THE TIME.)

known how many men were lost on the Confederate side, but probably from eighty to a hundred. Colonel Ellet was the only one injured on board the Union fleet. The gunboats were uninjured. The Queen was the only boat disabled. In striking contrast was the destruction of Montgomery's fleet.

The victory opens the Upper Mississippi from Cairo to Vicksburg.

THE

CHAPTER XI.

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.

HE section of Virginia between James and York rivers is called by the people of that State "The Peninsula,” and the military movement made by the Army of the Potomac in 1862 is known as the Peninsular campaign.

When the army under General McDowell marched to Bull Run it was a movement towards Richmond. The idea was uppermost in the mind of the people and of General McClellan that he must capture Richmond. It was the capital of the Confederacy. The Confederate Congress was in session there. It was thought that its capture would put an end to the rebellion. The people had cried, "On to Richmond!" but they did not see, neither did General McClellan, that Richmond was of little account. The strength of the Confederacy was in the armies under Johnston and Beauregard. They must be defeated before the rebellion could be crushed. In the Revolutionary War the British obtained possession of Philadelphia, but the Continental Congress moved to York, and the war went on. When General Howe got tired of holding it he undertook to march to New York, and was pounced upon by General Washington at Monmouth.

President Lincoln saw what General McClellan and the people did not see that the Confederate army must be defeated first of all. Johnston was at Centreville. Why not attack him there, within a day's march of supplies?

President Lincoln became so dissatisfied with General McClellan's inaction that on Washington's birthday, February 22d, he issued an order for all the armies to move. The Western armies did move, and we have seen what they accomplished at Donelson, Island No. 10, and Pittsburg Landing. At the time the order was issued General McClellan had no plan as to what he would do. He was not willing to march to Centreville, which was strongly fortified, but wanted to go down the Potomac to the Peninsula, and march to Richmond.

"McClellan never intended to march to Centreville," says Prince De

Joinville, of France, who was on McClellan's staff, and who has written a history of the war. "For weeks and perhaps months this plan of going to the Peninsula had been secretly maturing."

The President was afraid that while McClellan was on his way to Richmond General Johnston would be on his way to Washington-for Jefferson Davis would have liked nothing better than to swap off Richmond for Washington. We now know that Davis and Johnston talked the matter over, and that one of the plans devised by Beauregard was to cross the Potomac below Washington, and another to cross above Washington, get between Washington and Baltimore and cut the railroad.

President Lincoln said that General McClellan and his corps commanders must decide upon a plan, but that enough troops must be left to protect Washington. There were five corps commanders-Sumner, McDowell, Heintzelman, Porter, and Keyes.

"A force of forty thousand should be left to protect Washington," said General Sumner.

"With the forts fully garrisoned, twenty-five thousand men will be enough," said Keyes, Heintzelman, and McDowell.

"Leave Washington entirely secure, and move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choose a new base at Fortress Monroe or anywhere, but move in pursuit of the enemy by some route," was the order of Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War.

The day after the council of war General Johnston and Jefferson Davis knew all about it through spies; for there were still a great many men and women in Washington who sympathized with the Confederates, and who planned to find out all that was going on.

General Johnston saw that he must be in position to defend Richmond; it was of no use to stay at Centreville. He sent off his supplies, abandoned the batteries along the Potomac, evacuated Centreville, crossed the Rappahannock River, and waited to see what McClellan was going to do.

The army was to go by water, one hundred and eighty miles, to Fortress Monroe. Open your map of Virginia and you will see the James River coming down from Richmond. North of it is the York River, a short arm of Chesapeake Bay, with a railroad leading from West Point to Richmond.

Never before was there such activity in hiring vessels-113 steamboats, 188 schooners, 88 barges, which were obtained in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, costing millions of dollars. In thirtyseven days 122,000 men, 15,000 horses, 1150 wagons, 264 pieces of field

artillery, beside ambulances, thousands of tents, a mountain of supplies, were transported from Washington to Fortress Monroe.

The Confederate works at Yorktown were erected where the English fortifications stood in the Revolutionary War. When these were captured, the vessels could then go up York River to West Point and White House, and the army, while besieging Richmond, could receive its supplies by the York River Railroad. General McDowell, with forty thousand men, was to move from Washington to Fredericksburg, covering Washington till the army was in front of Richmond, and then join him.

General McClellan could not go up James River, because the Merrimac was guarding it, with only the Monitor to keep her from destroying the Union fleet. Going now to Yorktown, we find Wormsley Creek emptying into York River, on the one hand, and Warwick River emptying into the James, on the other, with only a narrow strip of land between them. General Magruder, commanding the Confederates at Yorktown, built dams on the streams, making them wide and deep, and erected earthworks and mounted heavy guns. He had only eleven thousand men to hold a line thirteen miles in length. General Johnston, commanding the Confederate army at Richmond, thought that it would not be possible for him to hold Yorktown for any length of time, and instructed Magruder to make as much show and noise as he could with his troops. Magruder was ready to retreat at any moment, and was much surprised when he saw the Union army go into camp and begin to throw up intrenchments.

McClellan expected that the navy would attack the Confederate batteries at Yorktown, and open a passage up York River, but Commodore Goldsborough said he had not enough vessels to undertake it. McClellan expected that the forty thousand troops at Fredericksburg, under McDowell, would come down and threaten the rear of Magruder, but President Lincoln, not willing to leave Washington exposed, withdrew McDowell from McClellan, who complained that it overturned all his plans. He decided that he must have heavy cannon and begin a siege. The soldiers laid aside their muskets and began to construct earthworks.

In a field on the farm of Mr. Garrow stood three chimneys. General Magruder had burned the houses that they might not afford shelter to the Union troops. A Vermont soldier discovered that Warwick River was only about waist-deep at that point, and that there was not a large force of Confederates opposite. There was an earthwork with a twenty-fourpounder howitzer near the stream, and a quarter of a mile away two smaller cannon. The soldiers of the Vermont brigade could see that the Confederates were strengthening their works. General McClellan ordered.

the Vermont troops to make a reconnoissance across the stream. On the morning of April 16th the Vermonters could hear the Confederate bands playing the tune of "Rosa Lee." Just then the cannon of Mott's Union battery opened their brazen lips and sent their shells across the stream, and the band stopped playing. The Third and Fourth regiments from Vermont opened fire. The Confederate guns replied. Through the forenoon the fusillade went on. General McClellan and all the members of his staff rode down towards the three chimneys, and looked through their glasses at the Confederate works. McClellan ordered General Smith, com

manding the troops, to send a small force across the stream, but not to bring on a general battle. Two companies of the Third Vermont, holding their guns and cartridge-boxes over their heads, crossed the river, while eighteen cannon rained shells upon the Confederate works. The Confederate troops in the rifle-pits fled. The Vermonters waited for reinforcements, but none were sent. The Fifteenth North Carolina opened upon them, but its colonel was killed, and the regiment thrown into confusion. Two Georgia regiments came and opened a destructive fire, and a little later seven Confederate regiments came upon the run, and the Vermonters