tages which neither army was willing to risk. The Yankees were in superior force, besides their additional strength in their gunboats, and in falling back so as to invest the line of the Chickahominy, General Johnston expected to force the enemy to more equal terms. The difficulty was to match the strength of the enemy on the water; and the best practical equivalent for this was considered to be the open field, where gunboats being out of the question, the position of our troops would be the same as if at Yorktown they had had a force of gunboats exactly equal to that of the enemy, thus neutralizing his advantage in respect of naval armament.

The retreat from Yorktown produced uneasiness in the public mind, and naturally shook the confidence of the many who were in ignorance of the plans of the cautious and taciturn strategist at the head of our forces in Virginia. It involved our surrender of Norfolk, with all the advantages of its contiguous navy-yard and dock. And it was accompanied by a disaster which, in so far as it was supposed to be unnecessary and wanton, occasioned an amount of grief and rage in the Confederacy such as had not yet been exhibited in the war.

This memorable disaster was the destruction of the famous mailed steamer Virginia-"the iron diadem of the South." This vessel, which had obtained for us our first triumph on the water, was an object of pride, and almost of affection, to the people of the South. She was popularly said to be worth fifty thousand troops in the field. Nor was this estimate excessive, when it is recollected that she protected Norfolk, the navyyard, and James river; that no fleet of transports could safely land its troops, designed to attack those places, at any point from Cape Henry to the upper James, as far as she could ascend; that her presence at Norfolk had annihilated the land and water blockade at Newport News, passed the control of the James river into our hands, and protected the right flank of our army on the Peninsula.

The Virginia was destroyed under the immediate orders of her commander, Commodore Tatnall, on the morning of the 11th of May, in the vicinity of Craney Island. According to his statement, he had been betrayed into the necessity of destroying his vessel by firing her magazine, by the deceitful representations of his pilots, who at first assured him that they

could take the ship, with a draft of eighteen feet of water, within forty miles of Richmond, and after having lifted her so as to unfit her for action, then declared that they could not get her above the Jamestown flats, up to which point the shore on each side was occupied by the enemy. It is proper to add, that this statement of facts was contested by the pilots, who resented the reflections made upon their loyalty or courage. Whatever may have been the merits of this controversy, it is certain that the vessel was destroyed in great haste by Commodore Tatnall, who, in the dead hour of night, aroused from his slumbers and acquainted with the decision of his pilots, ordered the ship to be put ashore, landed his crew in the vicinity of Craney Island, and blew to the four winds of heaven the only naval structure that guarded the water approach to Richmond.

The destruction of the Virginia was a sharp and unexpected blow to the confidence of the people of the South in their government. How far the government was implicated in this foolish and desperate act, was never openly acknowledged or exactly ascertained; but despite the pains of official concealment, there are certain well-attested facts which indicate that in the destruction of this great war-ship, the authorities at Richmond were not guiltless. These facts properly belong to the history of one of the most unhappy events that had occurred since the commencement of the war.

The Virginia was destroyed at 5 A. M. of the 11th of May. During the morning of the same day a prominent politician in the streets of Richmond was observed to be very much dejected; he remarked that it was an evil day for the Confederacy. On being questioned by his intimate friends, he declared to them that the Government had determined upon, or assented to, the destruction of the Virginia, and that he had learned this from the highest sources of authority in the capital. At this time the news of the explosion of the Virginia could not have possibly reached Richmond; there was no telegraphic communication between the scene of her destruction and the city, and the evidence appears to be complete, that the Government had at least a prevision of the destruction of this vessel, or had assented to the general policy of the act, trusting, perhaps, to acquit itself of the responsibility for it on the

unworthy plea that it had given no express orders in the

matter.

Again, it is well known that for at least a week prior to the destruction of the Virginia, the evacuation of Norfolk had been determined upon; that during this time the removal of stores was daily progressing; and that Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, had within this period, himself, visited Norfolk to look after the public interests. The evacuation of this port clearly involved the question, what disposition was to be made of the Virginia. If the Government made no decision of a question, which for a week stared it in the face, it certainly was very strangely neglectful of the public interest. If Mr. Mallory visited Norfolk when the evacuation was going on, and never thought of the Virginia, or thinking of her, kept dumb, never even giving so much as an official nod as to what disposition should be made of her, he must have been more stupid than the people who laughed at him in Richmond, or the members of Congress who nicknamed without mercy thought him to be.

