands to West Point, at 
 which place Franklin with his 11,000 
 troops arrived on the evenina: of the 
 
 6th and the morning of the 7th of gable affluent of the York. 
 
 May. After the retreat from Wil- 
 liamsburg, Johnson, the rebel com- 
 commander, marched rapidly to West 
 Point to prevent the landing of Frank- 
 lin's command before Sedgwick and 
 Porter should arrive with their com- 
 mands. It must be obvious that in 
 this condition of thfngs Gen. McClel- 
 lan could not march upon Eichmond 
 until he had established a base of sup- 
 plies nearer to Eichmond than York- 
 town, and brought up his commissary 
 stores asd ammunition for the sup- 
 ply of his army to such base of opera- 
 tions. These supplies had to be 
 brought up the \ork Eiver, and land- 
 ed at Elton, on the oide of the Pam- 
 unkey Eiver opposite West Point. 
 Elton was the first temporary depot 
 for these supplies, and the next tem- 
 
 porary depot was Cumberland, situ- 
 ated on the Pumunkey about fifteen 
 miles from West Point, while the 
 main base of supplies was finallj^ 
 fixed at White House on the Pamun- 
 key Eiver, where the railroad from 
 West Point to Eichmond crosses the 
 Pumnnkey, and about thirty miles 
 from Eichmond. To make these ne- 
 cessary arrangements required all the 
 time that was taken to prepare the 
 Army of the Potomac to proceed on 
 its march to the Chickahominy. 
 
 The testimony, therefore, of Gener- 
 als Hooker and Keyes is very loose 
 and unreliable. The Prince de Join- 
 given to Europe and 
 most clear, accurate 
 history of the cam- 
 paign on the Peninsula that has yet 
 appeared, after describing the capture 
 Oi \\ illiamsburg, proceeds : — '• The 
 mass of Federal trooj^s was detained 
 by the necessity of waiting for pro- 
 visions from Yorktown, the arrival of 
 which was retarded by the state of 
 the roads. They came at last, and as 
 the fine weather dried the roads up 
 very fast, a two days' march brought 
 us up with the corps which had dis- 
 embarked and established a depot at 
 tiie head of York Eivei*. The whole 
 army was collected around this point, 
 and then resumed its march to Eich- 
 mond, along the Pumunkey, 
 
 ville, who has 
 the world the 
 and soldierlike 
 
 a navi- 
 
 How evident therefore it is that the 
 testimony of Hooker is uttei-ly incre- 
 dible, when he says, " I think we 
 could have moved right on and got 
 into Eichmond the second day after 
 the battle without another gun being 
 fired." Fifty miles' march from Wil- 
 liamsburg to the Chickahominy in 
 two days, the roads being in the worst 
 condition imaginable for travel, the 
 army being without food, short of am- 
 munition, and a portion of it exhaust- 
 ed after severe fighting — who can be. 
 lieve such a witness? But this is the 
 opinion of General Hooker — the pro- 
 fessional opinion — and all distin- 
 guished men of his profession ac- 
 quainted with the character of Gene- 
 ral McClellan will put as much confi- 
 dence in this opinion as in that other 
 
27 
 
 opinion which he has uttered under 
 oath : " I do not hesitate to say that 
 the faihire of the Peninsula campaign 
 is to be actributed to the want of gen- 
 eralship on the part of our command- 
 er." While that record remains, Gen- 
 eral Joseph Hooker will never have 
 the confidence of the Army of the 
 Potomac, for that army will never be- 
 lieve that he can be a safe and relia- 
 ble leader '* who bears false witness 
 against bis neighbor." This general, 
 whom the Prince de Joinville styled 
 " an admirable soldier," has, since he 
 gave his testimony against General 
 McClellan, been placed at the head of 
 a larger army than that commanded 
 by McClellan on the Peninsula — an 
 army well clad, well supplied, and 
 well appointed in every respect, and 
 he has had the opportunity of meeting 
 the enemy; how he improved that 
 opportunity the country knows, the 
 world knows, and especially do the 
 oflScers and soldiers who fought under 
 him know; they are capable of 
 instituting a comparison between him 
 and the general whom he has defamed, 
 and I greatly err if that general will 
 shrink from the comparison. 
 
 Gen. McClellan is not the only mi- 
 litary chief who has been assailed in 
 the testimony of Hooker, who says 
 "that Gen. Sumner was in command 
 (at Williamsburg) with a large force, 
 certainly not less than 30,000 men. 
 He could have advanced through the 
 line of defences across the Peninsula 
 at Williamsburg without losing ten 
 men. The enemy could not fire for I 
 had him in a vice. I wanted him to 
 advance, and until three o'clock of that 
 day I expected he Avould advance and 
 march through the line held by the en- 
 emy, and go to picking up prisoners. 
 During this time m-y own troops were 
 engaged with not less than three or 
 four times my number. Gen. Kear- 
 ney, wlio was the last of all the army 
 to leave Yorkcown — except Porter's 
 division, which was left to gai'rison 
 Yorktown — was the first to come to 
 my assistance. If General Sumner 
 had advanced, the rebellion would have 
 been buried there. He did not ad- 
 vance at all ! Here, then, it would 
 
 seem that that veteran General Sum- 
 ner lost a glorious opportunity to fin- 
 ish the rebellion." But it happens Ihat 
 the old general was there before the 
 committee also to testify. He says 
 that none of his own corps were 
 there. It was ten miles in the rear. 
 He was in command there by virtue 
 of his seniority in rank. He occupied 
 the centre. Question by Mr. Odell — 
 " What was the number of troops un- 
 der your command at the centre ?" 
 Answer — " My impression now is that 
 before General Peck arrived there was 
 not to exceed a brigade and a half of 
 infantry at that point, or about two- 
 thirds of Smith's division. There was 
 a large body of cavalry there, but I 
 did not look upon them as available 
 troops to hold that point against an 
 attack from the woods." Question. — 
 '• About how many men were there in 
 that brigade and a half?" Answer.— 
 " I do not think there could have been 
 to exceed 3,000 men ; all the rest of 
 the forces under my control were in 
 the rear, coming up." It will be seen 
 that the number of troops under Gen. 
 Sumner's command differs from the 
 statement of Gen. Hooker as three to 
 thirty. General Sumner further tes- 
 tifies : " An application was made to 
 me for reinforcements for Gen. Hook- 
 er; I think 1 complied with the appli- 
 cation by sending my staff ofiicers to 
 the rear to hurry up the ti'oqps from 
 the rear. I did not deem it safe to 
 send any more troops from the cen- 
 tre, and the result showed that it was 
 fortunate I had not done so. I allude 
 to the attack made by the enemy in 
 the afternoon at the centre." Thus 
 much for Gen. Hooker, the present 
 commander of the army of the Poto- 
 mac. 
 
 But what shall be said of Gen. 
 Keyes ? He has a reputation in the 
 array differing widely from that of 
 Gen. Hooker; he is regarded as a re- 
 liable man — how could this general 
 give the professional opinion that 
 " the most vigorous and immedi- 
 ate pursuit should have been made 
 after the battle of Williamsburg?" 
 How could that distinguished general 
 have answered the following ques- 
 
^28 
 
 tions if they had been put ; Was it 
 practicable for the army to have 
 moved when their provisions were ex- 
 hausted ? When they were short of 
 ammunition, to have moved at all be- 
 fore a base of supplies was established? 
 From the facts above stated, all of 
 which are of the most reliable charac- 
 ter, it will be seen how Gen. Keyes 
 must have answered these interi-oga- 
 tories if they had been put to him. It 
 is melancholy to think that men who 
 never lack courage on the field of bat- 
 tle should fail to speak their honest 
 convictions when they have reason to 
 suppose that the utterance of undis- 
 guised truth will give offence to those 
 in power. We have seen a melan- 
 choly exemplification of this truth in 
 the ease of General Barnard, and we 
 fear a similar illustration is exhibited 
 in the case of General Keyes j he 
 knew what kind of testimony the 
 committee wanted. General Keyea 
 gave this testimony, it will be recol- 
 lected, when Gen. McClellan was no 
 longer at the head of an army, but 
 supposed to be in disgrace. He was 
 examined on the 26th March, 1863. 
 We think there is some foundation for 
 the fear above expressed — not as to 
 the physical courage of General 
 Keyes, tor he is no coward, but as to 
 the higher quality of moi'al courage, 
 in the folloAving statement : On the 
 16th of April, 1862, General Keyes 
 sent a report, from which we have be- 
 fore quoted, to the Assistant Adjutant 
 General of the Army of the Potomac. 
 We take the following extract from 
 this report: " I was thus enabled in 
 the first day to comprehend with tol- 
 erable clearness the position of the 
 enemy from a short distance above 
 Lee's Mills down to James Eiver. He 
 is in a strongly fortified position be- 
 hind Warwick; River, the fords in 
 which have been destroyed by dams, 
 and the approaches to which are 
 through dense forests, swamps and 
 marshw'?. No part of his line, as far as 
 discovered, can be taken by assault with- 
 out an enormous loaste of life.." Other 
 quotations have been given from Gen- 
 eral Keyes in former numbers. 
 
 This was the opinion of General 
 
 Keyes, officially expressed, when ho 
 was with the army before the lines at 
 Yorktown ; but before the committee, 
 after General McClellan was relieved 
 of his command, he says, among other 
 things. " My impression now is, that 
 if the whole army had been pressed 
 forward we could have found a point 
 to break through But I give this 
 simply as my impression." After 
 stating that Yorktown was very 
 strongly defended, and if we made an 
 assault on it we should have met with 
 severe loss, he says : " I will not say if 
 we had pressed on immediately on ar- 
 riving in front of their lines, we might 
 not have found a point where we could 
 have broken the line, and then have 
 invested Yorktown on two sides, 
 when the fall of it, of course, would 
 have been hastened. It is my opinion 
 that if we had pressed on rapidly 
 when we first ai'rived, we might have 
 found a point through which we could 
 have broken." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the genera- 
 makes' a distinction between Yorkl 
 town proper and the lines of the ene- 
 my on the Warwick, extending to 
 James Eiver. He was sot before 
 Yorktown with his command, hut on 
 the lines, and it is as to the praetica- 
 bility of assaulting the lines that he 
 speaks in the report above referred to. 
 BEFORE RICHMOND. 
 
 These numbers are resumed after an 
 interim of intense public anxiety, and, 
 I may add, of great joy, in which the 
 popular mind and feeling have been 
 too much engrossed to give any at- 
 tention to historical events. The Ar- 
 my of the Potomac, after sad experi- 
 ence at Fredericksburg, and a signal 
 and most important victory at Gettys- 
 burg, is now where it was after the 
 not less important victory at Antie- 
 tam, when General McClellan was re- 
 lieved of his command. Had the Ad- 
 ministration not seen fit to remove 
 General McClellan, the ofilcers of the 
 Army of the Potomac, with almost 
 entire unanimity, always excepting 
 Major General Joseph Hooker, would, 
 it is believed, bear testimon}^ that in 
 their judgment our army would not 
 have been defeated in Virginia on the 
 
two occasions referred to, and, cer 
 tainly, the rebel army of Cleneral Lee 
 would not have ventured a second in- 
 vasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania. 
 That invasion has, however, been 
 made, attended with immense destruc- 
 tion and loss of property, the most 
 frightful alarm of peaceable citizens, 
 and very serious loss of life. Shall 
 there be no day of reckoning for tliese 
 things? We shall see when the ballot 
 boxes receive the votes of the Ameri- 
 can people. Until then let us be pa- 
 tient, and be especially careful that 
 no previous irregularities change the 
 ehai'acter of the issue then to be de- 
 cided. 
 
 When the enemy retreated from 
 Williamsburg he returned to his capi- 
 tal and his base of supplies. Our ar- 
 my had not established a base of sup- 
 plies between Yorktown and Rich- 
 mond. It requires not a militai'y man 
 to say that a large army cannot cany 
 on its proper operations, nay, tnat it 
 cannot exist, without being in near 
 and easy commimication with its de- 
 pot of dail}' food, ammunition, and 
 other indispensable supplies. The ca- 
 pital of the enemy was fortified j be- 
 fore Grcneral McClellan pursued the 
 enemy to his capital with a view to 
 assault it, he must of course establish 
 a base of supplies for his own army, 
 and store it with the necessary articles 
 of consumption. That base of sup- 
 plies was established at the White 
 House, on the Pamunkey Eiver, a 
 stream rising in a i-egion of country 
 north of Richmond, and discharging 
 its waters in the Charles River at 
 West Point. The Pamunkey River is 
 navigable from the Charles to the 
 White House, so that this base of sup- 
 plies was accessible by water. The 
 White House, too, was in direct com- 
 munication with Richmond by a rail- 
 road running from West Point to that 
 capital. So soon as this base of sup- 
 plies was fixed and stored, Greneral 
 McClellan moved his armj^ on Rich- 
 mond. General McClellan was asked 
 before the rommittee — Question. It 
 has been stated that some two weeks 
 were occupied in the movement from 
 Williamsburg to the Chickahominy . 
 
 29 
 
 will you explain the reason for that? 
 Answer. 1 do not remember the exact 
 time; I can only say wo were v^ery 
 much delayed after the affair at Wil- 
 liamsburg by the condition of the 
 roads and the difficulty in biingi^gup 
 supplies. We had a great deal of 
 trouble of that kind before reaching 
 the Chickahominy. I think toe move- 
 ment was made as rapidly a? possible 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 This answer cannot fail to satisfy 
 all reasonable persons. The enemy 
 reti-eated to Richmond ; he could have 
 entered his fortitied capital had he 
 chose to do so, and certainly General 
 McClellan could not divine whether 
 he would enter or not. It was a rea- 
 sonable supposition that he would. 
 What defense the enemy could have 
 made behind his fortifications at Rich- 
 mond is not known to this day ; we 
 never assaulted those fortifications, 
 and have no certain knowledge ol 
 their construction or their strength, 
 But this we know — the city of Rich- 
 mond is capable, from its position and 
 surroundings, of being fortified so aa 
 to repel the assault of an invading ar- 
 my. For one whole year before, the 
 enemy was apprised of our intention 
 to capture Richmond, and during all 
 that time he was laying out and con- 
 structing fortifications to resist an as- 
 sault. He had officers skilled in the 
 art of engineering aud the art of de- 
 fence. These facts are certainly known. 
 What we should have found Rich- 
 mond if we had attempted an assault 
 can only be conjectured; but the pro- 
 bability is that we sljould have been 
 required to operate by siege, as was 
 done at Yorktown and at Vicksburg, 
 and in both instances successfully, one 
 without loss, and the other at a great 
 sacrifice of life. We say it is probable 
 we should have besieged it, because it 
 is certain the rebel force behind the 
 fortifications exceeded in number our 
 troops in front of them. This fact is 
 capable of i)roof', and I call upon the 
 opponents of General McClellan to 
 consider it, to ponder it, and then con- 
 fess their error in assailing his con- 
 duct and his character. 
 
 General Barnard testified before the 
 
30 
 
 length 
 
 committee as follows: "No less an 
 authority than Napoleon says that, 
 aided by fortifications, 50,000 men, 
 and 3,000 artillerymen can defend a 
 capital against 300,000 men, and he as- 
 serts the necessity of fortifying all 
 national capitals." What reply can 
 you make to these facts, gentlemen ? 
 Can you join the President of the 
 United States and others in censuring 
 General McClellan for calling for rein- 
 forcements ? 
 
 'Had the Chickahominy and the mar- 
 gins of that river been in their usual 
 condition, our army could have crossed 
 that stream and followed the enemy 
 as near to Kichmond as it would have 
 been safe to approach his fortifications. 
 But the Chickahominy was not in its 
 usual condition, nor was it in the con- 
 dition it was when Gen. McClellan be- 
 gan to change his base of operations. 
 Thus, this stream is described with 
 professional accuracy in the testimony 
 of General Barnard : " A word is pro- 
 per here respecting the Chickahom- 
 iny, which, at the season we struck it, 
 was one of the most formidable obsta- 
 cles that could be opposed to the ad- 
 vance of our army — an obstacle to 
 which an ordinary river, though it be 
 of considei-able magnitude, is compa- 
 ratively slight. The Chickahominy, 
 considered as a military obstacle, con- 
 sists of a stream of no great value, a it in the way of our armyf Cocrid a 
 
 point. Through this belt of swamp 
 the stream flows sometimes in a 
 single channel, more frequently di- 
 vided into several; and when but a 
 foot or two above its summer level, 
 overspreads the whole swamp." * 
 * * " It was currently reported at 
 the time of our arrival that the stream 
 was nowhere fordable." * * * 
 " Although it was thus shown that the 
 stream was no obstacle for infantry, 
 the swamp and the bottom lands were 
 impracticable to cavalry and' artillery. 
 It was necessary to provide bridges, 
 and, except at the site of the New 
 Bi'idge, to cordui'oy a certain 
 of road on each margin." 
 
 Now at this distance of time, when 
 space has been given for cool reflec- 
 tion, it is hoped that General McClel- 
 lan will be pardoned by his enemies 
 for the condition in which he found the 
 Chickahominy, and the swamps and 
 submerged lands consequent upon that 
 condition. It has been reproachfully 
 charged by a member of the War Com- 
 mittee, on the floor of the Senate, long 
 before the report of that committee 
 was made, that we went to digging. 
 " We found the worst swamp there 
 was between Richmond and Williams- 
 burg, and sat right down in the centre 
 of it and went to digging." Who was 
 it that made the swamp i* How came 
 
 swamp, and bottom lands. The stream 
 flows through a belt of heavily tim- 
 bered swamp, which averages three or 
 four hundred yards wide. A few hun- 
 dred yards below New Bridge is a 
 short length of the stream not mar- 
 gined by swamp timber,- but every- 
 where else between New and Bottom's 
 Bridges the belt of swamp timber is 
 continuous and wide. The tops of the 
 trees rise just about to the level of the 
 crests of the high lands bordering the 
 bottom, thus perfectly screening from 
 view the bottom lands and slopes of 
 the high lands on I be enemy's side. 
 The disappearance, in the place indi- 
 cated cf swamp timber near New 
 Bridge, and the dwindling away of 
 the same at some points above the 
 bridge to isolated trees, gave us some 
 glimpse of the enemy's side near this 
 
 major general, in full command, have 
 prevented it by a general order? 
 " Who hath divided a water course for 
 the overflowing of water, or a way 
 for the lightning or the thunder? 
 Hath the rain a father, or who hath 
 begotten the drops of dew ?" There 
 was indeed a " swamp" and more than 
 a swamp, as we have seen, a complete 
 submersion of a most formidable char- 
 acter. This overflow was so sudden 
 and unexpected that some persons 
 conjectured that sluices had been cut 
 above Richmond, and water let in 
 from other sources to increase the 
 volume of the stream. The rebels said 
 it was an interposition of Divine Pro- 
 vidence to save their capital. Certain 
 it is that General McClellan had no 
 power to Tjrevent this overflow. Nor 
 ought the general to be censured with 
 
extreme severity by his radical fel- 
 low-citizens, because there "went lip 
 from these surcharged swamps a mi- 
 asm which poisoned the atmosphere 
 and caused sickness in the camps. 
 The general could not help it; all he 
 could do was to remain at his post, 
 faithful in the discharge of duty, and 
 inhale the same poisoned atmosphere 
 inhaled by those under his command. 
 He was not censured by the privates 
 in the ranks of his army, nor by the 
 officers either, until some of them 
 were called to swear before the War 
 Committee. The army of the Poto- 
 mac at that time was composed of 
 men capable of judging ot the qualifi- 
 cations and the merits of their com- 
 manders. That arm}' did not censure 
 their chief commander, but they loved 
 him. The most affecting anecdote I 
 ever heard was related to me by a 
 member of the N. Y Ttb regiment. 
 This regiment was stationed for three 
 months in the summer of 1862 in Bal- 
 timore. It was a part of their duty 
 to assist the wounded soldiers coming 
 daily from the Army of the Potomac 
 to land, and aid them to the hospitals, 
 or in the further prosecution of their 
 journey. These wounded and sick sol- 
 diers expressed an ardent attachment 
 for General McClellan. One young 
 man, very feeble, was assisted to land 
 by the person Avho related to me the 
 anecdote; he summoned up his re- 
 maining strengtli, raised his head, 
 rested on his elbow, cheered for Gene- 
 ral MoCIc<!hin, and died. 
 
 (Tcncral Jlownrd, an educated and 
 a'-eomplished soldier, a graduate of 
 West Point, and afterwards a profes- 
 sor in tliat celebrated institution, made 
 a speech to his fellow-citizens in Port- 
 land, Maine, from which the following 
 is an extract : 
 
 " My friends, much has been said in 
 regard to the general intrusted with 
 tiie command there — much adulation 
 and much abuse. I believe in my heart 
 that General McClellan is worthy to 
 be trusted. You can trust tim, but 
 you must submerge political parties, 
 lunvover, in tlie good of the country. 
 You sent me forth to one of your in- 
 stitutions, without any special jiolitics 
 
 31 
 
 except love of country. This war is 
 educating us up to that standard of pa- 
 triotism. When we shall have shed a 
 little more blood, we shall learn to 
 live more in accordance with the spirit 
 of our fathers. I know that I am no 
 worshipper of men. I do not believe 
 that General McClellan has passed 
 through the campaign thus far with- 
 out a mistake, but for one I trust him 
 and urge you to. Trust him, not as a 
 god, but as a general. He has shown 
 at every movement great ability and 
 caution; too much so, perhaps, for 
 some who are inclined to doubt him j 
 l^ut whether so or not is to be tested 
 by results. I hope we don't need th« 
 instruction of another Bull Kun to 
 teach us to be caittious. It is best to 
 be. The old men say so, an4 when 
 you find a young man combining abil- 
 ity with caution, you may trust him, 
 for you have there the sprightliness 
 of 3'outh combined with the consider- 
 otian and reflection of age." 
 
