remarked that he could not approve of the plan; CHAP. I. that it would be attended with risk. Haupt thought the risk would not be excessive, but his arguments availed nothing. The general refused his consent to the plan proposed, and made no suggestion of any other. He was faint and ill, and asked Haupt for some refreshment, which revived him, and he then sent a dispatch to Washington, transmitting the information Haupt had given him, but making no suggestion for Pope's assistance.

He then rode away, leaving Haupt in the deepest perplexity. He knew what ought to be done, but lacked authority. "Had I been so fortunate," he says, "as not to have found General McClellan, I could have acted, but my hands were tied. The army was suffering and in danger; I could not remain quiet. I determined to assume the responsibility, but as I considered it proper to notify General McClellan, I sent him at 9:50 P. M. a notice that at 4 A. M. I proposed to start a wrecking and construction train bound for Bull Run, also a train with forage and subsistence. I asked for two hundred sharpshooters only as a train guard, to report at 4 A. M., and stated that if the troops did not report we would go without them. No answer was received to this dispatch, and near midnight I took a lantern and visited the camps, four miles down the road, to see if I could not get a guard. I found General Hancock in bed in his tent. He rose immediately, and cheerfully agreed to give me the force I required." 1

1 This Herman Haupt was one of the modest great men of the war. Lincoln used to say he had

brains enough for a corps com-
mander, if he could be spared
from his railroad work. Some of

MS. Memoir, "The Military Railroads of the United States."

CHAP. I.

1862.

W. R.

Part II.,

p. 46.

General Pope regarded the reluctance of McClellan in forwarding reënforcements to him from Alexandria as another important factor in his failure. He says in his report that Reynolds's, division, "about 2500 strong," which joined him on the 23d of August at Rappahannock station, and the corps of Heintzelman and Porter, about 18,000 between them, which arrived on the 26th and 27th at Warrenton Junction (about 20,500 altogether), were "all of the 91,000 veteran troops from HarVol. XII., rison's Landing which ever drew trigger under my command." Franklin and Sumner with 20,000 effectives reported to him at Centreville too late to redeem the campaign. It is a fact not without significance that the last troops which joined him before the hard fighting began did so before McClellan took charge at Alexandria. General Sumner, that brave old warrior who considered it a personal injury to be kept from any battlefield within his reach, broke out in hot anger when he learned that McClellan had said his corps was not in a condition for fighting. "If I had been ordered to advance right on," he said afterwards, "from Alexandria by the Little River turnpike, I should have been in that Second Bull Run battle with my of the War. Whole force." He was made to waste forty-eight hours in camp and in a fruitless march to the Aqueduct bridge.

Sumuer, Testimony, Report of the Committee on the Conduct

the bridges he built, to use Mc-
Dowell's words, ignored all the
rules and precedents of mili-
tary science. The Potomac Run
bridge, for instance, was a four-
story structure of round sticks cut
from the neighboring woods; it
was over eighty feet high and four

hundred feet long; it was built by common soldiers in nine days, and carried the heaviest railway trains in safety. This bridge excited the highest admiration of the President; he said," Haupt could build a bridge of beanpoles and cornstalks."

CHAP. I.

W. R.

Part I.,

p. 94.

In the matter of Franklin's corps the correspondence of General McClellan himself furnishes the most undeniable evidence that he did not think best to hurry matters in reënforcing Pope. Halleck on the 27th had telegraphed him the probabil- Aug., 1862. ity of a general battle. "Franklin's corps," he said, "should move out by forced marches, carrying vol. XI., three or four days' provisions." This order was repeated later in the day in more urgent terms, that "Franklin's corps should move in that direction [Manassas] as soon as possible." McClellan answered, not that Franklin had started, but that he had sent orders to him to "prepare to march." Ibid., p. 95. He afterwards discovered that Franklin was in Washington, and gave orders to place the corps in "readiness to move." In the afternoon he sent Ibid., p. 96. dispatches indicating his belief that it might be better for Franklin not to go, and questioning whether Washington were safe; and in the evening of the same day this conviction had gained such strength in his mind that he squarely recommended that the troops in hand be held for the mid., p. 97. defense of the capital. On the morning of the 28th Halleck telegraphed, direct, an order to Franklin to move towards Manassas, but at one o'clock in the afternoon General McClellan replied, "The moment Franklin can be started with a reasonable amount of artillery he shall go." At 4:10 o'clock he Ibid., p. 708. added: "General Franklin is with me here. I will know in a few minutes the condition of artillery and cavalry. We are not yet in condition to move; may be by to-morrow morning." Halleck, in despair at this inertia, had telegraphed at 3:30 o'clock: "Not a moment must be lost in pushing VOL. VI.-2

W. R. Vol. XII., Part III.,

p. 707.

W. R. Vol. XI.,

Part I., p. 97.