It is also not a little singular that when a court of inquiry had found that the destruction of the Virginia was unnecessary and improper, Mr. Mallory should have waived the calling of a court-martial, forgotten what was due to the public interest on such a finding as that made by the preliminary court, and expressed himself satisfied to let the matter rest. The fact is indisputable, that the court-martial, which afterwards sat in the case, was called at the demand of Commodore Tatnall himself. It resulted in his acquittal.

The evacuation of Norfolk was the occasion of great distress to its population. But it was the part of a wise policy, that our military lines should be contracted and that the troops of Gen. Huger should be consolidated with the army before Richmond.

The retreat from Yorktown to the Chickahominy was marked by spirited incidents and by one important engagement. McClellan becoming, through an accident, aware of the movement of General Johnston, immediately pursued our columns which recoiled on him at Williamsburg, on the 5th of May, and drove back his army. During the whole of that day, General Longstreet's division, which brought up the rear, was engaged with the enemy from sunrise to sunset. The day was

marked by signal successes, for we captured three hundred and fifty prisoners, took nine pieces of artillery, and left on the field, in killed and wounded, at least three thousand of the enemy. During the night our army resumed its movement towards Richmond, and half an hour after sunrise it had evacuated the town, under the necessity of leaving our killed and wounded in the hands of the enemy.

The following day, the insolence of the enemy was again checked on the route of our retreat. On the 7th of May he attempted a landing, under cover of his gunboats, at Barhamsville, near West Point. The attempt was ineffectual. The Yankees were driven back, after they had assaulted our position three different times-the last time being forced to the cover of their gunboats by the brave Texans of General Whiting's division, who, in the face of an artillery fire, pressed the fugitives so closely that many were driven into the river and drowned.

The investment of the lines of the Chickahominy brought the two opposing armies within sight of Richmond. After a desultory military experience, a useless and inglorious march to Manassas, a long delay on the banks of the Potomac and Chesapeake, and a vague abandonment of these lines for operations on the Peninsula, McClellan, who was the "Napoleon" of the Democratic party of the North, but a slow and contemptible blunderer in the estimation of the Republicans, found himself, by the fortune of circumstances, within sight of the steeples and spires of the long-sought capital of the Confederacy.

The proximity of the enemy was an occasion of great anxiety to the people of Richmond, and the visible tremor of the Confederate authorities in that city was not a spectacle calculated either to nerve the army or assure the citizens. The fact is, that the Confederate authorities had shamefully neglected the defences of Richmond, and were now making preparations to leave it, which were called prudential, but which naturally inspired a panic such as had never before been witnessed in the history of the war. The destruction of the Virginia had left the water avenue to Richmond almost undefended. The City Council had for months been urging upon the Confederate Government the necessity of obstructing the river, and failing

to induce them to hurry on the work, had, with patriotic zeal, undertaken it themselves. A newspaper in Richmond-the Examiner had in good time pointed out the necessity or obstructing the river with stone, but the counsel was treated with such conceit and harshness by the government, that it was only at the risk of its existence that that paper continued for weeks to point out the insecurity of Richmond and the omissions of its authorities. The government was at last aroused to a sense of danger only to fall to work in ridiculous haste, and with the blindness of alarm. The appearance of the Yankee gunboats in James river was the signal for Mr. Secretary Mallory to show his alacrity in meeting the enemy by an advertisement for "timber" to construct new naval defences. The only obstruction between the city and the dread Monitor and the gunboats was a half-finished fort at Drewry's Bluff, which mounted four guns. Some of the Confederate officers had taken a "gunboat panic," for the line of stone obstructions in the river was not yet complete. They seized upon schooners at the wharves loaded with plaster or paris, guano, and other valuable cargoes, carried them to points. where they supposed the passage of the river was to be contested, and in some instances sunk them in the wrong places. There is no doubt that about this time the authorities of the Confederate States had nigh despaired of the safety of Richmond. The most urgent appeals had been made to Congress by the press and the people to continue its session in Richmond while the crisis impended. But its members refused to give this mark of confidence to the government, or to make any sacrifice of their selfish considerations for the moral encouragement of their constituents. They had adjourned in haste and left Richmond, regarding only the safety of their persons or the convenience of their homes.

Nor was the Executive more determined. In the President's mansion about this time all was consternation and dismay. A letter written by one of his family at a time when Richmond was thought to be imminently threatened, and intercepted by the enemy, afforded excessive merriment to the Yankees, and made a painful exhibition to the South of the weakness and fears of those intrusted with its fortunes. This letter, written with refreshing simplicity of heart, overflowed with pitiful