 The general, at the time of making 
 that speech, had lost an arm in one of the 
 battles before Richmond. He has since 
 done distinguished service in the field 
 at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg. 
 He adds to his high militaiy qualifica- 
 tions the character of a sincere and 
 enlightened Christian. He was not 
 called to testify before the War Commit- 
 tee. 
 
 [The previous matter i7as contained 
 in eleven numbers, which through in- 
 advertance, have been run together. 
 Hereafter we shall give the numbers 
 as in the original publications.] 
 NO. XII. 
 
 We have seen what was the condi- 
 tion of the Chickahominy on the ar- 
 rival of our army at the stream and 
 the formidable obstacles thereby inter- 
 posed to our military oi^erations. 
 General McClellan cannot, of course, 
 be responsible for this condition of 
 things ; he could not use his artillery 
 or his cavalry, as we have seen bv 
 the testimon}^ of General Barnard. 
 It was impossible in that condition of 
 the ground to make any aggressive 
 demonstrations upon Eiehmond; be- 
 fore those were attempted, as he was 
 compelled to wait until the waters 
 
32 
 
 which had swelled the streams and 
 saturated the bottom land on its 
 borders, should subside, and the 
 ground become dry and hard. In the 
 mean time all he could do was to pre- 
 pare to repel assaults on his own level 
 before Richmond by the rebel forces 
 operating on their own grounds. But 
 it was certain that General McClel- 
 lan needed reinfoi'cements, and he 
 had not yet despaired of being joined 
 by McDowell's forces collected at 
 Fredericksburg. " They covered no- 
 thing at this place," says the Prince 
 de Joinville, and were so notoriously 
 useless to the Federal cause, that in 
 the Confederate journals they were 
 spoken of as the " fifth wheel of the 
 coach." The Prince proceeds: "It 
 was known that McDowell desired 
 ardently to give the lie to these rail- 
 eries by bringing at the decisive 
 moment, his assistance to the cause of 
 the Union. Accordingly, JMcCIelian 
 had no sooner arrived before Kich- 
 mond than ho undertook to discover 
 what he had to hope for from this 
 quarter. No official advices either 
 from Washington or from Fredericks- 
 burg had informed him of McDowell's 
 presence at that point, but rumor and 
 probability agreed so well in placing 
 him there that the General-in-Chief 
 resolved to make an attempt to estab- 
 lish a communication with him. On 
 the night of the 26th (May 1862) " he 
 sent forward General Porter's divi- 
 sion, with a few squadrons of cavalry, 
 in a furious storm to Hanover Court 
 House, a village about twenty miles 
 north of Richmond, where the rail- 
 way to Fredericksburg crosses the 
 Pamunkey. The troojjs of Porter 
 moved rapidly, and about mid-day on 
 the 27th came upon the hostile divi- 
 sion of Branch at Hanover Court 
 House. This they assailed with vigor, 
 dispersed it, and took one of its guns. 
 Assailed in their turn by Confederate 
 troojis who had suflered them to pass 
 by the woods wtere they lay hidden, 
 turned on their new enemies and scat- 
 tered them also. This brilliant affair 
 cost the Federals 400 men, and left 
 General Porter in possession of a can- 
 non, of 500 prisoners, and of two 
 
 bridges, one on the Fredericksburg, 
 and one on the Yirginia Central Rail- 
 road. The advance guard of Mc 
 Dowell was then at Bowling Green, 
 fifteen miles from that of Porter. It 
 needed only an effort of will; the two 
 armies were united, and the fall of 
 Richmond certain 1 Alas ! this effort 
 was not made. I cannot recall those 
 fatal moments without a real sinking 
 of the heart. Seated in an orchard 
 in the bivouac of Porter, amid the 
 joyous excitement which followed a 
 succes.sful combat, I saw the Fifth 
 Cavalry bring in whole companies of 
 Confederate prisoners, with arms and 
 baggage, their officers at their head.' 
 May I be pardoned so far to digress 
 as to say, which it has no doubt, 
 greatly pained the foreign prince to 
 hear, that his friend Porter, has been 
 stripped of his bivouac, and turned 
 out upon the world, with every mark 
 of disgrace that his government could 
 stamp upon him ; but the prince and 
 the world may rest assured that these 
 marks shall be effaced from a charac- 
 ter as radiant of military honors as 
 any in his native land, by a grateful 
 country, and the patriotic soldier shall 
 yet be restored to the rank of which 
 he has been unjustly deprived. This 
 opinion and prediction I venture after 
 a careful study of the official record 
 of General Porter's trial. 
 
 This battle at Hanover Court House 
 has been adverted to in those numbers, 
 but cannot properly be omitted here 
 in describing the progress of the cam- 
 paign in chronological order, although 
 liable to the charge of repetition. I 
 shall notice the battles before Rich- 
 mond in future numbers. 
 NO. XIll. 
 FAIR OAKS. 
 
 There can be no just judgment 
 formed of the measures adopted and 
 executed by General McClellan in the 
 conduct of his campaigns, except oy 
 considcriug them first in their general 
 plan, and then examining them in de- 
 tail. The general outline of his ope- 
 rations, as dictated by himself alone, 
 or as agreed upon in council with 
 others, shall be fairly and fully stated; 
 for the present, let every day's work 
 
33 
 
 be csrutinized, and the questions put 
 be fairly answered, — What could the 
 general have done to-day which he did 
 ■ not do ? What has he left undone to- 
 da}"" which he might have done ? 
 
 In Ki3wering these questions it is 
 not only right but indispensable that 
 the unforeseen and natural obstacles 
 interposed in the way of his opera- 
 tions should bo duly regai'ded. For 
 instance, who could have foreseen, 
 what human power could have pre- 
 vented the copious and unexpected 
 showers of rain which poured down 
 and swelled the Chickahominy, and 
 submerged the margins of this 
 stream — a wide area of bottom land — 
 renderina: the o-round unfit for milita- 
 ry movements i* In addition to this 
 natural occurrence, the general was 
 met by a military ai'ray of the most 
 formidable character. These were the 
 forces to be conquered, and the eye of 
 the fair critic must be kept constantly 
 upon them, as well as upon the force 
 subject to our own command. 
 
 It has been shown that the junction 
 of McDowell had been prevented " at 
 the moment," says the Prince de 
 Joinvillc, " when the junction would 
 have been decisive of the campaign." 
 " Henceforth,^' adds the Prince, " the 
 army of the Potomac could only rely 
 upon itself. No time was to be lost 
 before acting, for every day augment- 
 ed the disproportion between the 
 forces of the adversaries, and it was 
 to be feared the Federals encamped 
 amid the marshes of the Chickahom- 
 iny would suffer severely from the 
 great heats now setting in. We had 
 een for some days fiice to face. The 
 Federal advance was but five miles 
 distant from Eichmoud. Skirmishes 
 were of daily occurrence, and with 
 the feelings on both sides, a general 
 action was inevitable. Gen. McClel- 
 lan waited for two things before mak- 
 ing the attack. He waited for the 
 roads, which the rain had swamped, 
 to become solid and practicable for his 
 artillery, and for the completion of the 
 numerous bridges which he was throw- 
 ing over the Chickahominy." The 
 character of the localities, lh>. impos- 
 sibility of quitting the railway by 
 
 which the army was supplied, and the 
 necessity of keeping on his guard* 
 against any attempt of the enemy to 
 turn his position, had forced the gen- 
 eral to divide his troops into two 
 wings, on the opposite banks of the 
 river. It was consequently most im- 
 portant to be able to mass them rap- 
 idly, either on the right bank for an 
 offensive movement against Rich- 
 mond, or on the left bank against any 
 attempt to turn the position. Here it 
 will be seen that the side of the stream 
 towards Richmond is called the rf^Af 
 bank, while the opposite side is called 
 the left bank. "The danger of turning 
 the position was much to be feared, 
 for the Confederates had retained pos- 
 session of several bridges on the up- 
 per Chickahominy, which would per- 
 mit them to occupy the excellent 
 positions that are to be found on the 
 left bank, just so soon as the Northern 
 army should abandon these positions. 
 To make this more plain, the Confede- 
 rates could cross the stream in its upper 
 part, and come down and get between 
 our forces on the right, and our base 
 of supplies, the White House, if we 
 failed to guard the left bank with a 
 sufficient force to intercept such a 
 movement. In this Avay they would 
 have shut us up upon the right bank 
 blockaded, starved, and reduced to an 
 extremely critical position. "The 
 roads," says the same intelligent and 
 impartial witness, " were long in dry- 
 ing, the bridges were long in build- 
 ing." " Never have we seen so rainy 
 a season, ' said the oldest inhabitant. 
 " Never did we see bridges so difficult 
 to build," said the engineers. The 
 abominable river laughed at all their 
 efforts; too narrow for a bridge of 
 boats, too deep and too muddy for 
 piers; here, a simple brook some ten 
 yards Avide flowing between two pieces 
 of quicksand, in which the horses 
 stuck up to their girths, and which of- 
 fered no bearing; there, divided into 
 a thousand tiny rivulets spread over a 
 surface of three hundred ya,-rds, and 
 traversing one of those woody moras- 
 ses which are peculiar to tropical 
 countries, changing its level and its 
 bed from day to day, the i-iver in its 
 
34 
 
 capricious and uncertain sway annul- 
 led ana undid to-day the' labors of 
 yesterday, carried on under a burning 
 Bun, and often under the fire of the 
 enemy.'' These quotations are testi- 
 mony of unbiased and highly intelli- 
 gent ey witnesses of what they re.ate, 
 far beyond the influence of h6pe or 
 fear of the United States or Confed ■ 
 erate Governments. I say " witness- 
 es," for this statement is the result of 
 the joint personal observation of 
 the Prince de Joinville and his two 
 nephews. 
 
 In this condition of things what was 
 to be done ? The enemy, as we have 
 seen, did not find it necessary to re- 
 treat behind the intrenched and forti- 
 fied works of his capital, but he showed 
 himself on elevated and advantageous 
 positions outside of those works. 
 Thus posted wo could not — it was en- 
 tirely impracticable, in- the state of 
 things then existing, for Gen. McClel- 
 Ian to make an offensive demonstra- 
 tion. All he could do was to wait, 
 and safety required that, while wait- 
 ing, he should fortify his own position 
 to enable him to resist attacks of the 
 enemy. Tliis he did, and the necessiuy 
 of so fortifying was soon demonstra- 
 ted, as we shall see. 
 
 The left wing of our army had 
 crossed the river at Bottom Bridge, 
 and the right wing remained on the 
 other side to repel a flank movement 
 of the enemy, as has been shown. The 
 left wing proceeded on the railwa}'^ 
 leading from our base of supplies to 
 Eichmond, about half the distance 
 from the river to the capital, to a sta- 
 tion called Fair Oaks. A short dis- 
 tance south of the railway, and run- 
 ning in the same general direction, 
 was the country road leading from 
 Williamsburg to Eichmond. On this 
 road, south of Fair Oaks, and no great 
 distance therefrom, is a place called 
 Seven Pines. The left wing was formed 
 of four divisions encamped on the 
 Eichmoud side of the river, along the 
 railway on either side. On the oppo- 
 site side of the river lay the right 
 Aving of the army, consisting of live 
 divisions and the resources. To pass 
 from one end to the other would have 
 
 made a journey of something like fif- 
 teen or twenty miles, but in so passing 
 there was only one bridge to be 
 crossed, and that was Bottom Bi'idge 
 The distance in a direct line between 
 the extremities of these two wings 
 was short. It was to unite the two 
 arms of our forces that three or four 
 bridges across the river were com- 
 menced. One alone was fit for use on 
 3l8t May, 1862. To defend the en- 
 campments of the left wing, entrench- 
 ments and rifle pits were dug at Fair 
 Oaks and Seven Pines. General Heint- 
 zelman' with his two divisions crossed 
 the Chickahominy at Bottom Bridge 
 on the 25th May. This General says: 
 " The next day I rode to the front 
 and saw how the troops were posted. 
 Engineers were sent over, and were 
 directed to fortify a position about the 
 Seven Pines. In making this forward 
 movement there were frequent skir- 
 mishes that did not amount to much. 
 We commenced two or three lines 
 across the road and country there be-, 
 fore we finally got located." 
 
 The commencement of a series of 
 lines and fortifications furnishes the 
 foundation for the charge brought by 
 Senator Chandler, of Michigan, one of 
 the War Committee, against General 
 McClellan, in the utterance of which 
 this Senator made the Senate Cham- 
 ber ring on the 16th July, 1862. The 
 charge was : " We found the worst 
 swamp there was between Eichmond 
 and Williamsburg, and sat right down 
 in the centre of it and went to dig- 
 ging. We sacrificed thousands and 
 tens of thousands of lives of the 
 bravest troops that ever stood on the 
 face of God's earth, digging in front of 
 the inti'enchments and before the 
 whipped army of the rebels." The 
 state of facts which preceded this dig- 
 ging, and rendered it necessary, has 
 been truly and faithfully described in 
 plain prose, and now that the poetic 
 muse of the Michigan Senator has had 
 time to rest after her daring flight, I 
 would ask him — were you authorized 
 to make an attack so gross, and so ut- 
 terly groundless upon a soldier who 
 was doing what he could in circum- 
 stances most trying, to put down the , 
 
rebellion against his government by- 
 all the means of civilized warfare ? 
 Was it manly to assail one who could 
 '. not reply ? Whose mouth was closed 
 ( by the rvoprieties of his position, as 
 [ well as by the rules established for the 
 government of that position. Mr. 
 Chandler, you ought to be ashamed of 
 -this rude, and, I may add, vulgar as- 
 j^ault. All the harm I wish you is that 
 \ ^ou should be tried and punished at 
 ilheir discretion, by the soldiers from 
 Michigan, so highly eulogized by all 
 who have fought under Major General 
 3IcClellan. 
 
 On the 31st of May, only six days 
 ^fter Gen. Heintzelman had crossed 
 the river, the enemy commenced in 
 large force the attack upon the left 
 ,wing of our army at Seven Pines ; on 
 Jthat day and the next, there was 
 .fought at Seven Pines and at Fair 
 Oaks one of the most sanguinary bat- 
 tles of the war, in which our arms re- 
 pelled a force of the enemy greatly 
 superior in numbers, and were on the 
 last day victorious over that enemy. 
 , In the record contained in a work 
 , recently published, entitled " War 
 Pictures from the South, by B. Estvan, 
 Colonel of Cavahy in the Confederate 
 Army," the state of things among the 
 Confederates which led to this attack 
 is thus described : " In the meanwhile 
 disease spread among our (the Confe- 
 derate) forces to a considerable ex- 
 tent; virulent, obstinate fevers, caused 
 by the miasma of the neighboring 
 swamps, prevailed to a great extent, 
 and the ravages that ensued became 
 so great as to cause much anxiety to 
 General Johntson. The deaths, in- 
 deed, were so numerous that sufficient 
 persons could not be procured atEich- 
 mond to undertake the task of bury- 
 ing the bodies, which lay exposed in 
 the church-yards by hundreds, spread- 
 ing pestilence around. The medical 
 faculty anticipated fearful consequen- 
 ces from this state of things, and Gen- 
 eral Johnston contemplated gloomily 
 the inroads disease was hourly mak- 
 ing in his brave army, which almost 
 seemed as if it wer" doomed to sink 
 altogether into an inglorious grave. 
 In this dire emergency he resolved at 
 
 35 
 
 all costs to attack his intrenched op- 
 ponents." 
 
 What credit ought to be given to 
 this record others can form their own 
 judgment, I have no opinion to give. 
 
 It is not my object to give a descrip- 
 tion of the battle of Fair Oaks; no 
 charge has been made against Gene- 
 ral McClellan for the conduct of this bat- 
 tle; it was everyway honorable to our 
 arms and the result furnished good 
 ground for rejoicing on our part. But 
 it is charged against General Mc Clel- 
 lan, that immediately after this battle 
 he lost an opportunity which fairly 
 offered to enter Eichmond. The re- 
 port says : *' The officers engaged in 
 that battle who have been examined 
 testify that the army could have pushed 
 right into the city of Richmond with 
 little resistance ; that the enemy were 
 very much broken and demoralized, 
 throwing away arms, clothing, &c., 
 that mi^ht impede their flight." 
 
 This I understand to mean that our 
 soldiers composing the left wing of 
 the army were bound to follow the 
 rebels immediately after the battle of 
 Fair Oaks into Eichmond. So under- 
 stood, the report of the committee is 
 not supported by evidence, as I shall 
 show. General Heintzleman says : 
 " The next morning I learned that 
 the enemy had retreated in great con- 
 fusion, and on Sunday we gained 
 nearly all the ground we had lost the 
 day before. I sent General Hooker's 
 half division forward, and sent an 
 officer to General Eichardson, who 
 commanded one of General Sumner's 
 divisions, and asked him to co operate 
 with us, and find out what the enemy 
 was doing. He saw General Sumner, 
 but he said he could make no recon- 
 noissance without orders from General 
 McClellan. I sent my troops forward, 
 and they got within about four miles 
 of Eichmond. They sent back word 
 how far they had got, and I sent 
 word to General McClellan. He order- 
 ed me to stop, and fall back on the old 
 line. From information we got from 
 the rebels I had no doubt r>e might 
 have gone right into Eichmond." 
 This is the testimony of an officer en- 
 ga^-od in the battle, and it hardly sus- 
 
36 
 
 tiains the declaration of the committee. 
 General Sumner, also engaged in the 
 battle, gives no testimony whatever 
 to support the committee's report. 
 General Joseph Hooker is asked by 
 the committee : " Suppose that the 
 next day after the repulse of the ene- 
 my at Fair Oaks, General McCl^llan 
 had brought his whole army across 
 the Chickahominy, and made a vigor- 
 ous movement upon Richmond, in 
 your judgment, as a military man, 
 what would have been the effect of 
 that movement ? " To this question 
 he replies : " That at no time during 
 the whole of the campaign did I feel 
 that we could not go to Eichmond." 
 The witness preferred to testify as to 
 his " feeling," and not to give his judg- 
 ment " as a military man," General 
 Hooker is a wholesale swearer. But 
 the general must be understood as 
 giving it as his opinion that both 
 wings of the army could have entered 
 Jlichmond : for he is not inquired of 
 as to " one wing.' General Keyes, 
 who took a conspicuous part in the 
 battle of Fair Oaks, and has testified 
 in relation to it with great precision 
 and deliberation says : " It would 
 have been necessary, in my judgment, 
 to have had a portion of the right 
 wing of the army to enable us to 
 follow the enemy into Eichmond." 
 
 So, then, it is very clear that accord- 
 ing to the testimony of the generals 
 engaged in the battle who were ex- 
 amined as witnesses, that it was only 
 by joining the right and left wings of 
 the army that it would have been 
 authorized to pursue the enemy into 
 Eichmond after the battle of Fair 
 Oaks. 
 
 It will be recollected *.hat there was 
 but one bridge. Bottom Bridge, over 
 which the right wing could have pas- 
 sed, and the wings of this line were 
 80 extended, that it would have taken 
 all of two days to enable the right 
 wing to pass over this bi-idge, and 
 that such a movement if made, would 
 have been attended with danger of 
 having our whole army cut otf from 
 its base of supplies. It must be con- 
 cluded, therefore, tnat it was im- 
 practicable, with the means at our 
 
 command, to follow the enemy into" 
 Eichmond after the battle of Fair 
 Oaks. General McClellan's own testi- 
 mony on this point is very conclusive : 
 " Question. Immediately after the 
 battle of Fair Oaks could you not 
 have advanced on Eichmond " If not, 
 why not?" To which the general 
 answers : " I do not think it would 
 have been possible at that time to 
 have taken our artillery with us. The 
 result of which, independent of all 
 other considerations, would have been 
 to have brought us in front of the 
 enemy's works at Eichmond, without 
 artillery, where they had heavy guns. 
 That and the condition of the bridges 
 were the principal reasons for not 
 advancing at that time." 
 
 Ought not the committee to have 
 been satisfied with that answer, espe- 
 cially as they failed in embarassing 
 the general by the next question they 
 put, which was : " The enemy retired, 
 after taking with them their artillery, 
 after their defeat, did they not ? " A 
 very adroit question this; but the 
 general was too used to strategy to 
 be caught ; he therefore defeats the 
 object of the committee by telling 
 the simple truth in the most artless 
 manner : " Answer. They had very 
 few guns in action. I am not sure 
 they had any guns. It was on their 
 part almost entirel}^ an infantry af- 
 fair." I have done with Fair Oaks. 
 
 No. XIV. 
 GEOSS INJUSTICE OF THE COM- 
 MITTEE. 
 
 The Tribune edition of the commit- 
 tee report italicizes the following sen- 
 tence: " Gen. McClellan was loith the 
 main part of the army on the left hank 
 of the Chickahominy. After the fighting 
 was over he came across to the right hank 
 of the river." 
 
 Questions like the following were 
 put to the witnesses examined by the 
 committee. 
 
 Question — Where was Gen. McClel- 
 lan during the fight at Williamsburg? 
 
 Answer — He remained at the camp 
 near Yorktown. 
 
 Question — How far was that from 
 the field of battle? 
 
 Question — Why was not the com- 
 
manding general nearer at hand then? 
 Question — To General Sumner — 
 Where wa? General VlcClellan during 
 those baHl ^8 ? (Seven Pines and Fair 
 Oaks.) 
 
 Question — Where was General Mc- 
 ( lellan during your second fight at 
 Malvern ? 
 
