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"As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing for you precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that command was away.

"I suppose the whole force which has gone forward for you is with you by this time. And, if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you— that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not surmounting, a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and the same or equal intrenchments, at either place. The country will not fail to note-is now noting—that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.

"I beg to assure you that I have never written to you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act.

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The President yielded to McClellan, and sent General Franklin to him, with his division; and General McClellan thanked him for his kindness and consideration, adding, "I now understand the matter which I did not before." Certainly his misunderstanding of the matter had not been the result of any lack of effort on the part of the President to make him understand it. Through the whole month in which the great army lay before Yorktown, the President and War Department were fed with dispatches of the most encouraging character. General McClellan was leaving nothing undone to enable him to attack without delay; after receiving reinforcements, he was "confident of results;" he was soon to be "at them;" there was to be "not a moment's unnecessary delay;" he was "getting up the heavy guns, mortars and ammunition quite rapidly;" there were heavy rains, and horrid roads, but he was "making progress all the time." He was making progress in the concentration of troops, certainly, for, on the thirtieth of April, he had, by Adjutant-general

Townsend's report, 130,378 men, of whom 112,392 were reckoned effective. At this time, he called upon the department for Parrott guns; and, on the first of May, the President wrote him: "Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me--chiefly because it argues indefinite procrastination. Is anything to be done?"

There was something to be done, but the enemy did it. After the absolute waste of a month's time, opportunities, and resources of strength and material, the rebels quietly evacuated their position, and retired up the Peninsula. It was the old story of great preparations to fight, and no fighting-no weakening of the enemy. General McClellan thought the success brilliant, if we may judge by his dispatches. It was the costly victory of an engineer. He telegraphed to Mr. Stanton, on the fourth, that he held the entire line of the enemy's works; that he had thrown all his cavalry and horse artillery, supported by infantry, in pursuit; that no time should be lost, and that he should "push the enemy to the wall." The enemy retired to his second line of works at Williamsburgh without pushing, and took his position behind the wall. Here was fought the battle of Williamsburgh, which McClellan designated in his final report as "one of the most brilliant engagements of the war." He bestows the highest praise upon General Hancock, though Hooker had fought with equal gallantry, and encountered greater losses. All did their duty; and when, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, General McClellan arrived upon the ground (the battle having commenced early in the morning,) he did his duty, and helped materially toward a favorable result of the action. On the next morning, there was no enemy; and, owing to the bad roads, the lack of food, and the exhaustion of the troops, there could be no immediate pursuit.

On the seventh of May, General Franklin landed at West Point with his division, further up the peninsula, supported by the divisions of Sedgwick, Porter and Richardson. The rebels were obliged to attack, to give the retreating columns from Williamsburgh time and opportunity to pass; but, after

a battle of six hours they were repulsed, though not until they had accomplished their object.

General McClellan did not like the organization of the army into corps. The measure did not originate with him, and the men appointed to their command were not men of his choosing. He did not believe in fighting the battle of Williamsburgh. The three corps-commanders, Sumner, Heintzelman and Keyes, were all on the ground; and were regarded by the commanding General as indiscreet in commencing the attack, and incompetent in its conduct.

At this time, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton and Mr. Chase were all on a visit to Fortress Monroe; and, on the ninth of May, General McClellan took occasion to write to the Secretary of War, asking permission to re-organize the army corps. He wished to return to the organization by divisions, or to be authorized to relieve incompetent commanders of army corps. To give force to his request, he declared in his note that, had he been half an hour later on the field, the army would have been routed, and would have lost everything. He declared that he found on the field "the utmost confusion and incompetency," and added that "at least a thousand lives were really sacrificed by the organization into corps." Mr. Stanton replied that the President, who would write him privately, would give him liberty to suspend the corps organization temporarily, or until further orders. Mr. Lincoln wrote privately, and wrote a very frank and honest letter, dated at Fortress Monroe, of which these were the essential paragraphs:

“I have just assisted the Secretary of War in forming the part of a dispatch to you, relating to army corps, which dispatch, of course, will have reached you long before this will. I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve Generals of division, but also on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion from, and every modern military book, yourself only excepted. Of course I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or two pets, and to

persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzelman and Keyes. The commanders of these corps are of course the three highest officers with you, but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication with them, that you consult and communicate with nobody but Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints are true or just; but, at all events, it is proper you should know of their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in anything?

"Are you strong enough, even with my help, to set your foot upon the neck of Sumner, Heintzelman and Keyes, all at once? This is a practical and very serious question to you."

After the receipt of this private letter, General McClellan concluded not to make the change which seemed so essential; but he created two new corps, or "provisional corps," which he placed respectively under the command of Fitz John Porter and General Franklin, the men whom Mr. Lincoln had mentioned as his favorites.

Leaving the army to make its way toward Richmond, events take us back to Fortress Monroe for a brief space, where the Washington dignitaries were consulting and watching the progress of affairs. Nothing could be done on the James River, on account of the presence of the formidable Merrimac; and, in the meantime, Norfolk was held by the rebels. It was desirable to take Norfolk; and an expedition was fitted out at Fortress Monroe, under command of General Wool, for that purpose. To show how this was done, and, at the same time, to illustrate the free and easy manner in which the President dealt with his officers, we shall let Mr. Lincoln tell his own "little story." In a subsequent conversation with Major General Garfield, he said: "By the way, Garfield, do you know that Chase, Stanton, General Wool and I had a campaign of our own? We went down to Fortress Monroe in Chase's revenue cutter, and consulted with Admiral Goldsborough on the feasibility of taking Norfolk by landing on the North shore and making a march of eight miles. The Admiral said there was no landing on that shore, and we should have to double the cape, and approach the place from the south side, which would be a long journey, and a difficult one. I asked him if he had

ever tried to find a landing, and he replied that he had not. I then told him a story of a fellow in Illinois who had studied law, but had never tried a case. He was sued, and, not having confidence in his ability to manage his own case, employed a lawyer to manage it for him. He had only a confused idea of the meaning of law terms, but was anxious to make a display of learning, and, on the trial, constantly made suggestions to his lawyer, who paid but little attention to him. At last, fearing that his lawyer was not handling the opposing counsel very well, he lost all his patience; and, springing to his feet, cried out, 'Why don't you go at him with a capias or a surre-butter or something, and not stand there like a confounded old nudum-pactum?' 'Now, Admiral,' said I, ‘if you don't know that there is no landing on the North shore, I want you to find out.””

Continuing his narrative, Mr. Lincoln said: "The Admiral took the hint; and, taking Chase and Wool along, with a company or two of marines, he went on a voyage of discovery, and Stanton and I remained at Fortress Monroe. That night we went to bed, but not to sleep, for we were very anxious for the fate of the expedition. About two o'clock the next morning, I heard the heavy tread of Wool ascending the stairs. I went out into the parlor and found Stanton hugging Wool in the most enthusiastic manner, as he announced that he had found a landing, and had captured Norfolk."

Thus Norfolk came into our possession on the ninth of May; and on the eleventh the Merrimac was blown up by command of her own officers, releasing our navy from its long durance, though its passage up the James was repulsed by a heavy battery at Drury's Bluff.

General McClellan was still busy with his dispatches. Of the nature of these dispatches, we can judge by the replies of the President. Under date of May fifteenth, the latter writes: "I have done all I could, and can, to sustain you. I hoped that the opening of James River, and putting Wool and Burnside in communication with an open road to Richmond, or to you, had effected something in that direction." For five days

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