CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.

Monitor and Merrimac-The Story of a Great Invention-Waiting before Yorktown-Civil Supremacy in Danger-A Retreat in Good Order— A Perilous Dilemma-The Army of Virginia-Gen. Pope's Campaign -A New Political Party-One Army Swallowed by Another.

THE movement of the Army of the Potomac had been preceded by a great naval event. On the 8th of March, 1862, the Confederate armored ram Virginia or Merrimac steamed out into Hampton Roads and destroyed several United States shipsof-war. She demonstrated in a few minutes that any wooden or other war ship known to exist was helpless against her. So far as any eyes could see, the Potomac was open to her, Washington city was at her mercy, and the face of military affairs was changed. A kind of Egyptian darkness came down at once, and, for a few hours, men walked around as if they were feeling their way in it.

On the following day occurred the world-famous fight between the Merrimac and the Monitor, the latter being described by the Confederates, as looking like a Yankee cheese-box on a raft. The timely arrival of this revolving gun-tower was as little a matter of human foresight as if she had fallen from the sky, and the nation recovered promptly from its fit of shivering dread. The power of the destroyer was at least neutralized and things could go on somewhat as before. Not upon the sea, indeed; for the naval construction of all the world was revolutionized in a day and all the armed vessels afloat, except the two which fought in Hampton Roads, became antiquated.

Mr. Lincoln had not foreseen the Merrimac, but he had foreseen the Monitor and her construction, and therefore her presence and service were as much due to him as was her planning to her inventor. When Mr. C. S. Bushnell, to whom the Monitor had been intrusted, and to whom lasting honor is due for his management of the matter, arrived in Washington with the plans and specifications of the proposed vessel, he carried them straightway to the President. Mr. Lincoln comprehended them at once and became deeply interested. He remarked, pleasantly, that he knew but little about ships, but he did understand a flatboat, and this invention was flat enough. He promised to meet Mr. Bushnell at the Navy Department at eleven o'clock the next day and do all he could in securing the adoption of the plan and the construction of a "monitor" for trial. That was precisely what she was built for, no one prophesying what the trial would be. At the hour named he left the White House and walked over to the Navy Department to fulfill his promise. A number of naval officers and other experts were assembled to sit in judgment, and the President listened patiently and silently to their successive expressions of opinion. These were almost unanimously given adversely to the practicability of the plan of vessel proposed. Finally, Rear-Admiral Smith, chairman of the Naval Board in charge of the matter, turned to the President and asked him what he thought of it.

"Well," said Mr. Lincoln, "I feel about it a good deal as the fat girl did when she put her foot into her stocking. She thought there was something in it."

There was a laugh, but everybody present understood that Mr. Lincoln was in earnest. Admiral Smith, who had been one of the few who had understood and favored the invention, was glad enough to be sustained by the President, and took it up with energy. Mr. Bushnell and his associates obtained their contract for a trial-monitor and built it, and after its work in Hampton Roads Mr. Lincoln had a right to express strongly,

as he did, his satisfaction over the fact that he "had given the Monitor a lift" at the time when, without it, she would have remained an inventor's dream.

The "co-operation of the Navy" was now more than ever a factor in the plans of the Army, and it was given with hearty efficiency. The troops were shipped and landed without any greater number of blunders than mark the records of similar feats of transportation in other wars. The enemy were in a bad condition to withstand the forward push the President continually urged. He was so anxious for action that, early in May, with Secretaries Stanton and Chase and General Viele of the Engineers, he went down to Hampton Roads on the U. S. steamer Miami, to see for himself how matters were. This happened (May 11) just as Norfolk was abandoned and the Merrimac blown up by the retiring Rebels. It is now well known, too, that McClellan could have marched to the very gates of Richmond with but moderate hindrance if he had not discovered a sort of reproduction of the "Manassas lines," with another imaginary host behind them. These were provided him by the petty defenses at Yorktown, and before these he promptly sat down. Mr. Lincoln wrote and urged in vain. It is not needful to deal with all the details of what may be considered a purely "tactical" controversy. The result was a simple and natural sort of repetition of the previous lesson. The army lay before Yorktown for a month, and the Confederate purpose in holding the place had been accomplished. When it was done, the few obstructing regiments and guns at Yorktown were quietly removed, and the Rebellion had again secured the results of a great victory without fighting a battle.

The remainder of the Peninsular campaign belongs to the military history of the war and not to the Life of Lincoln. At and before its outset and until it was completed and abandoned, the President was confronted, for the first and last time, with the peril, common to all human revolutions, that

the personal power and position of a favorite military officer might enable him to predominate over, or at least be practically independent of, the civil authority.

That General McClellan was, perhaps unintentionally, perhaps almost unconsciously, the exponent of that peril, was but imperfectly discerned by the President, for a time. It was more clearly perceived by others, following the course of events on the spot, and narrowly watching the demeanor of General McClellan in personal interviews with the President or with his own subordinates. It was yet more clear to those who listened to much of the ill-advised talk among some of the latter. It can even more plainly be discerned, at this day, by any student who will take the trouble to examine the official reports and correspondence. No man can now pretend to declare what might have been the consequences to the country if Mr. Lincoln had been less firm or less wisely forbearing and patient. A weak or hasty man in the President's chair would surely have fallen from it, if not in name, at least to all intents and purposes, and his power would have passed into the hands of the Army Commander.

As for the latter, all he really required was time to offer the able leaders opposed to him the opportunities of which they continually availed themselves.

They and not Mr. Lincoln demonstrated to the country the true rank of McClellan in the list of celebrated generals. It is not at all necessary to question his zeal, or patriotism, or uncommon capacity. To briefly paraphrase Mr. Lincoln's own words concerning him: "For the organization of an army, or for handling that army in a defensive campaign, second to no other general. For a vigorous advance movement, never ready." And add: "When forced to make such a movement, incapable of so making it as to succeed."

The last battle on the Virginia peninsula was fought, and well fought, on the first of July, 1862, at Malvern Hill. It was the repulse of a desperate attempt of the Confederates to

crush a retreating enemy. It brought out with great clearness the fact that the Army of the Potomac, with experience of such battle-names as Seven Pines, Fair Oaks, Mechanicsville, and Cold Harbor, had become an army of veterans, and that its commander held it well in hand. There was no sign of disorganization or of any lack of discipline or of confidence or patriotism among the men. Their retreat was secured and their assailants were too badly shattered to repeat the attack. Still, the campaign was a mournful failure, and any attempt to renew it, under General McClellan, would have shaken the hold of the government upon the nation. Neither could he, then and there, have been safely replaced by any other general. The most distinguished of his lieutenants did not hesitate to say that they could not and would not step into his place if he should be removed. It was, therefore, inevitable that the army should abandon the effort to reach Richmond by that road, and it was accordingly withdrawn, by Mr. Lincoln's orders, during the month of August, 1862.

After the withdrawal an increasing importance began to attach to the declarations made by General McClellan as to what he could and would have done had he been permitted to remain and had he been properly supported. That such assertions were made, and that they were echoed in many modifications, throughout the country by the growing and organizing opposition to Mr. Lincoln, was altogether a matter of course. The fact of the withdrawal afforded a spurious life to propositions incapable of disproof. A direct issue was created and assumed by what had actually become two jarring factions in all the land.

If, therefore, it were possible to admit all that was then or is now claimed by General McClellan and his friends, and to advance, on behalf of the Administration, no other fact than this direct issue, that is quite enough.

The President was compelled to relieve General McClellan of his command at as early a day as was consistent with the