 The committee was appointed to in- 
 quire into " the conduct of the war," 
 Questions like those quoted in respect 
 to battles where success crowned our 
 arms, and where, of course, the con- 
 duct of the war had been fully and sa- 
 tisfactorily shown, clearly manifest 
 the intention of the committee to in- 
 quire into the conduct of General 
 McClcUan — to put him on trial. Sena- 
 tor Chandler's sj)eech, already quoted, 
 makes this intention still more palpa- 
 ble. Now, I know not but a commit- 
 tee might have been appointed b}- 
 both llouses of Congress to inquire 
 into the conduct of Genei*al McClel- 
 lan or of any other officer in the ai'- 
 my, and that such committee would 
 not have been competent to pursue 
 such an investigation. But it is clear 
 that a committee thus constituted 
 would, though not nominally, but 
 really, have been in the natureof a ju- 
 dicial tribunal — a Court of Inquiry at 
 least. Before a committee, or any 
 tribunal of this character, the party 
 whose conduct and character were 
 subjects of investigation, ought to 
 have a hearing, or, at least, to indicate 
 the names of persons to be called as 
 witnesses on his behalf This seems 
 to me a plain requirement, according 
 to all fair and honorable proceedings. 
 The report of such a committee 
 against a general in the army would, 
 in the eyes of many, of most persons, 
 be regarded as a conviction, and popu- 
 lar condemnation would follow as an 
 almost necessary consequence. No- 
 thing more unjust can be well con- 
 ceived than such a condemnation upon 
 exparte testimony, without allowing 
 the party most interested an opportu- 
 nity of defending himself. 
 
 Now let ns see what course was ac- 
 tually pursued by this committee. 
 They called Avhat persons they chose 
 as witnesses, and thev omitted to call 
 
 37 
 
 such persons as they chose to excJudo. 
 The committee did not call Major 
 General Fitz John Porter, who was as 
 active and efficient befoi'e Yorktown 
 and in the battles before Eichmond 
 as any general in the army General 
 IIoM^ard, as we have before shown, 
 was not called; nor Generals Meagher 
 and Sickles, very intelligent and high- 
 ly educated gentlemen, all of whom 
 had personal acquaintance with the 
 doings of our army on the Peninsula. 
 Wh}^ were they not called ? They had 
 all expressed publicly their high ad- 
 miration of Gen. McClellan. General 
 McClellan himself was examined. If 
 the committee realiy desired to know 
 why this leader of the army did not 
 personally mingle in the fights of hig 
 troops, or either of them, why was 
 not the general himself questioned? 
 Can it be doubted that he would have 
 given a reason satisfactory to all mili- 
 tary men. Very lately I met an offi- 
 cer of the American army whom I 
 first knew when he was a mere youth 
 of great promise in the celebrated 
 academy at Jamaica, Long Island, and 
 who has been in the militaiy service 
 of his government nearly fifty years, 
 and, as a thoroughly educated milita- 
 ry officer, has no superior in the coun- 
 try, if he has in the world, and he vol- 
 unteered the declaration to me that in 
 every situation in which he had been 
 placed, General McClellan had done 
 as well as he could, and that was as 
 well as any other man could have 
 done. I would give more for that 
 piece of testimony, coming as it did 
 from a gentleman cf stainless integ- 
 rit}^, and undoubted moral as well as 
 physical courage, than for as many re- 
 ports as the " War Committee" could 
 write. 
 
 SUMMARY REVIEW. 
 It has been shown that General Mc- 
 Clellan did right in not attempting to 
 carry Yorktown by assault before he 
 had laid siege to it, and that alter the 
 siege operations were completed, the 
 post was evacuated without waiting 
 for an assault. It has been ohown 
 that when the enemy evaeuatod he 
 was pursued with great promj^tness 
 and rapidity until he reached his n&x% 
 
38 
 
 fortified position at Williamsburg, and 
 that, after a short but severe conflict 
 there, he was comiDelled to retreat in 
 all haste to his capital. It has also 
 been shown that as soon as General 
 McClellan had taken suflicient time to 
 establish a base of supplies at the 
 White House, he followed his retreat- 
 ing foe to the Chickahominy and be- 
 yond it, that he attacked and cap- 
 tured Hanover Court House, but 
 failed, by no fault of his own, to form 
 a junction with McDowell's command 
 at the latter place ; that he fought the 
 battles of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, 
 and repulsed the enemy in force vast- 
 ly superior to his own on the second 
 day of the fight, and that he was not 
 prepared after these contests to enter 
 Richmond for several reasons, and es- 
 pecially because he could not move his 
 artillery against the fortifications of 
 that '.'apital. 
 
 Since the appearance of my article 
 on " Yoi-ktown" my attention has 
 been directed to certain passages con- 
 tained in a recent^publication, entitled 
 " The First Year of the War, by Ed- 
 ward A. Pollard," printed in Eich- 
 mond. These passages are here tran- 
 scribed. 
 
 ' General Magruder, the hero of 
 Bethel, and a commander who was ca- 
 pable of much greater achievements, 
 was left to confront the growing- 
 forces on the Peninsula, wliich daily 
 menaced him with an army of seven- 
 ty-five hundred men, while the great 
 bulk of the Confederate forces were 
 still in motion in the neighborhood of 
 the Eappahannock and the Rapidan, 
 and he had no assurance of reinforce- 
 ments. The force of the enemy was 
 ten times his own ; they had com- 
 menced a daily cannonading upon his 
 lines ; and a council of general ofiicers 
 was convened, to consult whether the 
 little army of 7,500 should maintain 
 its position in the face of tenfold odds, 
 or retire before the enemy. The opin- 
 ion of the council was unanimous for 
 the latter alternative, with the excep- 
 tion of one ofiicer, who declared that 
 every man should die in the intrench- 
 ments before the little army should 
 feU back. ' By G— , it shall be so/ 
 
 was the sudden exclamation of Gene- 
 ral Magruder, in sympathy with the 
 gallant suggestion. The resolution 
 demonstrated a remarkable heroism^ 
 and spirit. Our little forces were' 
 adroitly extended over a distance of 
 several miles, reaching from Mulberry 
 Island to Gloucester Point, a regiment 
 being posted here and there, in every 
 gap plainly open to observation, and 
 on no other portions of theline, the 
 men being posted at long intervals to 
 give the appearance of numbers to the 
 enemy. Had the weakness of General 
 Magruder at this time been known to 
 the enemy, he might have suffered 
 the consequences of his devoted and 
 self-sacrificing courage; but as it was, 
 he held his lines on the Peninsula un- 
 til they were reinforced by the most 
 considerable portion of Goiioral John- 
 ston's forces, and made the situation 
 of a contest upon which the attention 
 of the public was unanimously fixed, 
 as the most decisive of the war," 
 
 From this historical record, it ap- 
 pears that Magruder's small force of 
 7,500 men, Avas spread out from Mul- 
 berry Island, in the James River, 
 across the Peninsula to Yorktowu, 
 and beyond to Gloucester Peint, on 
 the York Eiver, opposite Yorktown. 
 Tlie 7,500 troops must therefore have 
 nc itled the garrison in Yorlatown. 
 luis is hardly credible, but he was en- 
 abled to hold his lines until they were 
 reinforced by the most considerable por- 
 tion of Gen. Johnston's forces. It fol- 
 lows, then, that after this reinforce- 
 ment, Magruder was able to cope with 
 our forces. The question is then — at 
 what time was this reinforcement 
 brought up ? Foi'tunately we are able 
 to ascertain this point of time without 
 the aid of Mr. Pollard's history. I 
 am compelled to reproduce here some 
 extracts from the testimony hereto- 
 fore given. Gen. McClellan testifies: 
 " Movements of troops had been going 
 on some days before my arrival. I re- 
 member that immediately upon ray 
 arrival at Fort Monroe, I was told 
 that quite a large number of troops 
 had been crossed over to Yorktown from 
 the south bank of the James. I there- 
 fore hurried my own movements, and 
 
39 
 
 started from Fort Monroe sooner than 
 I would have done. From the best 
 information that I have been able to 
 get, I think the large masses of rein- 
 K)rcements arrived in Yorktown from 
 one to two days before I reached its 
 vicinity. Johnston himself arrived 
 
 THERE THE DAY BEFOEl", I DID. Gen. 
 
 Heintzelman says: '■'■By the time- xoe 
 got to Yorktoxon their army (the ene- 
 my's) had been largely reinforced." 
 
 I am not quite sure that Mr. Pol- 
 lard's statements were entitled to so 
 extended a notice; but the radical en- 
 emies of General McClellan would not 
 scruple to use even the enemy's testi- 
 mony to injure the general upon 
 whose destruction they are intent, 
 therefore this battery I trust has been 
 silenced. 
 
 No. XY. 
 BEFOEE EICHMOND. 
 
 After the battle of Fair Oaks, 
 fought on the 1st day of June, 1862, 
 our army remained before Richmond 
 until General McClellan decided to 
 change his base of operations by 
 retiring across the Peninsula to James 
 River, where the supplies of the army 
 could be furnished by our navy. This 
 decision was made on the evening of 
 June 2Cth. Of the intermediate time 
 between the battle of Fair Oaks and 
 the movement towards the new base, 
 1 propose to treat in this number. 
 
 The committee bring no distinct 
 charges a<rainst the General for mis- 
 conduct of any sort except that they 
 intimate strongly that the right di- 
 vision of our army should have been 
 crossed over the Chickahominy, and 
 formed a junction with the left divi- 
 sion, on the Richmond side of this 
 stream. Indeed, the committee seem 
 to have been convinced that, without 
 a junction of these two divisions, an 
 attack on Richmond would have been 
 inexpedient. The reasons for retain- 
 ing one divisiion on the left side of 
 Chickahominy have been already 
 given. It was to prevent a move- 
 ment of the enemy whereby our army 
 would have been cut otf from its base 
 of supplies, the White House, J ^st 
 hero it seems to me that a portion of 
 the testimony of General Henry T. 
 
 jTust v,'ill greatly enlighten the mind 
 Oi' the reader, lie is asked: "But at 
 Fair Oaks the enemy had been routed 
 and been driven from their position, 
 had they not?" Answer — "No sir, 
 they had driven us from our position, 
 and we re-took it. The country there 
 was low and swampy, and the few 
 lines which we could have advanced 
 were those which had been prepared 
 by the enemy, in the same way as the 
 lines of our own position had been 
 prepared by us. We were enabled, by 
 means of an inferior force to hold our 
 own against their combined attack. 
 Being upon our own ground, Ave final- 
 ly repulsed them. Had we changed 
 positions and attacked them upon 
 their own ground, being restricted by 
 the nature of the ground to certain 
 lines of attack which they had pre- 
 pared, I think the result would have 
 been different; probably a reverse to 
 us. During the whole of that cam- 
 paign, I considered that a serious re- 
 verse to us there would, in all proba- 
 bility, lead to the destruction of the 
 army as an organized force." One 
 cannot but be forcibly struck with the 
 similarity of our position at Fair 
 Oaks and the moi-e recent great battle 
 at Gettysburg. Had our army at- 
 tacked the enemy's lines here, instead 
 of being attacked on our own ground, 
 who can be free from the apprehen- 
 sion that the " result would have been 
 different, most probably a reverse to 
 us" 
 
 " Question — Is it, then, your opinion 
 that we were not stron<£ eiiouo:h at 
 any time before Richmond to have 
 coped Avith their army there?" Ans- 
 wer — " I cannot say that ; we might 
 have been successful, or might not 
 have been, if we attacked. But I 
 should have thought it imprudent'or 
 improper to have attacked, where 
 there was not a fair prospect or a cer- 
 tainty of making the attack a 8ui*e 
 thing. In that, however, I am merely 
 giving my own judgmeat about the 
 matter. The point is this; with the 
 information we had of the strength ot 
 the enemy's forces ; knowing that ho 
 had been preparing the ground, and 
 had that advantage, that he warS mi- 
 
10 
 
 encumbered with sick, his hospital 
 being behind him : witli all the advan- 
 tage of an interior position and lines ; 
 the two armies vere so much on terms 
 of equality, as I jadged from all I 
 could learn from those whom I thought 
 were well informed, ■that an attack of 
 that kind would have been in the 
 highest degree doubtful ; and as long 
 as there was a force within accessible 
 distance, and there was any hope that 
 it might join us, and enable us to bring 
 the combined force to bear, I would 
 have considered it imprudent to have 
 made an attack." Question — '• I did 
 did not mean that the enemy, after 
 the battle of Fair Oaks, should have 
 been followed up by the* same force 
 that had defeated them, but that our 
 whole force should have been brought 
 across the Chickahominy directly 
 after that battle, and moved on to 
 Richmond." Answei- — " I have known 
 intimately the rebel commander at 
 that place — Genei^al Johnston — and I 
 think that tcould have been exactly what 
 he wanted and desired." 
 
 General Keyes is asked — " Why the 
 arm}^ remained so long as it did with 
 one portion on the right and the other 
 on the left bank of the Chickahom- 
 
 iny 
 
 ? " To which he answered — 
 
 Without being able to answer defi- 
 nitely, as I should if I had command 
 of the army, I can state that I alwaj's 
 supposed that the enemy would be 
 able to cross the Chickahominy above 
 where we wei'e, and come down in the 
 rear, and cut off our communication 
 with the White House, which was the 
 depot and base of our supplies, unless 
 we had left a very strong force on the 
 left bank of the Chickahominy." Gen. 
 Keycs also testifies that he can give 
 no military reason for permitting the 
 army to remain after the battle of 
 Pair Oaks inactive for so long a time; 
 but he very properly adds: " I con- 
 sider that the fact that I am not able 
 to give a reason is very inconclusive, 
 as I was not in a position to know 
 what reasons influenced the command- 
 ing general to keep the array in such 
 a condition.' 
 
 General McClellan is asked — " Did 
 not the want of communication be- 
 
 tween the right and left wings of our 
 army prevent you reaping those ad- 
 vantages which you might have other- 
 wise obtained from the defeat of the 
 enemy at Fair Oaks ? " Answer — " I 
 think that if there had been reliable 
 communication between the right wing 
 and the centre and left wing, we could 
 have gained greater advantages by the 
 battle." 
 
 These quotations from the evidence, 
 and they could be multiplied, show 
 conclusively that the committee ut- 
 terly failed to convict General McClel- 
 lan of want of professional ability o^ 
 skill in not uniting the two wings of 
 the army before they were united. 
 
 The testimony discloses copies of 
 telegrams between the President, the 
 Secretary of War, and General Mc- 
 Clellan during the time under re- 
 view, a summary statemeut of which 
 shall be given. 
 
 On the 7th .June, Mc^ lellan to the 
 Secretary ot War, informing that the 
 Chickahominy Eiver had risen so as 
 to flood the entire bottoms to the 
 depth of three or four feet. The men 
 were working night and day up to 
 their waists in water to complete the 
 bridges, " The whole face of the coun- 
 try is a perfect bog, entirely impassa- 
 ble for artillery, and even cavalry, ex- 
 cept directly in the narrow road, 
 which renders any general movement, 
 either of this or the rebel army, utter- 
 ly out of the question at present until 
 we have more favorable weather.*', 
 June 13 — The same to the sanae : " The 
 enemy are massing their troops near 
 our front, throwing up earthworks on 
 all the approaches to Richmond, and 
 giving every indication of fight." 
 June 14 — " I hope two days more will 
 make the ground practicable. 1 shall 
 advance as soon as the bridges are 
 completed, and the ground fit for ar- 
 tillery to move; would be glad to 
 know whether troops can be sent 
 here;" urges the necessity of placing 
 the troops sent from McDowell's com- 
 mand under his control, saying, "If I 
 cannot fully control all his troops 1 
 want none of them. In no other way 
 can they be of any assistance to me. 
 The indications are, from our balloon 
 
reconiioissances, and from all other 
 Bources, that the enemy are intrench- 
 ing, daily increasing in force and de- 
 tern) ination to hght desperately." 
 June 18 — Gives notice to the Secreta- 
 ry that rebel troops have left Rich- 
 mond to reinforce Jackson. June 18. — 
 Same day. — The President telegraphs 
 that Jackson has been reinforced by 
 ten thousand fi\)m Eiclunond. The 
 President adds — " If this is true it is 
 as good as a reinforcement to 3^ou of 
 unequal force." Same dayMcClellan 
 rejoins — " If ten or fifteen thousand 
 men have left llichmond to reinforce 
 Jackson, it illustrates their strength 
 and confidence. After to-morrow we 
 shall fight the rebel army as soon as 
 Providence Avill permit. We shall 
 await only a favorable condition of the 
 earth and sky, and the completion of 
 some neccssar}' preliminaries." June 
 20 — The President again telegraphs 
 the General that a despatch had been 
 received from Gen. Sigel corroborating 
 the repoi-t that Jackson is being rein- 
 forced from Ivichmond — suggesting 
 tliat it may not bo true ; if he knew it 
 was not true more force could be sent 
 to McClellan, but as the case stood 
 this could not safely be done. 
 
 There follows a detailed statement 
 from the Adjutant General's office, 
 showing that on the 20th June, 1862, 
 McCleUan's army contained as fol- 
 lows — " aii'gregate present for duty, 
 115,102; hn special duty, 12,225 ; ab- 
 sent, 29.511. Total aggregate of pres- 
 ent and absent, 156.808. 
 
 June 25. — McClellan to the Secre- 
 tary of War, desiring particular infor- 
 mation as to the podlLion and move- 
 ments of Jackson. 
 
 Juno 25-McClel'an telegraphs:"! 
 incline to think that Jack.':<on wiltl at- 
 tack my right and rear. The rebel 
 force is stated at two hundred thou- 
 sand, includinfc Jackson and Beaure- 
 garci I shall have to contend against 
 vastly superior odds, if these reports 
 be true, but the army will do all in the 
 l)Owcr of men to hoi (I their position, 
 and repulse any attack. 1 regret my 
 great inferiority of numbers, but feel 
 that I am in no way responsible for it, 
 as I have not failed to represent re- 
 
 41 
 
 peatedly the necessity for rein- 
 forcements; that this was the deci- 
 sive point, and that all the available 
 means of the government should be 
 concentrated here. I will do all that 
 a general can do with the splendid ar- 
 my I have the honor to command, and 
 if it is destroyed by overwhelming 
 numbers, can at least die with it, and 
 share its fate ; but if the result of the 
 action, which will probably occur to- 
 morrow, or within a short time, is a 
 disaster, the responsibility cannot he 
 thrown on my shoulders. It must 
 rest where it belongs. I feel that there 
 is no use in airain askina: for reiufc-^"ce- 
 ments. 
 
 June 26. — The President to General 
 McClellan : " The despatch suggesting 
 the probability of your being over- 
 whelmed by two hundred thousand, 
 and talking of where the responsibility 
 will belong, pains me very much. I 
 give 3'ou all I can, and act upon the 
 presumption that j'-ou will do the best 
 you can with what you have, while 
 you continue, ungenerousl}^, I think, to 
 assume that I could give you more if 
 I would. I have omitted, and shall 
 omit, no opportunity to send you re- 
 inforcements whenever I possibly can. 
 " P.S. — General Pope thinks if you 
 fall back, it would be much better 
 towards the York River than towards 
 the James. As Poj)e now has charge 
 of the capital, please confer with him 
 through the telegraph. 
 
 " A. Lincoln.'* 
 I shall defer comments upon these 
 facts (and this extraordinary post- 
 script, too), briefly but fairly stated, 
 until my next number ; we have ar- 
 rived at a most important point in the 
 progress of the camjDaign. In the 
 meantime, will the reader please di- 
 rect his attention to the following in- 
 quiries : 
 
 1. Could General McClellan possi- 
 bly have done anything more or bet- 
 ter before Richmond than he actually 
 performed ? 
 
 2. Had he been reinforced, could he 
 have taken Richn">ond r* 
 
 3. Ought he not to have been rein- 
 forced ? 
 
 I shall endeavor to discuss these 
 
42 
 
 questions with fairness and caudor in 
 my next. 
 
 No. XVI. 
 CHANGE OF BASE. 
 
 My notice of the progress of the 
 Army of the Potomac has been brought 
 down to June 26th. On the next day, 
 June 27th, 1862, tbe battle of Gaine's 
 Mill was fought. Fair Oakes, it will 
 be remembered, is on the right bank 
 of the Chickahominy, tbe side towards 
 Richmond; Gaines's Mill is on the 
 left bank of this stream. At Gaines's 
 Mill our forces were led by Gen. Fitz 
 John Porter. The number of our 
 forces engaged in that battle is vari- 
 ously estimated by the witnesses who 
 have testified. Some put their num- 
 ber below, others above 30,000. The 
 general in immediate command on 
 our side puts our number above 30,000, 
 and so would have stated had he been 
 examined as a witness, but, strange to 
 say, he was not called. It was evi- 
 dently the theory which the commit- 
 tee endeavored to make out, that 
 Porter's command should have been 
 united to the command on the oppo- 
 site side of the river before the battle 
 of Gaines's Mill. On the other hand. 
 Gen. Porter entertains the opinion 
 that had he been reinforced by several 
 regiments from the right bank of the 
 Chickahominy he could have succeed- 
 ed in effectually repelling the greatly 
 superior numbers that assailed him, 
 and, as a consequence, our troops 
 could have assaulted the fortifications 
 before iiichmond. Indeed he does 
 not hesitate to say that had he been 
 furnished with 500 axes at the time 
 when he sent for them by General 
 Barnard, he miglit have successfully 
 defended his position. But through 
 some misapprehension or negligence, 
 the request, which sliould have been 
 delivered by Gen. Barnard at head- 
 quarters, was not delivered, and the 
 necessary aid was consequently with- 
 held. But it should be rememb,ered 
 that the generals in command on the 
 Iiichmond side of the Ciiickahominy 
 were expecting an attack, and were 
 therefore reluctant to part with any 
 part of their respective commands. 
 General McClellan is asked : " As 
 
 soon as you had reasonable cause to 
 believe that the enemy proposed to 
 attack you in force, should not the 
 two wings of your army have been 
 united to repel the attack ? And was 
 this done^? And if not, wljy not ? " 
 Answer — •' The right wing was drawn 
 to the immediate vicinity of the 
 bridges as soon as was practicable 
 under the circumstances, after we 
 knew definitely of Jackson's approach. 
 The intentions of the enemy were dif- 
 ficult to divine. He apppearcd in 
 force on both banks of the Ciucka- 
 hominy, and made several sharp at- 
 tacks on the right bank as well as tiie 
 left. So that I do not think ro.orc 
 troops could wisely have been sent to 
 the support of Porter than w^ere ac- 
 tually sent." Question — '• \YiuUover 
 might have been the intentions of the 
 enemy, as an attack was to be made 
 by him, would it not have been bettor 
 to have placed both wings of our 
 army on the same side of the Chicka- 
 hominy prior to the, battle of Gaines's 
 Mills f" Answer— V." I do rrjt think 
 they ought to have been brouglit to 
 the same side of the river before they 
 actually were." This course of in- 
 quiry was closely pressed upon the 
 general through a number of other 
 questions, but he persists in testify- 
 ing — " We had great difticulty in as- 
 certaining the intentions of the ene- 
 my. I do not see that, under the cir- 
 cumstances at the time, we could have 
 done differently from what we did do.' 
 After the conclusion of tins battle, 
 which was as bravely and obstinately 
 fought as any battle during the war, 
 it was finally decided by Gen. McClel- 
 Ian to change his base of operations 
 to the James liiver, and our whole 
 force, on the night of this battle, was 
 withdrawn to the right bank of the 
 Chickahominy J the last troops left 
 about daybreak of the succeeding day. 
 The trains commenced moving to 
 James Iliver that night, June 28, 1862. 
 On the 27th June, 12M., McClellan 
 telegraphs the Secretary of War: 
 " My change of position on oth-^r side 
 is just in time. Heavy attack now 
 being made by Jackson and two other 
 divisions. Expect attack also on this 
 
N 
 
 side." Same day, 3 P.M , Gen. McClcl 
 lan's chief of staff telegraphs the 
 Secretary of War : " We have been 
 fighting all clay against greatly su- 
 perior numbers." " Our men fight 
 like veterans, and will do all that men 
 can do." At 20 minutes past midnight, 
 morning of Juno 28th, McClellan 
 telegraphs the Secretary of War : " I 
 know the full history of the day. On 
 this side of the river (the right bank) 
 we repulsed several very strong at- 
 tacks. On the left bank our men did 
 all that men could do — all that soldiers 
 could accomplish ; but they were 
 overwhelmed by vastly superior num. 
 bers, even after I brought my last 
 reserves into action. The loss on 
 both sides is terrible. I believe it will 
 prove the most desparate battle of the 
 war. The sad remnants of my men 
 behave as men. Those battalions 
 who fought most bravely and suffered 
 most are still in the best order; my 
 regulars were superb, and I count 
 upon "what are left to turn another 
 battle, in company with their gallant 
 oomradcs of the volunteers. 
 
 " Had I twenty thousand, or even 
 ten thousand fresh troops to use to- 
 morrow, I could take Eichmond ; but 
 I have not a man in reserve, and shall 
 be glad to cover my retreat and save 
 the material and personal of the army. 
 If we have lost the day, we have yet 
 preserved our honor, and no one need 
 blush for the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 " 1 have lost this battle because my 
 force was too small ; I again re])eat I 
 am not responsible for this ; and I sa}' 
 it with the earnestness of a general 
 who feels in his heart the loss of every 
 bi*ave man who has been needlessly 
 sacrificed to-day. I still hope to re- 
 trieve our fortune ; but to do this the 
 government must view the matter 
 with the same earnestness that I do ; 
 you must send me very large rein- 
 I'orcements, and send them at once. I 
 shall draw back to this side of the 
 Chickahominy, and thiuU I can with- 
 draw all our material Please un- 
 derstand that in this Dattle we lost 
 nothing but men, and those the best 
 we have. In addition to what I have 
 alread}' said, 1 only wish to say to the 
 
 43 
 
 President chat I think he is wrong in 
 regarding me as ungenerous when I 
 said that my force was too weak. I 
 merely reiterated a truth which to-day 
 has been too plainly proved. I should 
 have gained this battle with ten thou- 
 sand freshmen. If at this instant I 
 could dispose of ten thousand fresh 
 men, I would gain a victory to-mor- 
 row; I know that a few thousand men 
 more would have changed this battle 
 from a defeat to a victory. As it is, 
 government must not and cannot hold 
 me responsible for the result. I feel 
 too earnestly — I have seen too ma- y 
 dead and wounded comrades to feel 
 otherwise than that. The government 
 has not sustained the army. If you 
 do not do so now, the game is lost." 
 
 Let this letter be read with care. It 
 exhibits an earnestness which, if it had 
 been properly met bj" the War De- 
 partment, would have ensured the 
 capture of Richmond; but it liiiled, as^ 
 all previous appeals since the battle 
 of Williamsburg had failed, to ex- 
 cite that vigor and activity on the 
 part of the government which, be- 
 yond all peradventure, could have fur- 
 nished, as before shown, the required 
 reinforcements. Hud there been the 
 same earnestness manifested that has 
 since been' exhibited to take Vicks- 
 burg, or Charleston, or to repel the 
 late invasion of Lee's army of the 
 States of Maryland and Pennsylvania, 
 General McClellan would have ful- 
 filled his promise to take Richmond, 
 and won the approbatiorwand applause 
 of his country and the world, and, 
 more than that, would ei-e this time 
 have suppressed the great insurrec- 
 tion. Why has the Army of the West 
 been more successful than the Army 
 of the Potomac 't That army has not 
 conquered siipci-ior numbers, behind 
 their own fortifications, which General 
 McClellan was expec':ed to do, and 
 which he has been censured for not 
 doing. General Grant has not been 
 thwarted and overruled in his plans, 
 and in their execution, as McClellaa 
 was. 
 
 An hour befoi'o the letter above 
 copied was sent by telegraph. General 
 McClellan conferred with Gen. Heint 
 
44 
 
 zelmar?. Tliis officer testifies : " About 
 10 o'clock, P.M., June 27, I got a tele- 
 gram that Gon. McClellan wished to 
 see mc immediately, about a mile and 
 a hair off. He had, in the meantime, 
 establ.'fihed his headquarters on mj- 
 side of the Chickahomin3% I went 
 over there, and found them all packed 
 up, ready to move. The general stated 
 the situation of affairs, and what he 
 proposed to do. One thing was to 
 move aci'oss to the James Eiver. The 
 other plan was to collect all the troops 
 from my side of the Chickahominy 
 and have a battle the next day, and 
 throw everything upon the result of 
 that battle. I asked him what would 
 be the result if we lost. He said that 
 if we were defeated the army would 
 be lost, but that he was inclined to 
 risk everything on that battle. I told 
 him it was of vital importance to the 
 countiy, I thought, to save that army; 
 that we would be ruined if that army 
 was lost; and I thought it would be 
 better for us not to fight that battle, 
 but to fall back from there to James 
 Eiver ; that we could reach there with 
 a loss of perhaps a few pieces of siege 
 artillery and some wagons, and then 
 we could receive reinforcements. He 
 said that was his opinion ; still he felt 
 inclined to risk everything on a battle. 
 The next day we commenced to re- 
 treat." Col. Alexander, of the engi- 
 neer corps, on the 28th June, received 
 instructions from Gen. McClellan to 
 conduct a reconnoissance to James 
 River for the purpose of ascertaining 
 whether there was an}^ enemy on the 
 road, and for ordering up supplies to 
 the army, for he intended to march 
 there. Thus it is evident that the 
 commanding general did not rely ex- 
 clusively on his own judgment in de- 
 ciding on the important step he pro- 
 posed to take, and that preliminary 
 measures were carefully taken for the 
 removal of the aimy. 
 
 The President Hcnt a telegraphic re- 
 ply to Gen. McClellan's letter : " June 
 28, 1862. Save your army at all 
 events. Will send reinforcements as 
 fast as we can. Of course the}^ cannot 
 reach you to-day, to-morrow, or next 
 day. I have not said you were ungen- 
 
 erous for saying you needed reinforce 
 ments ; I thought you were '"ungene> 
 rous in assuming that i[ '^id not send 
 them as f;ist as I could 7. feel any 
 misfortune to you and- your army 
 quite as keenly as you feel it j'ourself. 
 If 3'ou have had a drawn battle or a 
 repulse, it is the price we pay for the 
 enemy not being in Washington. We 
 protected Washington, and the enemy 
 concentrated on you. Had we stripped 
 Washington, he would have been upon 
 us before the troops sent could have 
 got to you. Less than a week ago 
 you notified us that reinforcements 
 were leaving Richmond to come in 
 front of us. It is the nature of the case, 
 and neither you nor the government is 
 to blame." 
 
 The last sentence in the President's 
 telegram I have italicised, and shall 
 comment upon it in my ne:3t number. 
 
 No. XVIl. 
 "IT IS THE NATURE OF THE 
 
 CASE, AND NEITHER YOU 
 
 NOR THE GOVERNMENT IS TO 
 
 RLAMB." 
 
 This is the declaration communica- 
 ted by the President of the United 
 States to General McClellan on the 
 28th day of June, 1862, immediately 
 after the battle of Gaine's Mill. The 
 commander-in-chief acquits his subor- 
 dinate general of all blame. With 
 this the general might, so far as he 
 was personally concerned, have been 
 satisfied. But he did not concur in 
 opinion with his superior officer; he 
 thought that "the nature of the case" 
 might have been entirely altered by 
 supplying him with reinforcements, 
 and that it was clearly within the 
 power of the government to supply 
 the reinforcements called for. The 
 conclusion arrived at by the President 
 prolonged the rebellion. The conclu- 
 sion of General McClellan favored the 
 immediate suppression of the rebel- 
 lion. How came the President to ar- 
 rive at his conclusion ? He was led to 
 believe that if he ient the reinforce- 
 ments asked fur, he would leave 
 Wasiiington unprotected. So he con- 
 soles himself and tries to console the 
 general by saying: " If j^ou have had 
 a drawn battle or a repulse, it is the 
 
price "we pay for the enemy not being 
 in Washington." That the President 
 was wrong in his conclusion has been 
 fully shown in these numbers. There 
 was not a day after the army reached 
 the Peninsula when General McClel- 
 lan could not have been reinforced by 
 more than 20,000 troops in addition to 
 those already sent him without at all 
 weakening the defences of Washing- 
 ton. The general could safely leave 
 his whole military reputation to the 
 decision of a competent military tri- 
 bunal on this point. Indeed, it ma}^ 
 well be doubted whether there was 
 any better way to defend Washington 
 than by sending troops directly to 
 Richmond to assault it. 
 
 The President is not a military 
 man, and was not a competent per- 
 son to decide what force was required 
 for the protection of Washington, nor 
 how this force should be divided, nor 
 where its divisions should be placed 
 to effect this object. This is said with 
 no intention of underestimating his 
 abilities as a statesman. It is mani- 
 fest that he did not rely on his own 
 unassisted judgment in this particu- 
 lar; then the question arises, who mis- 
 led him ? who gave him bad advice ? 
 
 It will be remembered that General 
 McClellan began to call for reinforce- 
 ments immediately after Yorktown 
 was evacuated. On the 28th day of 
 May he says: "It is the policy and 
 duty of the government to send nxe by 
 water all the well-drilled troops avail- 
 able. I am confident that AVashing- 
 ton is in no danger." Who in the 
 whole army better understood what 
 defences were required for the protec- 
 tion of Washington? Who could give 
 a more reliable professional opinion 
 on this point than General McClellan? 
 General McDowell saw and urged the 
 necessity of sending reinforcements. 
 It has been stated recently in the 
 newspapers that General Wadsworth 
 was in favor of sending reinforce- 
 ments. 
 
 The testimony of General Ethan 
 Allen Hitchcock shows conclusively, 
 I think, that he first gave the Presi- 
 dent the alarm in respect to the de- 
 fences of Washington, and that too in 
 
 45 
 
 the absence of Gen. McClellan. He 
 may be regarded as the nnlitary au- 
 thority upon whoso advice the Presi- 
 dent acted in keeping bafk the rein- 
 forcements. General Hitchcock was 
 not a general having any command, 
 but was a cabinet adviser of the Pres- 
 ident in military matters. It may 
 well be asked, ought the President to 
 have any such irresponsible adviser ? 
 The Secretaiy of War and the General- 
 in-Chief are at the head of the military 
 department of the government, sub- 
 ject to the general supervision and 
 control of the President himself, but 
 not a particle more subject to such su- 
 pervision and control than any other 
 department of the government. The 
 President is just as much entitled to 
 select a private adviser in matters of 
 finances, overlooking and ignoring the 
 Secretary of the Treasury, as he has 
 to select a secret adviser in military 
 matters. There is no authority fur- 
 nished by the testimony for saying 
 that any of the commanders in the 
 field dissented from the view above 
 expressed by Gen. McClellan in refer- 
 ence to the defences of Washington, 
 or concurred in the opinion upon 
 which the President acted. 
 
 It thus appears that but for General 
 Hitchcock, McDowell's corps would 
 have been sent to the Peninsula — that 
 reinforcements would have been sent 
 sufficient to have effectually repulsed 
 the enemy at Gaines' Mill, and had 
 he been there so repulsed, there would 
 have been no necessity for changing 
 the base of operations, but the wing 
 of the army on the riglit bank of the 
 Chickahominy would have been able 
 to enter Piichmond. 
 
 It is easy for fancy to conjecture 
 Avhat effects Avould have followed 
 had this result been reached at that 
 time, more than a year ago. What an 
 amount of treasure would have been 
 saved to the country ; what a number 
 of valuable lives would have been pre- 
 served ; what apprehensions, and fears, 
 and alarms, and fearful forebodings 
 we should all ha\>«e been spared ! Can 
 any man say that General McClellan 
 is to ularae for not reaching this re- 
 sult ? What more could he have done 
 
than he did ? Yet, strange to say, 
 this joint committee have made him 
 the subject of their censure. The 
 countxy will judge between them and 
 him 
 
 No. X^ TIL 
 
 The autumnal eleciions, even down 
 to the Municipal election of the City 
 of New York, are over. These num- 
 bers will now be resumed. I have 
 felt an invincible reluctance to write 
 or sa}^ anything in connection with 
 the name of General McClellan with a 
 view of influencing the elections of 
 1863, and m}^ communications have 
 therefore been for a time suspended. 
 
 The last conflict of tbe Army of the 
 Potomac which has been noticed is 
 the battle of Gaines' Mill. Since that 
 battle was the subject of comment, 
 Major General Fitz John Porter has 
 published under his own signature im- 
 portant testimony in relation to it. 
 No man is more capable of furnishing 
 reliable testimonj^ relative to this bat- 
 tle than General Fitz John Porter, 
 since he was the principal actor in it 
 on the side of our government. There 
 can be no room for doubt, in a candid 
 view of all the testimony, that if at 
 that time General McClellan had been 
 reinforced with the troojjs which he 
 implored his government to send him, 
 he could have taken Richmond. 
 
 Let us pause to contemplate the 
 .state of things on the Peninsula at the 
 moment when General McClellan was 
 forced to change his position in front 
 of the rebel capital. I speak not now 
 of the interference by the War De- 
 partment with his original plan of 
 operations, approved and sanctioned 
 by that department, by withholding 
 McDowell's force while our army lay 
 before Yorktown, nor of preventing 
 the junction of McDowell's and Fitz 
 John Porter's commands at Hanover 
 Court House ; but if. after these omis- 
 sions or blunders, tv»^enty or even ten 
 thousand fresh troops had been placed 
 under McClellan's command, this gen- 
 .eral could have entered llichmond, in 
 the face of superior numbers fighting 
 behind their own intrenchments. Im- 
 probai'le as this may have seemed at 
 the time, yet McClellan knew what his 
 
 46 
 
 brave followers were capable of per- 
 forming ; and that he did not overesti- 
 mate their power is proved by what 
 they actually accomplished before the 
 ai-rival of our army at Harrison's 
 Landing. Although the enemy had 
 the advantage of a defensive j^osition 
 behind their own intrenchments, yet 
 even ten thousand fresh troops at 
 Gaines' Mill, or at Mah'ern Hill, could 
 have ensured the conquest of Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 The excuse for not sending rein- 
 forcements is that all the troops in 
 Virginia, not before Richmond, were 
 required for the defence of Washing- 
 ton. It has already been shown that 
 such an excuse is not a valid one. If 
 there were not sufficient troops before 
 Washington, or near it, for its protec- 
 tion, the whole country knows that 
 one call from the President could have 
 collected in one week from the loyal 
 cities and States more than twenty- 
 five thousand true and valiant men 
 ready and eager to defend the capital 
 of the country. Zeal for the cause of 
 loyalty was at its highest pitch of fer- 
 vor at the time when General McClel- 
 lan commanded the Army of the Po- 
 tomac. 
 
 Reinforcements were not sent, and 
 Richmond was not taken. The omis- 
 sion to send these reinforcements was 
 so clearly wrong that the conviction 
 has forced itself upon many minds 
 that the President, influenced by the 
 advice of unwise or unjiatriotic coun- 
 selors, did not wish to take the rebel 
 capital at that time by the instrumen- 
 tality of General McClellan. But sup- 
 pose this judgment to be an unchari- 
 table one; suppose there was only an 
 error of judgment on the part of the 
 War Department, Avhy siiould the 
 blame for a failure of the Peninsular 
 campaign be cast upon Gen McClel- 
 lan ? Why should he be held up to 
 'the country as the cause of this fail- 
 ure ? Why should he be hunted, as 
 he has been hunted, like a deer upon 
 the mountains ? He has been called a 
 traitor — no soldier — a coward ! What 
 justification, what apology can be giv- 
 en for such persecution / Amidst all 
 this manifestation of hatred and ma- 
 
lignity, the subject of it has remained 
 silent; wlien reviled he has not reviled 
 again, but with care, industry, and pa- 
 tience he has written a history of his 
 campaigno, fortified by ofiicial docu- 
 ments and correspondence, in a report 
 made to the War Department. This 
 report it is said he has asked permis- 
 sion to make public, so that the peo- 
 ple, his fellow-citizens, may have all 
 the evidence before them, to enable 
 them to form a judgment upon his 
 military rr.r'er. But that permission 
 is denied L m, yet he remains silent; 
 the articles of war will not permit 
 him to speak ; he acknowledges his 
 obligation to obey those articles. The 
 day cannot be far distant when justice 
 shall be done this accomplished sol- 
 dier and true patriot. All his decla- 
 rations have been inspired by the lof- 
 tiest patriotism. In a conversation 
 with him, not public, he informed me 
 that no peace with the rebels should 
 be thought of until their military or- 
 ganizations wore put down, nor until 
 Northern men conld be permitted to 
 travel, visit or settle in the South, and 
 have all their constitutional rights re- 
 spected. This conversation was prior 
 to the State election. in Connecticut 
 in April last, and in reference to that 
 election. 
 
 Many months since Gen. McClellan 
 was deprived of the command of the 
 Army of the Potomac, that army 
 which he loved, and which loved him. 
 Little but disaster has befallen that 
 army since he left it ; thousands and 
 tens of thousands of the brave men 
 composing it, Avhen he left the army, 
 now fill honored graves. I feel confi- 
 dent that the impartial judgment of 
 the countr}', when the full time ar- 
 rives for tlie expression of that judg- 
 ment, will he that these disastrous re- 
 sults would never have been beheld if 
 George B. McClollan had been con- 
 tinued in command. Let this fact be 
 pondered by all those who have been 
 bereaved of relatives and friends in 
 the disastrous battles which have been 
 fought since the father of the Army 
 of tlie Potomac was torn from his 
 fjiildi'en. But these bereaved fathers, 
 and mothers, and sons, and wives, and 
 
 47 
 
 daugiiters are not the only persons 
 who have cause of complaint and la- 
 mentation. All the soldiers of the 
 Northern and Eastern and Middle 
 States which composed the Army 
 of the Potomac, and their friends 
 and fellow-citizens at home, have 
 just cause of complaint. They have 
 been placed in a false position ; they 
 have been injured; the section of 
 country in which they dwell has been 
 made to suffer by a comparison with 
 the inhabitants of another section; 
 their reputation for valor and prowess 
 has been breathed upon ; their honor 
 has been tarnished. If McClellan had 
 taken Richmond; if McClellan had 
 been left in command of the Army of 
 the Potomac, no inference unfavorable 
 to the valor and skill and manhood of 
 Northern and Eastern troops would 
 have suggested itself to any mind. 
 Then the President of the United 
 States would have had no occasion to 
 write to a meeting of his fellow-citi- 
 zens in the city of New York : 
 
 '■• You purpose also to celebrate our 
 Western victories. Freed from ap- 
 prehension of wounding the just sen- 
 sibilities of brave soldiers fighting 
 elsewhere, it would be exceedingly 
 agreeable to me to join in a suitable 
 acknowledgment to those of the gi*eat 
 West, with whom I was born and have 
 passed my life." 
 
 He had reason to be proud of his 
 birth-place, "the Great West," and 
 but for his own interference he could 
 have been spared the fear of wound- 
 ing "the sensibilities of brave soldiers 
 elsewhere." 
 
 No. XIX. 
 CHANGE OF BASE . 
 
 In my previous numbers I have not 
 commented on the progress of our 
 army after the battle of Gaines' Mill, 
 when General McClellan decided to 
 change the base of operations of that 
 army. Since the appeai-ance of Gen. 
 McClellan's report there is no longer 
 a necessity of continuing a narrative 
 of the march of the army or its con- 
 flicts; they are all contained in that 
 report, which 1 hope will be consult- 
 ed by every citizen of -he counuy. 
 The campaign^of the Peninsula is an 
 
48 
 
 item so important m the conduct of 
 the civil war in which the country is 
 engaged, that Avithout a full and accu- 
 rate knowledge of it no citizen can 
 pass an intelligent and just judgment 
 upon the character of the present Ad- 
 ministration. In viow of the fact 
 that this Administration seeks a con- 
 tinuance of its rule by the sufferages 
 of the people, the report of Gen. 
 MoClellan should be carefully studied. 
 It is a document so clear in its state- 
 ments, bearing on its face the impress 
 of truth, and verified by official cor- 
 respondence and reports, that it may 
 be relied upon as an authentic history. 
 I wish it were possible that every 
 voter in the country could be made 
 acquained with the contents of this 
 report — that it could be read by every 
 citizen, or read to him, if from any 
 cause he cannot give it a personal pe- 
 rusal. 
 
 That the Army of the Potomac did 
 make a successful change of its buse, 
 and by an effectual resistance did repel 
 all attacks made by the rebel army to 
 prevent this change, and beat back 
 with terrible slaughter the assailants; 
 that the movements of our army on 
 its march were by night, and the bat- 
 tles were through seven continuous 
 days, are facts not disputed. The re- 
 port shows that these movements and 
 sanguinary conflicts, terminating in 
 the arrival at the position sought to 
 be reached, were not unpremeditated, 
 accidental or fortuitous, but were 
 planned and ordered and supervised 
 by the general commanding the vast 
 host comprising the army of the Poto- 
 mac, George B. McClellan. Never 
 before on the American soil was such a 
 fete performed; there is no passage 
 in the military histor^^ of our countrj^ 
 so luminous as that which records the 
 doings of our army during those seven 
 days. It is doubtful whether an}'' act 
 or series of acts has shed such lustre 
 on our arms in the view of scientific 
 and experienced military men in Bu-' 
 rope as the movements of our aimiy 
 in retiring from the Chickahominy to 
 the James, in the face of a foe su- 
 perior in numbers and led by able 
 commanders. No one military exploit 
 
 in the progress of this civil war has 
 done more to admonish foreign pow- 
 ers that it would be dangerous to inter- 
 fere with the operations of the lawful 
 government of the country to sup- 
 press the rebellion, and therefore to 
 prevent such interference. 
 
 Even Pollard, the Confederate his- 
 torian of the war, is compelled to 
 admit with reluctance, that " the 
 skill and spirit with which Mc' "lellan 
 had managed to retreat was indeed 
 remarkable, and afforded no mean 
 proofs of his generalship. At every 
 stage of his retreat, says this author, 
 he had confronted our forces with a 
 strong rear guat'd, and had encoun- 
 tered us with organized lines of battle. 
 and regular dispositions of infantry, 
 cavahy and artillery. Hisi Iieavy 
 rifled cannon had been used against us 
 constantly on his retreat. A ])ortion 
 of his forces had now effected com- 
 munications with the rivers at points 
 below City Point. The plan of cutting 
 off his communication with the rivdr, 
 which was to have been executed by 
 a movement of Holmes' division be- 
 tween him and the river, was frustra- 
 ted by the severe fire of the gun- 
 boats, and since that the situation of 
 the enemy appeared to be that of di 
 vision or dispersion of his forces, one 
 portion resting on the river, and the 
 other to some extent involved by our 
 lines." 
 
 " It had been stated to the public of 
 Richmond, with great precision of 
 detail, that on the evening of Satur- 
 day the 28th of June, we had brought 
 the enemy to bay on the south side of 
 the Chickahominy, and that it only 
 remained to finish hina in a single 
 battle. Such in fact appeared to have 
 been the situation. The next morn- 
 ing, however, it was perceived that 
 our supposed resources of generalship 
 had given us too much confidence; 
 that the enemy had managed to ex- 
 tricate himself from the critical posi- 
 tion, and, having massed his forces, 
 had succeeded under cover of the night 
 in opening a way to the James Kiver." 
 
 " Upon this untoward event, the 
 operations of the army on the Eich- 
 mond side of the Chickahominy wei'e 
 
49 
 
 ie> foll®w a fugitive army through a 
 eountry where he had admirable 
 opportunities of concealment, and 
 through the swamps and forests of 
 which he had retreated with the most 
 remarkable judgment, dexterity and 
 j spirit of fortitude," 
 ^ Thus much for the testimony of our 
 .(inemy. The commander and historian 
 of the Army of the Potomac was 
 fully authoi'ized to say : — " The seven 
 days are classical in American historj' ; 
 those days in which the noble soMiers 
 o^' the Union and Constitution fought 
 an orerwhelming enemy by day, and 
 retreated from successive victoj'ies by 
 night, through a Avcek of battle, clos- 
 ing the terrible series of conflicts with 
 the ever memoi'able victory of Mal- 
 vern, where the}^ drove back beaten 
 and shattered the entire Eastern army 
 of the Confederacy, and thus secured 
 for themselves a place for rest and a 
 point for a new advance upon the 
 eapital from the banks of the James." 
 
 Hear the testimony from Europe. 
 Mr. Motley, our Minister at the Court 
 of Vienna, thus writes to Mr. Seward, 
 Secretary of State, in October, 1862. 
 The letter will be found in the diplo- 
 matic correspondence communicated to 
 Congress by the Secretary of State, 
 pages 569' and 570. Extract : " In this 
 connection I deem worthy of j'our no- 
 tice a brief extract from a remarkable 
 series of papers in the principal mili- 
 tary journal of this empire, in which 
 the course of our campaigns is criti- 
 cised, sometimes severely, but never 
 ungenei-ously ; always with talent, 
 and with thorough knowledge of the 
 subject, topographically and strategi- 
 call}', and with a fii-m disposition to 
 do justice. You will be interested to 
 read the comments of m able a writer 
 upon the withdrawal of our armies 
 from the James Eiver. 
 
 " It is not to be wondered at, then, 
 if the general-in-chief of the Army of 
 the Potomac was in haste to save the 
 array intrusted to him from the dan- 
 gers surrounding itj even from certain 
 destruction ; from a noose, in fact, 
 which required only to be drawn a 
 little closely together in order to suf- 
 focate the soul of the Union. The 
 
 manner in whieh he acquitted him- 
 self of this most difficult of all mili- 
 tary tasks redounds to his infinite 
 honor, and places him at once in the 
 I'anks of those memorable command- 
 ers whose name history treasui*es for 
 posterity; men who, if they have per- 
 haps, not had the art to chain victory 
 to their banners, possessed, at any 
 rate, the fortitude, the audacity, and 
 the circumspection to rescue their 
 armies from impending ruin * * » 
 The American general has made a 
 thorough study of war in the swamps 
 of the Chickahominy, and has made 
 himself a complete master in that 
 most difficult of professions. * * * 
 He has manifested the unquestioned 
 talent to save his army, in a manner 
 not sufiiciently to be admired, out of 
 the most desperate of situations. 
 Moreau made himself immortal by his 
 famous retreat from the Iller to the 
 Rhine in the year 1796. What is 
 due to the Amex-ican general-in- 
 chief who conducted, with a mor- 
 ally and physically exhausted army, 
 thi'ough a swampy pathless country, 
 covered with ancient forests, and in 
 face of an enemy outnumbering him 
 two to one the most classical of all 
 retreats recorded in military history, 
 without a single disaster ? " 
 
 No doubt this criticism, from a high 
 military source, in an empire tho- 
 roughly instructed in the art of war, 
 must have been highly gratifying to 
 our distinguished ambassador himself, 
 the author of histories which are clas- 
 sics in our language. Similar emo- 
 tions must have swelled the hearts of 
 all our loyal countrymen in Europe at 
 the time. With far different feelings, 
 however, were the commendations of' 
 our American general regarded by the 
 Committee on the Conduct of the Warj 
 they could easily sacrifice their coun- 
 try's renown to gratify their pei*sonai 
 dislike for General McClellan. 
 
 It is a fact familiar to the student of 
 history that the military renown of 
 ai'mies and the nations they served, 
 has been often as much heightened by 
 skilful and well-ordered rejtreats from 
 situations of peril as by successful as- 
 saults. The famous retixat of the ten 
 
50 
 
 thousand Greeks under their leader 
 Xenophon, needs only to be mentioned 
 in this connection. The hai-dly less 
 famous retreat of Moreau in 1796 has 
 been adverted to by Mr. Motley. In 
 the war between this country and 
 Great Britain in 1812-15, our navy 
 performed exploits highly distin- 
 guished, and greatly elevated our na- 
 tional character. 
 
 In the early months of that war, 
 when we had experienced little but 
 disasters on the land, it was truly 
 said " Our little navy has dragged up 
 hy the locks the drowning honor of 
 our country." But of all the feats of 
 that navy in this memorable war, 
 there was not one that reflected great- 
 er honor upon the naval arm of the 
 service than the masterly escape of 
 Captain Isaac Hull when in command 
 of the frigate Constitution from a 
 squadron of British vessels, consist- 
 ing of a razee of sixty-four guns and 
 four frigates, after a close pursuit of 
 three days and nights. This display 
 of American seamanship was viewed 
 with admiration and astonishment by 
 iche greatest naval power in the world. 
 
 I purpose to conclude this series of 
 articles in two more numbers ; one, 
 on the order of the General-in-Chief 
 (Halleck), to General McClellan, tore- 
 move the Army of the Potomac from 
 the Peninsula, and the protest of the 
 latter general against this order. The 
 other number on the letter of General 
 McClellan to|the President, dated July 
 7, 1862, concluding in these words, 
 remarkable for their solemnity: "I 
 may be on the brink of eternity, 
 and, as I hope forgiveness from my 
 Maker, 1 have written this letter with 
 sincerity towards you and from love 
 for my country." 'y» 
 
 When these numbers arecompleted 
 they will, in compliance with nume- 
 rous and urgent requests from distin- 
 guished persons in many parts of the 
 loyal States, be collected and pub- 
 lished in pamphlet form for general 
 circulation. To some extent tlie dis- 
 tribution of these pamphlets must be 
 gratuitous.* Persons wishing to con- 
 tribute to the expense of such distri- 
 Jjulaon, will please communicate with 
 
 the Journal of Commerce, which has 
 consented to receive such contribu- 
 tions. 
 
 No. XX. 
 
 OEDER TO LEAVE THE PENIN- 
 
 SULA. 
 
 On the 3d of August, 1862, General 
 Halleck ordered General McClellan to 
 withdi-aw the Army of the Potomac 
 from the Peninsula. On the next 
 day, while making preparation for 
 this important movement, General 
 McClellan sends a remonstrance to the 
 general-in-chief, entreating him, in the 
 strongest terras afforded by our lan- 
 guage, to rescind this order. In this 
 remonstrance, couched in language 
 most respectful, he argues the point 
 with great earnestness and power, 
 and concludes in these words: "If my 
 counsel does not prevail, I will, with / 
 a sad heart, obey your order to the 
 utmost of my power, directing to the 
 movements, which I clearly foresee 
 will be of the utmost delicacy and dif- 
 ficulty, whatever skill I may possess. 
 Whatever the result may be — and may 
 God grant that I am mistaken in my 
 forebodings, I shall at least have the in- 
 ternal satisfaction that I have written 
 and spoken frankly, ajid have sought 
 to do the best in my power to avert 
 disaster from my country." 
 
 This entreaty was unavailing — the 
 order was not rescinded. 
 
 Now the country well knows what 
 has been the sad experience of the 
 Army of the Potomac since, in obedi- 
 ence to this fatal order, it marched 
 from the Peninsula. In every great 
 battle, on the soil of Virginia, this 
 army has been defeated with immense 
 loss in killed and wounded. At Bull 
 Run under Pope; at Fredericksburg 
 under Burnside ; at Chancellorsville 
 under Hooker, thousands and tens of 
 thousands of our bravest and most 
 loyal troops have been slain or dis- 
 abled. " Families without number have 
 been bereaved of husbands and fathers, 
 of sons and brothers and kindred, or 
 have been compelled to see them crip- 
 pled or maimed. These are sad re- 
 sults — were they inevitable ? Might 
 they not have been avoided by follow- 
 ing the counsel of General McClellan ? , 
 
The counsel was to reinforce the army 
 where he was, and from that point, 
 with the reinforced army, march on 
 • Richmond. Hear what he says : '• This 
 array is now in excellent discipline 
 and condition. TVe hold a debouche 
 on both banks of the James River, so 
 that we are fi'ee to act in any direc- 
 tion; and with the assistance of the 
 gunboats, I consider our communica- 
 tion as now secure. 
 
 We are twenty-five miles from Rich- 
 mond, and are not likely to meet the 
 enemy in force sufficient to fight a 
 battle until we have marched fifteen 
 (15) to eighteen (18) miles, which 
 brings us practically within ten (10) 
 ten miles of Richmond. 
 
 "At Aquia Creek we would be 
 seventy-five (75) miles from Richmond, 
 with land transportation all the way. 
 " From here to Fort Monroe is a 
 inarch of about seventy (70) miles, 
 for I deem it impracticable to with- 
 draw this army and its material ex- 
 cept by land. 
 
 " The result of the movement would 
 thus be a march of one hundrend and 
 forty-five miles (145) miles to reach a 
 point now only 25 miles distant and 
 to dej)rive ourselves entirely of the 
 powerful aid of the gunboats and water 
 transportation. 
 
 " Add to this the certain demoi-al- 
 ization of this army which would en- 
 sue, the teiTibly depressing eff'ect upon 
 the people of the North, and the strong 
 probability that it would induce foreign 
 powers to recognize our enemies ; and 
 these appear to me sufficient reasons 
 to make it ray imperative duty to urge 
 in the strongest terms aff'orded by our 
 language that this order may be re- 
 scinded, and that far from recalling this 
 army, it may be promptly reinforced 
 to enable it to assume the offensive. 
 
 " It may be said that there are no 
 reinforcements available. I point to 
 Burnside's force; to that of Pope, not 
 necessary to maintain a strict defen- 
 sive in front of Washington or Harper's 
 Ferry ; to those portions of the army 
 in the West not required for a strict 
 defensive there. Here, directly in 
 front of this army, is the heart of the 
 rel^llion ; it is hero that all our re- 
 
 51 
 
 sources should be collected to strike 
 the blow which will determine the 
 fate of the nation. 
 
 " All points of secondary import- 
 ance elsewhere should be abandoned, 
 and every available man brought 
 here ; a decided victory here and the 
 military strength of the rebellion is 
 crushed. It matters not what partial 
 reverses we may meet with elsewhere j 
 here is the true defence of Washing- 
 ton, it is here on the banks of the 
 James that the fate of the Union 
 should be decided." 
 
 True, this army has retrieved its 
 tarnished rej^utation at South Moun- 
 tain and Antietam under McClellan, 
 and at Gettysburg under Meade. But 
 let it be remembered that in these 
 conflicts it was defending the soil of 
 loyal States, not invading the region 
 of rebellion. This array was repelling 
 and driving back the rebel hosts who 
 had the audacity to invade the terri- 
 tory of the loyal States. We only 
 prevented by these victories, and 
 barely prevented, the States which 
 had been true to the lawful govern- 
 ment of the country from being over- 
 run, and their cities, including the 
 national capital itself, from being as- 
 saulted and sacked. Were these re- 
 sults caused solely by the order to 
 abandon the Peninsula? Not entirely. 
 It should be remembered that McClel- 
 lan was not only ordered to march 
 from Hai'rison's Landing to Aquia 
 Creek, but was depi'ived of his com- 
 mand of that army when it joined 
 the Army of Virginia. If he had 
 been directed when he left the Penin- 
 sula to unite the Army of the Poto- 
 mac, with the Army of Virginia under 
 Pope, and take command of the two 
 armies united, the disaster of Bull 
 Run would not, it is believed, have 
 occurred. This is a question which 
 the military men in those armies ar« 
 most competent to decide ^ but I have 
 no doubt their decision would con- 
 form to the opinion above given. 
 One thing is very certain, that the 
 officers and privates of these armies 
 knew and had confidence in McClel- 
 lan; they did not know, and to a large 
 extent had no confidence in Pope. 
 
52 
 
 This fact u proved by the evidence of 
 Genei-ai i) >j ■ aside, given before a court 
 martial. V*; by was this command 
 withheld from General McClellan ? 
 IBEe outranked General Pope. For 
 the same reason, I fear, that the ori- 
 ginal plans of McClellan, when he 
 .went to the Peninsula, were interfered 
 fisrith and defeated; for the same reason 
 that McDowell was kept back from 
 joining Porter at Hanover Court 
 House ; for the same reason that re- 
 inforcements, repeatedly called for, 
 were not sent to the Peninsula. There 
 was no desire on the part of irrespon- 
 sible military advisers of the President, 
 inferior in rank to McClellan, that 
 this general should capture Eich- 
 mond, and gain the credit and influ- 
 ence that such a victory was sure to 
 give him. Hence the mind of the 
 President was kept, by generals at 
 Washington, in a state of constant 
 apprehension, not to say alarm, as to 
 the safety of the capital. One call 
 from the War Department requiring 
 volunteers for the defence of Washing- 
 ton, issued at any time during the 
 months of April or May 1862, would 
 have filled all the garrisons in and 
 about the capital with some of the 
 best and well drilled volunteers in the 
 States of New York, Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut;, and New Jersey, within 
 ten days after making the call. It is 
 a notorious fact that such volunteers 
 in large numbei'S were not only wil- 
 ling but desirous — eager for such a 
 service. This, from what I saw here 
 in New York, I affirm without fear of 
 contradiction. 
 
 It will be observed that my com- 
 ments refer solely to the conse- 
 quences of occurrences on the Penin- 
 sula. What General McClellan could 
 have done in command of the united 
 armies before the battle of Bull Eun 
 was demonstrated by what he actually 
 did with these armies after they were 
 demoralized by defeat. When even 
 the President of the United States 
 said that the troops defeated under 
 Pope would not fight, those troops 
 were collected, organized, and led on to 
 victory under the general they ioved. 
 IX is not my purpose to speak of what 
 
 might have been done by General 
 McClellan if he had not been sepe- 
 rated from his command, after the 
 battle of Antietam. 
 
 But it may be enquired — " Why re- 
 mind the country of these things now ? 
 It is not patriotic to allude to th® 
 errors or mistakes of the past, while 
 the rebels are yet unconquered, and 
 even confident of success ; the country 
 even now has need of United senti- 
 ment and action to put down the great 
 rebellion." Admitted; yet it is never- 
 theless useful to examine and criticise 
 the past, in order to prevent the re- 
 currence of errors in the future. Let 
 us all hope that now a more wise and 
 efficient policy will be pursued. 
 
 There are few citizens of the loyal 
 States who do not concur in the senti- 
 ments long since uttered and published 
 by General McClellan in these words : 
 ^' I am in favor of the prosecution of the 
 war with all the means at the command 
 of the loyal States until the military 
 power of the rebellion is destroyed." 
 When the military jsower is destroyed 
 there may be a wide difference of 
 opinion as to the policy to be inaugu- 
 rated and pursued as to the States in 
 rebellion. One party it is feared will 
 advocate a vindictive policy inspired 
 by hatred and revenge. The other 
 party, which is is hoped and believed 
 will be the prevailing one '.\dil tem- 
 per mercy with justice-will endeavor 
 by all the means practicable once 
 more to unite the whole people of 
 these United States in cordial support 
 of the Constitution made by their 
 fathers. Let us not now, in anticipa- 
 tion of the coming conflict of opinion, 
 to be settled, it is hoped, at the ballot 
 box, be seperated upon the question 
 of present duty. That duty is plain. 
 In order to overcome military pow- 
 er, military power must be resorted 
 to. This power can only be wielded 
 with any hope of success by those 
 trained to its exercise. The profes- 
 sion of arms must be learned by study, 
 and drill and ex|)erience. The quali- 
 fiications of a great military com- 
 mander are most graphically sketched 
 and eloquently described by Edmund 
 Burke : 
 
" The fortitude required of him is 
 very different from the untliinking 
 alacniy of tlie common soldier or 
 common sailor in the face of danger 
 and death. It is not a passion, it is 
 not an impulse, it is not a sentiment, 
 it is a cool, steady, deliberate prin- 
 ciple, always present, always equable, 
 having no connection with anger, 
 tempering honor with prudence, in- 
 cited, invigorated, and sustained by a 
 generous love of fame ; informed, 
 moderated, and directed by an en- 
 larged knowledge of its own great 
 public ends ; flowing in one blended 
 stream from the opposite sources of 
 the heart, and the head, carrying in 
 Kself its own commission, and prov- 
 ing its title to every other command 
 by the first anci most difficult com- 
 mand, that of the bosom in which it 
 resides. It is a fortitude which unites 
 with the courage of the field the more 
 exalted and refined courage of the 
 council ; which knows as well how to 
 reti'cat as to advance ; which can con- 
 quer as well by delay as by the ra- 
 pidity of the march or the impe- 
 tuosity of an attack ; which can be 
 with Fabius, the black cloud that 
 lowers on the tops of the mountains, 
 or, with Scipio, the thunderboalt of 
 war J which, undismayed by false 
 shame, can patiently endure the 
 severest trial that a gallant spirit can 
 undergo, in the taunts and provoca- 
 tions of the enemy, the suspicions, the 
 cold respect, and ' mouth honor' of 
 those from whom it should meet a 
 cheerful obedience, which, undisturbed 
 by false humanity, can calmly assume 
 that most awful moral responsibility of 
 deciding when victor}^ maybe too dear; 
 ly purchased by the loss of a single life, 
 and when the safety and honor of their 
 country may demand the certain sac- 
 rifice of thousands." 
 
 When a military leader is found 
 embodying the characteristics here 
 described, he must not be interfered 
 with, much less controlled; he must 
 be let alone to work out his OAvn plans 
 by subordinate officers and agencies 
 of his own selection. President Lin- 
 coln is a professional man ; he is a 
 lawyer, and has^ no doubt, in the 
 
 53 
 
 course of his professional practice, 
 been entrusted by his clients with 
 very important cases, involving large 
 amounts of property, great public 
 interests, as well as the liberty and 
 life of the citizen. In every sucb 
 case I can readily imagine that, 
 after making himself thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the facts and the law 
 applicable to the same, he has insisted 
 upon his professional right to manage 
 the controversy in his own way, with* 
 out the interference even of his client. 
 Such interference is I know, never 
 permitted by any lawyer of reputa- 
 tion ; no such counsellor will be res- 
 ponsible for. the result of a cause 
 unless committed to his sole control. 
 These principles are equally applica- 
 ble to the profession of arms. Let 
 us hope that in General Grant the 
 country has found a military com- 
 mander worthy of the high trust com- 
 mitted to him. This general has by 
 the nomination of the President, and 
 the concurrence of Congress, been 
 placed at the head of the armies of 
 the country. In making this selec* 
 tion the whole constitutional duty of 
 the President in this regard has been 
 performed. If General Grant fails, 
 no censure will attach to the Presi- 
 dent, unless he has attempted to inter- 
 ferfere with the discharge of the 
 general's professional duty. The Pre- 
 sident may certainly congratulate 
 himself that he is relieved from all 
 the care and anxiety of managing the 
 armies in the field. The President 
 never made a greater mistake than to 
 assume, because he was commandejj- 
 in-cbief under the Constitution, that, 
 therefore, he was required to direct 
 the military operations of the armies. 
 He has, however, more than once 
 made just this mistake. Should it be 
 repeated, no weight of odium is too 
 heavy to cast upon the President, for 
 he too is none other than the agent of 
 the people not the government^ but 
 the chief executive officer selected by 
 the people to administer a government 
 whose powers are prescribed and d^ 
 fined by a written Constitution. There 
 are not a few intelligent citizens wbo 
 predict that General Grant is called 
 
to Washington to be made instruraen 
 tal in advancing party objects, as well 
 as to control the armies. Such, it is 
 not to be believed is the purpose of 
 the general himself, but he may never- 
 theless be made subservient to party 
 purposes. If General G-rant is deter- 
 mined to destroy the military power 
 of the rebellion, and perseveres in 
 that determination, and is not inter- 
 fered with by the President or War 
 Department, he will, beyond all doubt, 
 succeed. If however, he allows him- 
 self to become a tool of party, his 
 success in putting down the rebellion 
 cannot be relied on, and he will, per- 
 sonally, be disgraced and ruined in 
 reputation. 
 
 No. XXI. 
 THE NEW YOEK TIMES 
 
 I had proposed to finish this series 
 of communications in this number, 
 but an editorial article in the New 
 York Times of the 15th March, num- 
 bered six of a series published in that 
 paper, reviewing the report of General 
 McClellan, requires a notice, and I am 
 therefore prevented from executing 
 my original purpose. 
 
 The " New York Times" supports 
 the Administration. To this there 
 can be no objection if that support is 
 rendered fairly and ingenuously. 
 There are two modes of misrepresenta- 
 tion and giving false coloring to facts; 
 one by allegations that nre not true, 
 and the other by suppressing the truth 
 what in legal technicality is called 
 suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. Both 
 of these maxims have been violated 
 by the Times in the article referred to, 
 and another maxim adopted which has 
 not found a place in any approved 
 code of morality : "All is fair in j^oli- 
 tics." 
 
 The first great wrong done to Gen. 
 McClellan, after it was decided that 
 he should move on Richmond by the 
 way of the Peninsula, was the with- 
 holding of Gen. McDowell's corps, 
 which had been promised him, as has 
 been previously shown in these num- 
 bers. Had not that corps been kept 
 back, and the good faith of the Ad- 
 ministration thereby violated, the re- 
 sult of the Peninsular campaign would 
 
 54 
 
 have been widely different from what 
 it was. Had the fact been disclosed 
 to General McClellan, before he em- 
 barked for Fortress Monroe, that he 
 was not to have the aid of McDowell's 
 command, he doubtless would rever 
 have embarked — would have regarded 
 the enterprise of taking Richmond as 
 impracticable. But this fact was not 
 communicated to the General till he 
 arrived at Yorktown, when it was too 
 late to recede. All the plan of his 
 campaign, deeply to his regret and I 
 may add grief, was thereby deranged. 
 These facts are well known to the 
 Times, and the only way in which the 
 Administration can relieve itself of 
 public censure is by showing that it 
 had been jDreviously deceived by Gen. 
 McClellan. This has been attempted 
 before by Ethan Allen Hitchcock, a 
 brigadier general of volunteers, who 
 held staff relations with his Excellen- 
 cy the President and the Secretary of 
 War. I have heretofore commented 
 at large on this attemj)t made by 
 Hitchcock ; it is now renewed by the 
 Times, with what success we shall see. 
 
 The charge against General McClel- 
 Ian is, that when he embarked with 
 his army at Alexandria for the Penin- 
 sula he violated the President's order 
 " to leave Washington entirely se- 
 cure." That order was issued by the 
 President, and bears date March 13th, 
 18(32, and is in these words : 
 To Maj.-Gen. Geo. B. McClellan : 
 
 " The President, having considered 
 the plan of operations agreed upon by 
 3'ourself and the commandei's of army 
 cordis, makes no objections to the 
 same, but gives the following direc- 
 tions as to its execution : 
 
 " 1st. Leave such force at Manassas 
 Junction as shall make entirely cer- 
 tain that the enemy shall not repossess 
 himself of that position and line of 
 communication. 
 
 " 2d. Leave Washington entirely 
 secure. 
 
 " 3. Move the remainder of the force 
 down the Potomac, choosing a new 
 base at Fortress Monroe, or anywhere 
 between here and there; or at all 
 events move such remainder of th© 
 
55 
 
 army at once in pursuit of tlie enemy 
 bj some route. 
 
 " Edwin M. Stantox, 
 " Secretary of War." 
 This order is not given in the Times 
 article, an omission which could not 
 have been m^de by a fair and candid 
 reviewer, sincerely desirous of estab- 
 lishing the truth, especially when he 
 quoted in full a previous order bear- 
 ing date the 8th of March. Ry every 
 approved rule of construction the or- 
 der of the 8th of March was superse- 
 ded b}' the order of the 13th of March. 
 By this order the plan of operations 
 which had been agreed upon by the 
 commanders of army corps vxis not ob- 
 jected to, neither was it expressly ap- 
 proved, but the direction to General 
 McClcllan personally in the order of 
 the 13th of March was: "Leave 
 Washington entirely secure; this 
 was mandatory to -the commanding 
 general. What should constitute se- 
 curity is left to his judgment, and he 
 is not concluded by the judgment of 
 his corps commanders before ex- 
 pressed, or thereafter to be expressed; 
 but the plain import of the order is : 
 " I look to 3'ou, the general-in-chief, to 
 leave Washington entirely secure." 
 
 The preparations of General Mc-«| 
 Clellan, he informs us, were at once 
 begun in accordance with directions 
 in the order of March 13th. lie shows 
 by official documents what he did. A 
 fair judgment deduced from these 
 documents must decide whet^ier he 
 executed the order with sound judg- 
 ment and in good faith. These docu- 
 ments are not given, nor are their 
 contents stated in the Times' article, 
 but they are adverted to as '• a shuf- 
 fling attempt which General McClel- 
 lan makes to explain this matter." 
 
 The first of these documents is an 
 order dated March IGth, 18G2, and 
 issued to Maj.-Gen. JS". P. Banks, con- 
 taining specific directions what that 
 General should Jo, and stating the 
 general object of the order to be «'to 
 cover the line of the Potomac and 
 Washington.*'' 
 
 The second is directed to Brigadier 
 General Wadsworth, bearing the same 
 date, March IGth, 18G2, There are 
 
 vai-ious other ordei"S and official com- 
 munications bearing on the siafety of 
 Washington in the report of General 
 McClellan.but they may all be summed 
 up in the following paragraph in the 
 same report : 
 
 Without including Gen. Blencker's 
 division, there were left 67,428 men 
 and 85 pieces of light artillery, which, 
 Muder existing circumstances, I deem- 
 ed more than adequate to insure 
 Washington against an}^ force the 
 enemy could la-ing against it. The 
 general gives at large the reasons for 
 this opinion. Among these reasons is 
 the following, wliich I think no one 
 but "The New York Times" would 
 regard as "a shuffling attempt to ex- 
 plain away this matter." (The charge 
 of having left Washington unpi'o- 
 tected.) 
 
 " It was clear to my mind, as I reiter- 
 ated to the authorities, that the move- 
 ment of the army to the Peninsula 
 would have the effect to draw off 
 the rebel arm}' from Manassas to the 
 defence of their capital, and thus free 
 Washington from menace. This opin- 
 ion was confirmed the moment the 
 movement commenced, or rather as 
 soon as the enemy became aware of 
 our intentions; for, with the excep- 
 tion of Jackson's force of some 15,000, 
 which his intructi6ns show to have 
 been intended to operate in such a 
 Avay as, to prevent McDowell's crojDS 
 from being sent to reinforce me, no 
 rebel force of any magnitude made 
 its appearance in fi'out of Washington 
 during the progress of our operations 
 on the Peninsula; nor until the order 
 was given for my return from Harri- 
 son's Landing was Washington again 
 threatened." 
 
 So anxious was the general to satis- 
 fy the President and Secretary of 
 War, that he was abc^it to leave 
 Washington in a state ol" perfect se- 
 curity, so as to relieve their minds 
 from all anxiety or apprehension on 
 this point, that he was at pains to 
 see General Hitchcock, the only mili- 
 tary man who held staff relations, 
 with these high officials. Here what, 
 the General says in his report : 
 
 " It is proper to remark, that just 
 
56 
 
 pvevioiis to iny departure for Fort 
 Moni'oe, I sent my chief of staff to 
 General Hitchcock, who at that time 
 held staif relations with his Excellency 
 the President and Secretary of War, 
 to submit to him a lii*t of the troops 
 I proposed to leave for the defence of 
 Washington, and the positions in 
 which I designed posting them. Gen. 
 Hitchcock after glancing his eye over 
 the list, observed that he was not the 
 judge of what was required for defend- 
 ing the Capital, that Gen, McClellan's 
 ))osition was such as to enable him to 
 understand the subject much better 
 than be did. and he presumed that if 
 the force designated was in his judg- 
 ment suflScient, nothing more would 
 be required. He was then told b}- 
 the chief-of-staff that I would be glad 
 to have his opinion, as an old and ex- 
 perienced officer. To this he replied, 
 that as I had had the entire control 
 of the defences for a long time, I was 
 the best judge of what was needed, 
 and he declined to gjive any expres- 
 sions of opinion at thjft time." 
 
 General Hitchcock at that time — 
 before the General embarked — took the 
 of the matter — that Gen. 
 was a better judge of the 
 requirements for the safety of the 
 capital than hims.elf, and that his 
 judgment must control. Who has 
 been found from that da}"" to this, to 
 impeach the correctness of General 
 MeClelian's decision ? The capital 
 was not put in danger while the army 
 remained on the Peninsula, r>or was 
 the refceiition of McDowell's command 
 neeeesarj for its protection. This is 
 the testissiony of actual experience, 
 ona'Of the best witnesses. Jiofore the 
 •war committee General McClellan was 
 .asked: ■" Was it not almost certain 
 ibefor-e^iaad that the withdrawal of 
 your ;armiy t^ a position where it did 
 inot <e®ver Washington would cause 
 ith« 'eiaejoay at least to make a threat 
 'OCT felixt of iin attack upon Washing- 
 ton %vh-ieh would iead to a panic, and 
 ])©rha|)«,t® a recall of your army, or 
 ^^ortioBL of it? Answer — I think 
 m&t:. I di® not think that anj'thing oc- 
 ■curred, ;prior to the battle of Cedar 
 HountaJji^ whjeh should have justified 
 
 right view 
 McClellan 
 
 a ]')anic in Washington. The only ad- 
 vance of the enemy that 1 remember 
 at all was that of Jackson upon Gen. 
 Banks. When I heard of that I tele- 
 graphed to the Pi'esident that I be- 
 lieved the intention simply to be to 
 prevent reinforcements being v^ent to 
 to me. I had no idea that it meant 
 a serious threat upon Washington," 
 
 I have carefully read the testimony 
 of Generals McDowell, Sumner, and 
 Heintzelraan, before the War Com- 
 mittee, and cannot find that either of 
 them was examined in reference to 
 the sufficiency of the force left by 
 General McClellan' for the defence of 
 Washington. The)^ were witnesses, 
 next to General McClellan, most com- 
 petent to give an opinion upon the 
 point. No opinion was sought from 
 either of them. General McDowell 
 was desirous of uniting his command 
 with that of General McClellan, and 
 earnestly protested against the alleged, 
 necessity of retaining it in the vicinity 
 of Washington, ^et it was retained, 
 and accomplished no useful purpose, 
 while, if it had embarked in the first 
 instance, and gone down to Fortress 
 Monroe with the other corps, or if it 
 had united with the command of Gen. 
 fitz John Porter at Hanover Court 
 House the capture of Kichmond would 
 have been made certain. Who can 
 fail to see that the distribution of the 
 troops for the defence of the capital, 
 whether in the immediate vicinity of 
 the capital, or at a greater or less 
 distance from it, in the avenues 
 through which the enemy must of ne. 
 cessity approach Washington, were 
 questions for militaiy science and ex- 
 perience to decide. General McClel- 
 lan, as the commander of the army, 
 did decide these questions, aad mad«i 
 these distributions in the exercise of 
 his best judgment. There is no tes- 
 timou}' whatever but that of Generals 
 Hitchcock and Thomas, and, perhaps, 
 I !nay add , Wads worth, tending to 
 show'that his decision was erroneous. 
 The evidence of these witnesses has 
 been heretofore in these numbers ex- 
 amined, but I may be pardoned, just in 
 this connection, for again adverting to 
 the topics. G©H. McClellan in his re- 
 
))Oi't says: " On the 2l8t day of April, 
 llie (lay followinju; my dcpai'ture for 
 Fort Munroe, Grcnerals llitclicock and 
 Tliomas wem dirocti.'d by the Secre- 
 tary of War to examine and report 
 whether the President's instructions 
 to me of March 8tl> and 13th had 
 been complied with. On the same day 
 their report was submitted, and their 
 decision was that the requirement of 
 the President, tliat this city (Washing- 
 ton) shall be left entirely secure, has 
 not been fully complied with." I have 
 shown, I think, conclusively, that the 
 order of March 8th was superseded 
 by the subsequent order of March 
 loth. It was very. pi"oper to enquire 
 whethej-, under this ord-n-, the safety 
 of Washini!;ton had been provided for. 
 That question could only be decided 
 by ascertaining" what troops and arm- 
 ament had been left for such defence. 
 No such investigation was made, but 
 the attention of these two generals 
 was directed to an enquiry whether 
 or not tiie force agreed upon by the 
 corps commanders had been left, and 
 distributed in the manner suggested 
 by them in their report. 
 
 A proper investigation would have 
 shown that a much larger force than 
 was suggested by either of the corps 
 commanders was actually left for the 
 dclence of the capitol, although the 
 force was, under the direction of the 
 general-in-chief, distributed in a dif- 
 ferent manner than that contemplat- 
 ed b}' the corps commanders. 
 
 Generals Hitchcock and Thomas as- 
 sume that the report of the corp com- 
 manders prescribed a rule of duty to 
 Gen McClellan. I deny it, and hava 
 shown that the only duty required of 
 him by the President was ilefined in 
 the last order given — leave Washing- 
 ton perfect I tj secure. If he did provide, 
 that which, in his own judgment, was 
 perfect securit}', he obeyed the ordei\ 
 1 have heretofore shown the gross in- 
 justice of putting Maj' r Gen. McClellan, 
 in liis absence, on trial before generals 
 of inforior rank, and bringing in a re- 
 port against him without giving him 
 •I hearing, or any notice of an enquiry 
 the result of whicti might be, and ac- 
 tunli}'- was, injurir)us to his reputa- 
 tion. This enquiry and report was 
 
 made while the general himself, afc 
 the head of the largest arm}' ever 
 before assembled in these United 
 States, was absent in the actual and 
 perilous service of his country 
 
 General McClellan further states, m 
 reference to the time when the T-eport 
 of Gens. Hitchcock and Thomas was 
 made, as follows : " At the time this 
 report was made, the only enemy on 
 any approach to Washington was 
 Jackson's force, in fx'ont ot Banks's, 
 in the Shenandoah Valley, with the 
 Manassas Gap Kailroad leading from 
 this valley to W^jpShington, and it will 
 be admitted, I presume, that Banks, oc- 
 cupying the Shenandoah Valley, was 
 in the best position to defend not only 
 that approach to Washington, but 
 the roads to Harper's Ferry and 
 above. The number of troops left by 
 me for the defences of Washington, 
 as given in my letter to the Ad- 
 jutant General, were taken from the 
 latest official returns of that date, 
 and these, of course, I constitute the 
 most trustworthy and authentic source 
 from which such information can be 
 obtained.' 
 
 In consequence of this report of 
 Gens. Hitchcock and Thomas, made 
 tK) the War Department, the Presi- 
 dent's apprehension for the safety of 
 Washington was excited, in conse- 
 quence of which he wrote a letter to 
 General McClellan, on the 9th of 
 April, in which' he inquires of this 
 General — " And now allow me to ask, 
 do you really think I should , permit 
 the line from Eichmond, via Manassas 
 Junction, to this city to be entirely 
 open, except what resistance could 
 be prevented by less than 20,000 un. 
 organized troops ? " 
 
 Here the President plainly implies 
 that no troops could be placed any- 
 where to resist an attack upon Wash- 
 ington except immediateh' in front of 
 the Capitol. Could an}' conclusion be 
 more erroneous, not to say absurd ? 
 
 In reference to another part of the 
 report of Generals Hitchcock and 
 Thomas, General McClellan sa3-.s in 
 his report : " In regard to the steamer 
 ' Merrimac,' I have also stated, *hixt 
 so far as our operations on York liiver 
 were concerned, the power of this 
 
58 
 
 vessel was neutralized. I now pro- 
 ceed to give some of the evidence 
 which influenced mo in coming to that 
 conclusion. 
 
 " Previous to our departure from 
 the Peninsula, Mr. Watson, Assistant 
 Secretary of War, was sent by the 
 President to Fort Monroe, to consult 
 with Flag Officer Goldsborough upon 
 this subject. The result of that con- 
 sultation is contained in the following 
 extract from the evidence of Admiral 
 Goldsborough before the Committee 
 on the Conduct of the War, viz., ' I 
 told Mr. Watson, Assistant Secretary 
 of War, that the President might 
 make his mind perfectly easy about 
 the Merrimac going up York Eiver, 
 that she could never get there, for I 
 had ample means to prevent that.' 
 Capt. J. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary 
 of the Navy, testifies before the Com- 
 mittee as follows: 'Gen. McClellan 
 expected the Navy to neutralize the 
 Merrimac, and I promised it should be 
 done.' " 
 
 There is further given the testi- 
 mony of Gen. Keyes to the same ef- 
 fect, which will be found in the Report 
 of Gen, McClellan. 
 
 Thus much for this infamous pro- 
 ceeding at Washington, instituted and 
 consummated by Generals Hitchcock 
 and Thomas and the Secretary of 
 War, immediately on Gen. McClellan's 
 leaving Washington, on a mission no 
 less important than the conquest of 
 the rebel capital. This proceeding, 
 which resulted in the withholding of 
 Gen. McDowell's corps from the Pe 
 ninsula, prevented that conquest. 
 But for this trial and conviction of 
 Gen. McClellan in his absence, and 
 without notice, the rebel capital would 
 have been in the possession of the 
 lawful government of this country 
 more than eigliteen month ago, and 
 Major General George B. McClel- 
 lan would, by general acclamation, 
 have been hailed as the savior of his 
 country. That he has not been is no 
 fault of his own. 
 
 NO. XXII. 
 NEW YORK TIMES. 
 
 In my last number I attempted to 
 answer Article No. 6, in " the New 
 
 York Times" review of General Mc- 
 Clellan's report — with what success 
 the careful and candid reader must de- 
 cide. No. 7, in the same journal, .-^hall 
 now be noticed, and then, I have no 
 moi-e to do with " the New York 
 Times." 
 
 No. 7 censures General McClellan for 
 not having assaulted the enemy's lines 
 at Yorktown instead o^ laying siege to 
 his line of works. In the remarks of 
 ■' the Times" our own general is treated 
 with marked contempt. A comparison 
 between him and the Duke of Marl- 
 borough is instituted greatly to the dis- 
 advantage of our countryman. S;ich 
 a comparison was uncalled for. Gen- 
 eral McClellan, before he was sum- 
 moned from the pui'suits of civil life, 
 and it may be added the profitable 
 pursuits of civil life, to enter the ser- 
 vice of the country, and assist in put- 
 ting down the rebellion, had been ed- 
 ucated in the militaiy academy at West 
 Point, and seen some actual service in 
 the Mexican war, but he had never 
 risen in the regular army above the 
 grade of captain. He had retired fcom 
 even this military position, and he 
 sought not to enter military life a sec- 
 ond time, but he was called from his re- 
 tirement to that service, and, prompted 
 by love of country, and gratitude tc a 
 government which had given him a 
 military education, he promply obeyed 
 that caU. From the day he re-entered 
 the army to the day when he was re- 
 lieved of his command by i>rder of the 
 President, ho addressed himself dili- 
 gently to the duties of his calling in 
 the position assigned him No man 
 can deny him this meed of praise; he 
 'was industrious, watchful, and perse- 
 vering by day and by night ; he did 
 the best ho could with all fidelity to 
 his government. I am unauthorized, 
 upon authority which cannot be gain- 
 said, to declare that the President of 
 the United States, after the battle of 
 Antietam, expressed the highest confi- 
 dence in this general's military capa- 
 city and generalship, believing him 
 superior to any and everj'- other gen- 
 eral in the service, with no fault but 
 being in his opinion too cautious. 
 
 Now this recent captain made no 
 
59 
 
 claim to the abilities and experience 
 of the greatest general that England, 
 through a course of centuries, has pro- 
 duced — the illustrious Duke of Marl- 
 borough. When treneral McClellan 
 went to the Peninsula he commanded, 
 indeed, the largest army ever before 
 assembled in his native country — he 
 did not usurp that command ; he did 
 not intrigue for, or even solicit this 
 command ; but it was conferred upon 
 him, inexperienced as he was. He ac- 
 cepted it, and did the best he could. 
 Impartial, judicious military men, 
 have said that he did as well and ac- 
 complished as much as any other gen- 
 eral, ancient or modern, could have 
 done, or accomplished, in his position, 
 under all the circumstances which actu- 
 ally existed. This is all that can be 
 said about it. It is ungenerous to 
 taunt him because he did not, in the 
 first act of his first great campaign, rise 
 to an equality with the renowned Duke 
 of Marlborough. The Committee on 
 the Conduct of the War took a large 
 amount of testimony on this disputed 
 point of assault or siege. I have here- 
 tofore examined in the numbers re- 
 ferred to this testimony, given on both 
 sides, with as much candor and impai*- 
 tiality as I was able, and shown that 
 the testimony in favor of siege greatly 
 preponderated. The witnesses exa- 
 mined were of the committee's own 
 selection, and they were selected with 
 no partiality for Genera,! McClellan, 
 yet the result of this testimony, and of 
 tte public authentic documents access- 
 ible to the committee, was entirely fa- 
 voi'able to the siege. Many other offi- 
 cers could have been examined, and it 
 would have been entirely practicable 
 to examine, on this point, Ijieut.-Gen. 
 Scott himself. What their judgment 
 would have been it is imj)0ssible to 
 say, but there can be no doubt that an 
 overwhelming majority of the rank 
 and tile of the whole army would have 
 ratified the decision of the command- 
 ing general. Certain it is. that on the 
 6th of Ma}', two days after the evacu- 
 ation by the enemy, the Congress of 
 the United States voted thanks to Gen. 
 McClellan for those high viiiitarij quali- 
 ties which secure important results with 
 
 but little sacrifice of life. One would 
 think that controversy on this point 
 should cease. Not so thinks the "New 
 York Times." This journal makes no 
 reference to the testimony taken be- 
 fore the War Committee; it takes no 
 notice of the reports of our own gene- 
 rals; it ignores the opinion of the 
 Army of the Potomac, the most en- 
 lightened body of citizen soldiers ever 
 combined; it does not even mention 
 the resolution of Congress; it enters 
 into no discussion whatever upon the 
 question, but pronounces, ex cathedra, 
 a sentence of condemnation of General 
 McClellan for having laid siege to 
 Yorktown. The article in the "Times," 
 now reviewed, opens thus: -'There is 
 now, we suppose, not the shadow of a 
 doubt, that had the Army of the Poto- 
 mac been simply allowed to walk on 
 up to Richmond, it would have been 
 able to walk over all the force which 
 Gen. Magruder had to oppose it. We 
 now know how contemptible that force 
 was." The italics are not mine. 
 
 Suppose this assertion to be true: 
 General McClellan, in April, 1862, 
 could not act upon what we now know, 
 and of which he was then ignorant. 
 All he could do was to use the best 
 means then in his power, and collect 
 the most reliable information attaina- 
 ble at that time, as to the number and 
 condition of the enemy, and act upon 
 that information. He might have 
 been misinformed; he might have 
 failed to obtain accurate information; 
 instances might be cited where great 
 generals have been deceived without 
 any fault or remissness of their own. 
 But how do we noio know what our 
 army could have accomplished, more 
 than it did accomplish before York- 
 town two years ago ? The "New York 
 Times" answers this question in the 
 following sentence : "General Magru- 
 ger's official report of the operations 
 on the Peninsula shows that his whole 
 army consisted of eleven thousand 
 men ; of these six thousand wei-e use- 
 less to him, being placed in garrison at 
 Gloucester Point, Mulberry Island, 
 &c. ; so that it will be seen," adds he, 
 "that the balance of the line, embra- 
 cing a length of thirteen miles, was 
 
defended by about five thousand men." 
 "Says" who? General Magruder. And 
 who is General Magruderi* He is the 
 ■witness — the chief witness produced 
 by the accuser and i-oviler of General 
 McClellan, and the ijublic are entitled 
 to know the position and character of 
 this witness by whose testin\ony it is 
 sought to condemn our own general. 
 General Magruder is a rebel officer; 
 he was well and extensively known 
 when he served nnder the United 
 States Government. The officers of 
 our regular army are not ignorant that 
 his characteristics were, first, a great 
 amount of pomposity and desire of 
 show in his personal bearing; second, 
 a habit of appropriating to General 
 Magruder a lion's share of all the cre- 
 dit and renown which attached to 
 every military enterprise in which he 
 happened to be engaged; third, he 
 was habitually in a state of artificial 
 excitement, sometimes called intoxica- 
 tion, but more commonly, drunkenness; 
 and, lastly, he is universally known as 
 a traitor to his lawful government, 
 which educated him to the profession 
 of arms. Behold the witness put upon 
 the Bland by the " New York Times," 
 to blacken the character of General 
 McClellan ! What says this general 
 as to the force of the enemy when he 
 arrived at Yorktown ? He testifies 
 before the War Committee that when 
 Gen. Heintzelman landed on the Pe- 
 ninsula there was not at tliat time 
 much more than Gen. Magruder's 
 command, which had been always es- 
 timated from 16,000 to 20,000. It will 
 bo remembered that Gen. Heintzelman 
 landed on the Peninsula, not at York- 
 town, but at Fortress Monroe, thirty 
 miles from Yorktown. The general 
 proceeds in his testimony: "Move- 
 ments of troops had been going on 
 across the James River to the Penin- 
 sula for some daj^s before my arrival. 
 I renvember that immediately ujion 
 my arrival at Fort Monroe, I was told 
 that quite a large number of troops 
 had been crossed over to Yorktown 
 from the south bank of the James. 1 
 therefore hurried my own movements, 
 and Ktarted from Fort Monroe sooner 
 than i should have don©. From the 
 
 60 
 best information that I have been able 
 to get, I think that the large masses 
 of the reinforcements arrived in York- 
 town from one to two days before I 
 reached its vicinity. Johnston himself 
 arrived there the day before I did." 
 Gen. Heintzelman, whose division was 
 the first to arrive before Yorktown, 
 testifies that a few days after he land- 
 ed at Fortress Monroe (March 23) he 
 got information that Gen. Magruder 
 had a small force only, not exceeding 
 10,000 men, on the Peninsula, but h© 
 further testifies: "By the time we got 
 to Yorktown (April 5) their arm}^ had 
 been largely reinforced there. Gen.. 
 McClellan arrived at Fortress Monroe 
 April 2, ten days after Heintzelman. 
 
 On this information Gen. McClellan 
 acted — he could not act upon any 
 other, and better evidence than Gen. 
 Magruder's report will be required to 
 show that this information was incor- 
 rect. 
 
 The future historian of this great 
 rebellion will gather from all sources 
 of information all the facts, carefully 
 collate them, and record the results; 
 but, at this time, it cannot be admit- 
 ted that judgment upon the perform- 
 ances and character of our generals 
 should be pronounced upon testimony 
 derived from rebel official reports. In- 
 deed the very circulation of these re- 
 ports has been pi'ohibited by a milita- 
 ry order in some, if not all, the de- 
 partments of our military service. 
 Those who take the trouble to exa- 
 mine will find conflicting statements 
 of facts in the reports of our com- 
 manding generals, and the reports of 
 commanding rebel generals, and in no 
 one particular is there so strong a mo- 
 tive to vary from strict accuracy of 
 statement as in giving the numbers 
 engaged. Through all time the habit 
 of commaniing generals has been to 
 understate their own numerical force, 
 and exaggerate the force of their ene- 
 mies, when giving accounts of battles 
 which have been fought, or conflicts 
 terminated. It cannot be ST^pposed 
 that such a man as Gen. Magruder 
 would be an honorable exception to 
 this custom. Even Gen. Lee, the com- 
 mander of the purest character in tke 
 
61 
 
 rebel service, in giving an account of 
 
 the battle of Gettysburg, would not be ^ his views to the President, uj^on anj 
 believed by loyal men in preference to 'subject of public interest. This no 
 
 deny, 
 
 Gen. Meade, our own commander 
 Much less ought the testimony of Gen. 
 Magruder to out-weigh that of Gen. 
 McClellan. 
 
 I shall conclude these numbers in 
 my next. 
 
 No. XXII I.— Part I. 
 LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT. 
 
 On the 7th July,, 1862, the head- 
 quarters of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac were near Harrison's Landing, 
 Vii'ginia, the seven days' fight was 
 ended, the rebels were in front with 
 the jiurposo of overwhelming our 
 army by attacking our positions, or 
 I'educiug us hy blocking our communi- 
 cations on tlie James River. The po- 
 sition of our army was one of peril. Up 
 to this date General McClellan had com- 
 municated with the President of the 
 United States and the Secretary of 
 War on military subjects only. On 
 this da}' he sent a letter to the Presi- 
 dent, laying before him, for his private 
 consideration, his general views con- 
 cerning the then existing state of the 
 rebelli«n. These views, the general 
 says, •' amount to convictions, and are 
 deej^ly impressed on my mind and 
 heart," 
 
 It has been objected that the general 
 had no right to send such a letter, 
 although a private one, to his superior 
 in command, the chief executive of 
 the country. There is no evidence 
 that the President himself ever made 
 this objection, but some of his zeal- 
 ous friends have done so. Tliese 
 friends betray ignorance of the char- 
 acter and spirit ot our republican in- 
 stitutions. Tlie President is not a 
 monarch or ruler of any sort by he- 
 reditary right J he is an agent of the 
 people, chosen by them to execute 
 specified duties under the constitu- 
 tion. Every citizen in the land is one 
 of his constituents, and has a person- 
 al interest in the government of the 
 countrj- which the President is chot'en 
 to administer for a limited period. It 
 le people's government, to be ad- 
 tered for their benetit. Thei'e is 
 not one of the.se people who lias not 
 
 the right respectfully to submit 
 
 and if 
 on 
 
 George 
 the 7th 
 
 B. 
 
 of 
 
 is tl 
 mini 
 
 man will 
 
 McClellan had been, 
 July, 1862, a private citizen, an unof- 
 ficial person, his right to communi- 
 cate his views tf) the President, or 
 any other ofiicer of the government, 
 would be unquestioned. But because 
 George B. McClellan was an officer of 
 the government, subordinate to the 
 President, it is alleged that he has for- 
 feited the right which would clearly 
 have been his as a private citizen. 
 If the general had submitted his views 
 to the President in a spirit of insub- 
 ordination, that is, in the mani- 
 festation of a spirit that denied 
 the authority of his superior, the 
 objection wouM have been valid; 
 but when the communication is per- 
 fectly respectful, and made evidently 
 with a desire to promote the general 
 welfare, and dictated by strong con- 
 victions of duty, who can rightly cen- 
 sure it? The captain of a ship is su- 
 preme in his command J his authority 
 cannot be questioned ; but if, in a 
 time of great peril, the mate of the 
 same ship should respectfully suggest 
 to him a course to be steCred, and 
 what sails ought to be taken in, and 
 what other sai 1 s ought to be set, in order 
 to save the ship and cargo, who can say 
 that such a subordinate officer ought 
 to be censured? Especially if the sug- 
 gestion was made privately, and not in 
 the presence of the crew ; and more 
 especially if the mate happened to be 
 one of the owners of the ship and 
 cargo ? 1 shall not attempt further 
 to argue or illustrate this point: Gen. 
 McClellan had a perfect right to send 
 to the President just such a letter as 
 he did send, if, in his judgment, after 
 mature reflection, it contained what 
 he deemed useful and timely advice. 
 Had he failed to send it, he would 
 have fallen short of his duty as an 
 American citizen and a military com- 
 mander 
 
 Let us next see what advice he 
 gave the President. Gen. McClellan 
 says : " Our cause must never he aban- 
 doned ; it is the cause of free institu- 
 
62 
 
 tions and self government." This dec- 
 laration is too plain to require expla- 
 nation or illustration. 
 
 The general also says: " The Consti- 
 tution and the Union must be preserved, 
 whatever may he the cost, in time, trea- 
 sure and blood." 
 
 Time was when this declaration 
 would have received not only the as- 
 sent, but the hearty commendation of 
 every loyal Amei'ican citizen.' Then 
 we all loved the Constitution — we 
 were proud of it : but the time is 
 when many American citizen-s, pro- 
 fessing loyalty more loudly than their 
 neighbors, can see no beauty in this 
 Constitution, and are willing to dis- 
 card it, or mar it, so as to leave it no 
 longer the frame of government which 
 it was designed to be by the illustrious 
 men who made it, and the people, our 
 
 S'cdecessors, who adopted it. Gen. 
 cClellan is not one of these new 
 lights; he regai-ds the Union as indis- 
 pensable to the preservation of popu- 
 luar liberty, and the Constitution as 
 the only clear and well defined, thor- 
 oughly understood bond of that Union 
 to which the people have given their 
 assent. The manner in which free 
 institutions shall exist, and by which 
 they have existed, is here a mat- 
 ter of agreement. The government 
 which exists and can only exist 
 by the consent of the govei-ned, is 
 embodied in the Constitution, and the 
 only mode hy which this government 
 can be altered or varied is prescribed 
 in the Constitution itself If this 
 Constitution is stripped Of its sanc- 
 tions, it is impossible to predict what 
 substitute will receive the consent of 
 the governed. or how that consent 
 will be obtained. Witiiout a consti- 
 tion which has been adopted by the 
 people, we have no government, and 
 are in a state of anarchy; out of 
 which it is not given human foresight 
 to scan what form of governmeni will 
 arise. 
 
 The general further says: " iei 
 neither military disaster, political fac- 
 tion, nor foreign war shake our settled 
 purpose to enforce the equal operation 
 of the laxos of the United States upon 
 the people of every State." 
 
 Tliis is simply declaring that the 
 whole people of the United States, 
 loyal and disloyal, must be governed, 
 protected, or punished by law, sover- 
 eign law. All are entitled to the pro- 
 tection which the law provides — all 
 who violate the law must be punished 
 according to law. These propositions 
 are simple expressions of elementary 
 truths. To the mind of all enlightened 
 in the j)rinciples which govern and 
 preserve society^ they are eleinentary 
 truths ; an attempt to prove them 
 would only cloud them with obscurity. 
 Yet a doctrine has gained currency, 
 even among some respectable people, 
 that rebels are entitled to no protection, 
 or advantage from the laws which they 
 have violated, and the Constitution 
 which the}' have cast off. How can 
 these rebels be punished ? Who shall 
 prescribe that punishment? By what 
 rule shall it be meted out ? The ans- 
 wer to each of these questions is the 
 same, and is very simple. The offence 
 to be punished consists in the viola- 
 tion of the will and deci-ees of the 
 community ; this will and these de- 
 crees find their only expression and 
 embodiment in law. No po^er on 
 earth but the community whose law 
 has been violated has a right to pun- 
 ish that violation, and that community 
 can only utter its voice in form of 
 laW' — therefore punishment must be 
 prescribed by law. In a Christian 
 community it will not be denied that 
 all men have violated the law of God, 
 and except these violaters of the law 
 have thrown away their weapons of 
 rebellion, they are all rebels against 
 the government of God. Yet what 
 child born of Christian parents does 
 not know that these rebels will be 
 judged b}' the law which they have 
 violated, and trampled under theii 
 feet ? •' Did not Moses give you the 
 law and yet none of you keepeth tiia 
 law?" "Doth our law judge any 
 man before it hear him and know what 
 he doeth ? " 
 
 Nothing C'an be more clear than 
 that General McClellan's policy, re- 
 commended in the strongest manner 
 to the President, was to put down the 
 military resistance to the e^ovemme! t 
 
63 
 
 by fovf^e of arms. Btit that policy 
 looko<^t bej'ond the suppression of the 
 miHtry combinations of rebels, to a 
 re-establishment of the authority of 
 government over all the people within 
 the territorial limits of the United 
 States. When the victory of arms is 
 made complete then the operation of 
 moral causes must be relied upon to 
 unite the people of the whole country. 
 The sword must not be the sole re- 
 liance to accomplish a reunion, but 
 the olive branch must be held out. 
 
 Let us now refer to the moral in- 
 strumentalities the employment of 
 which the geneeral' recommends. 
 They are : 
 
 " This rebellion has assumed the 
 character of war; as such it should 
 be regarded : and it should be con- 
 ducted on the highest principles 
 known to Christian civilization. It 
 should not be a war looking to the 
 subjugation of the people of anj' State 
 in any event. It should not be at all 
 a war upon population, but against 
 armed forces and political organiza- 
 tions. Neither confiscation of property, 
 political executions of persons, territo- 
 rial oi*anization of States, or forcible 
 abolition of slavery should be contem- 
 plated for a moment. In prosecuting 
 the war, all private property and un- 
 armed persons should be strictly pro- 
 tected, subject only to the necessity 
 of military operations. All private 
 property taken for military use should 
 be paid or receipted for; pillage and 
 waste should be treated as high 
 crimes ; all unnecessary trespasses 
 sternly prohibited, and offensive de- 
 ineanor by the military towards citi- 
 zens pron7<Tly rebuked. Military ar- 
 rest should not be tolerated, except in 
 places where active hostilities exist, 
 and oaths, not required by enactments 
 eonstitutionall}'' made, should be 
 neither demanded or received. Mili- 
 tary government should be confined 
 to the preservation of public order 
 and the protection of political rights. 
 ^Military power should not be allowed 
 to interfere with the relations of ser- 
 vitude, either by supporting or impair- 
 in-:; the authority of the master, ex- 
 cejiling for repressing disorder, as in 
 
 other cases. Slaves contraband under 
 the act of Congress, seeking military 
 protection should receive it. The 
 right of the government to appropri- 
 ate permamently to its own service^ 
 claims to slave labor, should be as- 
 serted, and the right of the owner to 
 compensation therefor should be re- 
 cognized. 
 
 *' This principle might be extended 
 upon the grounds of military necessity 
 and security to all the slaves within a 
 particular State, thus working manu- 
 missions in such State ; and in Mis- 
 souri, perhaps in Western Virginia 
 also, and possibly even in Maiyland, 
 the expediency of such a measure is 
 only a question of time. 
 
 " A system of policy thus constitu- 
 tional and conservative, and pervaded 
 by the influences of Christianity and 
 freedom, would receive the support of 
 almost all truly loyal men, would 
 deeply impress the rebel masses and 
 all foreign nations, and it might be 
 humbly hoped that it would commend 
 itself to the favor of the Almighty." 
 
 Here we have a delineation of the , 
 the policy w4iich alone can restore 
 peace to the country. It may not be 
 practicable at this time to pursue 
 literally this line of policy, but the 
 spirit which dictated it is that which 
 must guide the action of the govern- , 
 ment if we would have p ace. There 
 is nothing new in the policy here re- 
 commended, for it is substantially the 
 same as that announced by the Pre- 
 sident in his inaugural address, and 
 which was embodied in the virittenden 
 resolutions adopted by both houses of 
 Congress. This was the policy of the 
 beginning of the contest, and which 
 called forth volunteei'S unprecedented 
 in numbers, inspired by a patriotic 
 zeal of the most intense fervor. To 
 gather an army then it was not neces- 
 sary to ofter bounties to soldiers the 
 most tempting ever presented to swell 
 the ranks of an army, which has gone 
 far to exhau.st the resources of the 
 countr3^ Had that policy not been 
 clianged, but persevered in, faithfully, 
 the contest would haye been ended long 
 ere this. But it was changed, and the 
 now policy adopted of the universal 
 
64 
 
 abolition of slavery by the Federal 
 '-<jOvernment, Hence the war has been 
 prolonged, and will be prolonged 
 until title government returns to the 
 -point whence it departed, under the 
 -pressurn brought to bear upon the 
 President by the outside influence of 
 a few noisy, zealous, pei'sistent radical 
 men, who were not, and are not, the 
 true friends of the Constitution made 
 by our fathers, and which, at this mo- 
 ment, is the fundamental law of the 
 land. 
 
 No. XXIII.— Part ii. 
 AMALGAMATION. 
 
 That Constitution recognized a dis- 
 tinction between the white race and 
 the descendants of the African race in 
 this country, and did not admit the 
 latter to equal privileges with the 
 former. The effort now is to abolish 
 that distinction, and place the two 
 races upon the same footing, political- 
 ly. This effort, if successful, must, as 
 a necessary consequence, lead to the 
 blending of the two races, as races 
 have been blended, dwarfed and de- 
 moralized, in Mexico and more South- 
 ern latitudes. To this complexion the 
 American people are not willing to 
 come, but they revolt at it. Yet the 
 purpose to reach this result is now 
 openly avowed, and defended by the 
 same persons whose influence led the 
 President to change the policy origi- 
 nally avowed by him for the suppres- 
 sion of the rebellion. 
 
 A work has lately appeared entitled 
 "Miscegenation; the Theory of the 
 Blending ot the Races as applied to 
 the American Whiteman and Negro," 
 in which such blending is warmly re- 
 commended. In the appendix to the 
 work, extracts from the testimony of 
 Wendell Phillips, and the testimony of 
 Theodore Tilton are given, showing 
 the same earnestness and zeal in sup- 
 port of this theory as they have here- 
 tofore shown in the anti-slavery cause, 
 and maintaining that such blending is 
 the necessary sequence to abolition. 
 If the Republican party should suc- 
 ceed at the next election, the abolition 
 section of that party will confidently 
 assert that the American people have 
 decided in favor of the political equali- 
 
 ty and amalgamation of the white a:i< ; 
 negro races, and the other section will 
 not deny it. It will then be insisted 
 that the descendants of Africa shall, 
 equally with the whites, be eligible to 
 seats in the jury box, and on the 
 bench of the judiciary, and in the le- 
 gislatures of the several States, and in 
 the Congress of the United States. 
 Next will follow amalgamation of 
 blood. It remains to be seen whether 
 the free white race of the country is 
 prepared for this change. 
 
 Although the President has changed. 
 Gen. McClellan has not changed ; he 
 stands, to-day, committed to the poli- 
 cy which he proclaimed in his address 
 to the Union men of Western Virginia, 
 on the 26th of March, 1861, months 
 before he was called to Washington to 
 command the Army of the Potomac. 
 In that address he says : " I have or- 
 dered troops to cross the Ohio river. 
 They come as your friends and broth- 
 ers — as enemies only to the armed re- 
 bels who are preying upon you. Your 
 homes, your families and your proper- 
 ty shall be under our protection. All 
 your rights shall be religiously re- 
 spected, notwithstanding all that has 
 been said by traitors to induce you to 
 believe that our advent among you 
 will be signalized by interference with 
 your slaves. Understand one thing 
 clearly; not only will we abstain from 
 all such interference, but we will, on 
 the contrary, with an iron hand, crush 
 any attempt on their part." 
 
 Such w^as the policy he proclaimed 
 to the world before he was called by 
 the President, with the hearty appro- 
 val of the nation, to be general-in-chief 
 of tlie armies of the United States. 
 Western Virginia afterwards pro- 
 claimed her fidelity to the Union. But 
 the utterance of these sentimonts was 
 remembered by the radical abolition- 
 ists of the country, who early con- 
 spired, and pcrseveriugly labored to 
 destroy" the man vvho avowed them, 
 until their influence exiled him from 
 command, and their bitter hatred still 
 pursue.*, him, for no other reason but 
 his firm adherence to the principles 
 which guided him in re-entering, when 
 called upon, the military service of . 
 
his country. Abraham Lincoln has 
 suffered himself to be pushed and 
 turned aside from every purpose which 
 he avowed upon entering on the duties 
 of President of the United States. A 
 recent document has appeared under 
 his own hand, being a letter bearing 
 date the 4th April ultimo, addressed to 
 A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Ken- 
 tucky, in which he acknowledges, vin- 
 dicates, and attempts to justify this 
 change. In this document he admits 
 that he took an oath to preserve the 
 Constitution, yet, in effect, affirms that 
 it was impossible to keep this oath 
 without losing the nation. He main- 
 tains ''that measures otherwise uncon- 
 stitutional, might become lawful by 
 becoming indispensable to the preser- 
 vation of the Constitution through the 
 preservation of the nation. Eight or 
 WRONG," he declares, " I assumed this 
 
 GROUND, AND NOAV AVOAV IT." This is 
 
 a bold avowal to be made by the chief 
 magistrate of a republic, as much obli- 
 gated to obey the law as the humblest 
 citizen in the country. This right or 
 wrong doctrine is certainly a very 
 dangerous one to teach the people of 
 the country. What was it that right 
 OR WRONG the President resolved to 
 do, and actually accomplished ? No- 
 thing, on the first breaking out of the 
 rebellion, when possibly summary 
 measures by the power which alone, 
 in the absence of Congress, controlled 
 the government, might, by general 
 consent, have been justified. But this 
 right or wrong action Avas taken after 
 Congress assembled, and time had 
 been afforded to provide, by legisla- 
 tion, for the wants of the country in 
 the exigency which then existed. 
 "After the months of March and May, 
 1862," he savs, " he was. in his judg- 
 ment, driven to the alternative of 
 either surrendering the Union, and 
 with it the Constitution, or laying 
 strong hand upon the colored ele- 
 ment." The meaning of this is, that 
 he was compelled, ns the executive 
 power of the govei'nment, to abrogate 
 the relation of master and slave, or 
 the Union and the Constitution must 
 perish. Admitting l^r the present that 
 if there had been sufficient grounds in 
 
 65 
 
 the actual state of flxcts existing at the 
 time to drive the President to this al- 
 ternative, he would have been justified 
 in the decision he made, the important 
 question ai'ises. What were these causes? 
 Who would have compelled the des- 
 truction of the Union and the Constitu- 
 tion if the President had not laid a 
 strong hand upon the colored element ? 
 It is very certain the rebels had not the 
 power to accomplish this result. The 
 declaration, by whomsoever made, that 
 the rebels possessed this power, would 
 not be believed. There had been no 
 evidence given whatever that the nu- 
 merical force of the free white loyal 
 citizens of the country was not suffi- 
 cient to put down the rebellion. But 
 there had been melancholy evidence 
 that the Administration had not th® 
 wisdom to direct that force, or, having 
 the wisdom, it did not wish to termis. 
 nate the rebellion, until an ulterior 
 object — the abolition of slaveiy — had 
 been accomplished. Some of the best 
 men in the country believe that this 
 was the policy which guided the con- 
 duct of the Administration, and there 
 are not a few Kepublicans who, be- 
 lieving, justify it. 
 
 I am not willing to believe, for I 
 have not sufficient evidence of the fact, 
 that the President himself has not at 
 all times been willing and desirous of 
 bringing the wtir to a close by subdu- 
 ing the enemy; but I have what I 
 deem sufficient evidence that promi- 
 nent members of his own party, near 
 to his person, had no desire that Gen. 
 McClellan should take Eichmoud, but, 
 on the contrary, labored to prevent 
 such conquest, and that these j)ersons 
 so operated by their influence on the 
 President as to make him an instru- 
 ment in carrying out their designs. 
 This I charge. 
 
 The rebels had it not in their power 
 to destro}^ the Union if the negroes 
 had not been emancipated, or if they 
 had not been enrolled in the army. It 
 is a gross libel upon the white popula- 
 tion in the loj'al States to affirm that 
 they were not sufficiently numerous, 
 patriotic and brave, to conquer the 
 military force of the rebels without 
 the aid of the negroes. What was it. 
 
m 
 
 then, that compelled the President, 
 *' I'ight or wrong," to lay a strong 
 hand upon the colored element? Was 
 this measure rendered necessary by 
 the threatened interference of one or 
 more foreign powers in our domestic 
 affairs? If it were, and our govern- 
 ment, was awed by that threat, our 
 conditiou is mortifying in the extreme, 
 and the people are entitled to know 
 what nation or nations have thus 
 humbled us. If the rebels themselves 
 could not do it, nor the interference 
 of foreign nations, tliere is only one 
 other |)ower which could exercise an 
 influence to destroy the nation if the 
 President had declined to avail him- 
 self of the negro element to preserve 
 it. That power was the President's 
 own party. The leading influence of 
 that party might have demanded that 
 the President, right or wrong, should 
 use the power of the Executive to de- 
 stroy slavery, and threatened, if he 
 did not do so, they would abandon the 
 government. The enemies who would 
 have destroj^ed the government in the 
 contingency supposed, must have been 
 the abolitionists. It is well known 
 that these abolitionists were no friends 
 of the Constitution ; that they had 
 been trying, for a number of years, to 
 weaken the regard and reverence of 
 the people for that Constitution. If 
 this was the power — and I suspect it 
 was — that compelled the President, in 
 order to preserve the Union, to lay a 
 strong hand upon the colored element, 
 the people of the country ought to 
 know it. They ought to know who 
 the real traitors in the loyal States 
 are. Pi'fvy, Mr. Lincoln, enlighten 
 the public on this point; favor that 
 game public with another letter under 
 your own signature. 
 ,. The President asserts, with much 
 confidence, that he has made no loss, 
 but a great gain, by laying his hand 
 on the colored element. It shows, he 
 says, a gain of quite a hundred and 
 fchirty thousand soldiers, seamtn and 
 laborers. In stating the account of 
 loss and gain resulting from measures 
 adopted and carried out by the Presi- 
 dent, in respect to wliat he calls the 
 colored element, many items ought to 
 
 be inserted which his Excellency has 
 net probably thought of 1st. He has 
 made the negro a soldier. Now there 
 is no fact more clearly demonstrated, 
 and thorougMy known, than that, in 
 this country, the negro is regarded by 
 the Avhite man as his inferior; he con- 
 siders himself degraded by an associa- 
 tion with the negro. There is another 
 fact, well established, that the fellow- 
 ship in arms is one of a peculiarly 
 honorable and endearing character. 
 By the measure adopted the negro is 
 made the fellow soldier of the white 
 man. It ought to be considered how 
 this forced lellowship will operate upon 
 the morale of the American white sol- 
 dier; will it not impair his self re- 
 spect ? Must he not feel degraded by 
 the comjjany he is compelled to keep ? 
 If these results are inevitable, will the 
 white soldier fight as well, will he ac- 
 complish as much, in such company ? 
 There is but one anwer to this ques- 
 tion — he will not. 
 
 Again. The negro is not as coura- 
 gous as the white man ; he does not 
 possess the same mental resources ; he 
 is more easily frightened, and, when 
 frightened", he will run ; he will flee 
 from the face of an enem}^; his tear 
 may easily become contagious in the 
 ranks of an army, and thus a panic 
 may be excited. It is therefoi'e by no 
 means certain that an addition of 
 130,000 negroes to an army of white 
 men is. so many clear gain. On the 
 contraiy, this addition may be, in fact, 
 a loss. 
 
 2d. The President by his proclama- 
 tion has dissolved or attempted to dis- 
 solve the legal relation of master and 
 slave in States in rebellion, not within 
 our military lines. The object of thin' 
 proclamation was to deprive the mas- 
 ter of the service of his slave, and ex- 
 cite him to hostility against his mas.^ 
 ter. There are thousands of true and 
 loyal men who deny the right of the 
 President to do this act, and in con- 
 tests between tlie negro and American 
 white men, once their fellow citizens, 
 although in rebellion, their sympathy, 
 their natural sympathy — for it is a 
 sympathy of race and caste — is with 
 the white man. There is no disputing 
 
these fuels, and their influence oper- 
 ates to divide the loyal men of the 
 country, and thereby to weaken the 
 power of our government ; while the 
 same facts unite, nerve, exasperate, 
 and make desperate the enemy. These 
 facts, in the account credited with 
 130,000 negro soldiers, are to be placed 
 per contra, on the other side. 
 
 The truth is the President's mode of 
 dealing with the colored " element,'" 
 lias been unfortunate in the extreme. 
 So far from being indispensable to the 
 preservation of the legitimate govern- 
 ment of the country, it has been most 
 influential in strengthening and in- 
 spiring hopes of perpetuity to the il- 
 legitijnate Confederate government. 
 The traitorous leaders of that govern- 
 ment could not have suggested meas- 
 ures better calculated to unite the peo- 
 ple upon whom it relied for support. 
 These leaders justified the rebellion 
 which they inaugurated by confident 
 and earnest declarations that the Fed- 
 eral government intended to destroy 
 their property in slaves; the Union 
 loving men in the South, relying upon 
 our solemn protestations that such 
 was not our purpose, are pointed to 
 these measures of the President as a 
 fulfillment of these predictions. 
 
 On the other hand the sympathizers 
 with secession among ourselves, for 
 there are such, point to the same m'eas- 
 ux'es to show that the abolitionists, 
 never friends of the Constitution, have 
 gained the point for which they have 
 been striving through a long course of 
 years — the abolition of slavery, right 
 or wrong. The secessionist and aboli- 
 tionists have thus succeeded in break- 
 ing down or sensibly impairing the 
 organic law, the Constitution of the 
 country. How infinitely better it 
 would have been, in dealing with the 
 colored element, to follow the ? \vice 
 Otf General McClellan. " Military pow- 
 er should (he says) not be allowed to 
 interfere with tlie relations of servi- 
 tude, either by supporting -or impair- 
 ing the authority of the master, except 
 for repressing disorder as in other 
 cases. Slaves contraband under the 
 act of Congress, seeking military pro- 
 tection sliould receive it. The right 
 
 67 
 
 of tne goveriiioi.l to approp.riate per- 
 manentl}' to its own service claims to 
 slave labor, should be asserted and 
 the right of the owner to compensa- 
 tion therefor should be recognized." 
 
 " This principle might be extended, 
 upon grounds of militaiy necessity and 
 security, to all the slaves within a par- 
 ticular State, thus working manumis- 
 sion in such State ; and in Missouri, 
 23erhaps in Western Virginia also, and 
 probably even in Maryland, the expe- 
 diency of such a measure is only a 
 question of time." 
 
 It remains to be seen wuether the 
 people of this country will set their 
 seal of approbation upon a policy 
 which, instead of seeking, as its ulti- 
 mate object, the suppression of the 
 rebellion, aims to abolish, throughout 
 the country, the institution of slavery, 
 without the consent of the States in 
 which that institution exists, and to 
 elevate the African race to a political 
 equality with the white race. 
 
 President Lincoln's views on these 
 points have been clearly avowed, and 
 his determination to enforce them, 
 right or wrong, has been cai"ried into 
 practical operation. 
 
 General McClellan's views have also 
 been clearly made known; he has de- 
 clared them to amount to convictions 
 deeply impressed upon his mind and 
 heart, and, as we have seen, they are 
 " That the Constitution and Union must 
 be preserved, whatever may he the cost in 
 time, treasure or blood." He would 
 "also enforce the equal operation of the 
 laws of the United States upon the peo- 
 ple of every State." He has expressed 
 his belief •' that the Constitution gives 
 power suflicient even for the present 
 exigency.' The thought of violating 
 the Constitution, in letter or spirit, by 
 an usurpation of power, has never been 
 permitted to enter his mind. 
 
 Thus have I concluded this series of 
 numbers — their purpose has been de- 
 clared, and I respectfully, yet confi- 
 dently, submit that it has been shown 
 to be a fair deduction from the evi- 
 dence before the country : — 
 
 1st. That General McClellan, if he 
 had been sustained by the government, 
 according to promise, would have ta- 
 ken Eichmoud. 
 
68 
 
 2d. That tlicre was no sound or valid 
 reason for withholding the force prom- 
 ised for his support, and 
 
 3d. That he did the best he could, 
 or that anj?- other general could undpr 
 
 the circumstances, with the forces 
 placed under his command ; and 
 
 Lastly, That G-eneral McClellan has 
 been deeply injured by the Adminia- 
 tratioQ. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAOg 
 
 Author's reasons for publishing 3 
 
 First Propositio.v. — General McClellan would have captured Richmond, if not in- 
 terfered witli by tha President 4 
 
 Prince de Joinville's testimony 4 
 
 General McDowell's force withheld ; this deranged the whole plan of the campaign 4 
 
 General Fitz John Porter takes Hanover Court House 4 
 
 Further testimony of De Joinville 5 
 
 Testimony of General Franklin - 5 
 
 Testimony of General Hunt / 5 
 
 Second PROPOsrriON. — No good reasons for withholding McDowell's command 5 
 
 The reason that this command was required for the protection of Washington — not 
 
 supported by facts or sound opinions 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 
 
 Third Proposition. — The original plan being deranged, General McClellan did the 
 
 best he could with the forces under his command 12 
 
 Torktown 12 to 20 
 
 McClellan meets a force numerically equal to his own 13 
 
 Two general principles adopted by General McClellan 13 
 
 His opinions of the power and skill of the enemy 13 
 
 Charge — that McCWIan spent too much time before Yorktown, refuted by the 
 
 evidence 14 
 
 Prince de Joinville's testimony 14 
 
70 
 
 General McClellau's testiinon_y 14 
 
 General Barnard's testimony , X4 
 
 General Kejes 14 
 
 General Fltz John Porter I5. 
 
 General Heintzelman 15 
 
 General Hooker 15 
 
 Rules of Evidence 20 21 
 
 President, though commander in chief, not expected to take command of armies — 
 
 Constitutional doctrine on this point 20 21 
 
 From Yorktown to Williamsburg 21 to 24 
 
 From Williamsburg to Ghickahorainy 24 to 28 
 
 General Hooker's testimony 24 
 
 General Keyes' testimony .' 24 ! 
 
 General McClellan's testimony 25 
 
 Prince de Joinville's testimony 26 
 
 Before Richmond 28 to 32 
 
 General Barnard's testimony as to Naijoleon's maxims 30 
 
 Condition of the Chickahominy 30 
 
 General Howard's opinion 31 
 
 Numbers from II to Xlt run together through inadvertance of the press 31 
 
 No. XII 31 
 
 No. XIII.— Fair Oaks 32 to 36 
 
 Questions Answered. — What could the General have done to-day which he did not 
 
 do ? , .^,^j.|. 33 
 
 What has he left undone to-day which he might have done ? 33 
 
 Prince de Joinville's testimony 33 
 
 Senator Chandler 34 
 
 B. Estvan'a (colonel in Confederate army) testimony ,.:...;„,. ,^vy^ 35 
 
 QoESTiON Considered. — Ought the left wing of our army to have followed the Rebel 
 
 army into Richmond ? 35 
 
 General Heintzelman's testimony 35 
 
 General Hooker's testimony 35 
 
 General Keyes' testimony 36 
 
 General McClellan's testimony 36 
 
 No. XIV. — Gross Injustice of the Committee 36 to 37 
 
 Summary Review 37 
 
71 
 
 Pollard's History of the War 33 
 
 What was- the force of' the enemy when General McClellan reached Yorktown 38 
 
 Greneral McClellan's testimony 38, 39 
 
 No. XV.— Before Richmoud 39 
 
 General Hunt's testimony 39 
 
 General Keyes' testimony 40 
 
 Telegrams •. . .' 40, 41 
 
 No. XVI.— Change of Base , 41 
 
 General McClellan's testimony i 42 
 
 Why the battle of Gains' Mill was lost ? 43 
 
 Conference between Generals McClellan and Heintzelman 43, 44 
 
 No. XVII. — Comments on the passage in the President's letter to General McClellan. 
 
 " It is the nature of the case, and neither you nor the Government is to blame." 
 
 General Hitchcock first gave the President the alarm as to the safety of Washington 45 
 No. XVIII. — State of things on the Peninsula at the moment McClellan was forced 
 
 to change his position 46 
 
 No. XIX.— Change of Base 47 
 
 McClellan's Report 47 
 
 No act of the war has shed more honor on our arms than the manner of changing 
 
 base 48 
 
 Pollard's testimony 48 
 
 Mr. Motley's (Minister at Vienna) testimony 49 
 
 Xenophon's retreat ; Moreau's retreat ; Commodore Hull's retreat 50 
 
 Na XX. — Order to leave the Peninsula bO 
 
 General McClellan's remonstrance 50 
 
 G^iueral McClellan in favor of destroying the military power of the rebellion 52 
 
 Qualities of a great general. Burke's description 52, 53 
 
 General_Grant 53 
 
 No. XXI.~New York Times j 54 
 
 No. XXII.— New York Times '. 58 
 
 No. XXIII.— Part I. General McClellan's letter to the President, dated July 7, 1862. . 61 
 
 Objection answered that the General had no right to send this letter 61 
 
 Advice given by General McClellan to the President 61, 62, 63 
 
 The policy which can alone restore peace to the country 63 
 
 No. XXHI. — Part II. Amalgamation 64 
 
 Work on Miscegenation , ; 64 
 
72 
 The President has changed his policy, but General Movlellan has not changed .' 64 
 
 President's letter of 4th April, 1864, to A. G. Hodges , 65 
 
 President's right or wrong doctrine considered . . . , ; . 65 
 
 Oeaeral Deductiooe ;... «.... ..-^^.^ ^^^^ >- 67,86 
 
 WATCHWORDS FOR PATRIOTS. 
 
 MOTTOES FOR THE CAMPAIG]^, SELECTED PROM: GEJiTBEAIi 
 
 MgcleUjAits writings. 
 
 Our cause must never be abaiuloned ; it is the cause of free institutions and self- 
 government. — IlarrisoiCs Landing Letter. 
 
 We are fighting solely for the integiity of the UnioB, to uphold the power of 
 our national government, and to restore to the nation the blessings of peace and 
 good order. — Instructions to General llalleck, November 11, 1861. 
 
 You -will please constantly to bear in mind the precise issue for which we are 
 fighting ; that issue is the preservation of the Union and the restoration of the full 
 authority of the general government over all portions of our territory. — Instruc- 
 tions to General Buell^ November 7, 1861. 
 
 We shall most readily suppress this rebellion and restore the authority of the 
 government by religiously respecting the constitutional rights of all. — Instructions 
 to General I3uell, November 7, 1861. 
 
 Be careful so to treat the unarmed inhabitants as to contract, not widen, the 
 breach existing between us and the rebels. — Ii'structions to General Buell^ 
 November 12, 1861. 
 
 I have always found that it is the tendency of subordinates to make vexatious 
 aiTrests on mere sus|ncion. — Instructions to General Luell^ November 12, 1861. 
 
 Say as little as possible about poUtics or the negro. — Instructions to General 
 Burnside, January 1 ^ \'^^2. 
 
 The unity ol^ this nation, the preservation of our institutions, are so dear to me 
 that I have willingly sacrificed my private happiness with the single object of doing 
 my duty to my country. — Letter to Secretary Cameron., October., 1861. 
 
 f he Constitution and the Union must be preserved, whatever may be the cost 
 in time, treasure, or blood. — Harrison'' s Bar Letter. 
 
 ^Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, ten-itorial or- 
 ganization of States, nor forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a 
 moment. — Letter to President Lincoln., July7,lSQ2. 
 
 In prosecuting this war, all private property and unaiirred pei'sons shotild be 
 strictly protected, subject to the necessity of miltary operations. — Letter to the 
 President, July 7, 1862. 
 
 Military arrests should not be tolerated, except in places where active hostilities 
 exist ; and oaths, not ^required by enactments constitutionally made, should be 
 neither demanded nor received. — Letter to the President., Julyl, 1862. 
 
 It should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the people of any State in 
 any event. It should not be at all a war upon populations, but against armed 
 forces and political oi-ganizations. — Harrison^ s Bar Letter. 
 
 If it is not deemed best to entrust me with the command even of my own 
 anny, I simply ask to be permitted to share their fate on the field of battle. — Bes- 
 ))atch to General Ilalleck, Anyust 30, 1862. 
 
 In the arrangement and conduct of campaigns the direction should be left to 
 professional soldiers. — General Mc Clellan''s Report. 
 
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