The great Union army on which the country chiefly relied was yet far from Richmond when New Orleans fell. Months before Lincoln had said: "I would like to borrow the Army of the Potomac for a while, if I only knew how to use it." On his part there had been no lack of persistent endeavor to get something done. A memorandum in Lincoln's handwriting, indorsed "Without date, but before the 1st of December," (copied by permission in 1864,) contains certain questions submitted to the General-in-chief, and the latter's replies filled into the blanks left for the purpose, showing an attempt to draw him into the collaboration of a plan for disposing of Joe Johnston's army. "How long would it require to get in motion?" was answered: "If bridges and trains ready - by December 15 -by December 15-probably 25th.' The number of troops which "could join the movement" in total was given as 104,000-" from southwest of the river," 71,000; "from northeast of it," 33,000. The President proposed that part of the troops across the river (blank filled with "50,000" by McClellan) should "menace the enemy at Centreville, and the

remainder move rapidly by the Richmond road from Alexandria to the Occoquan, to be there met by the whole movable force" from the Washington side of the river (33,000), having "landed from the Potomac just below the mouth of the Occoquan," and so forth. Beyond answering questions in the briefest way, the General was not inclined to collaboration. "Information received recently," he wrote, "leads me to believe that the enemy could meet us in front with equal forces nearly― and I have now my mind actively turned towards another plan of campaign that I do not think at all anticipated by the enemy nor by many of our own people."

December and January passed. The Army of the Potomac, still in extemporized winter quarters, numbered on the 1st of February, 222, 196-present for duty, 190,806. This force included the greater part of the regular army, and volunteers who had been trained in camp, some for more than five months and most through a large share of this period. On the last day of January the President - evidently having the Occoquan plan still in mind issued the following:

Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac, after providing safely for the defense of Washington, be formed into an expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a point upon the railroad southwest of what is known as Manassas Junction, all details to be in the discretion of the Commander-in-chief, and the expedition to move before or on the twenty-second day of February next.

The General in a personal interview urged the President to recall this order, and obtained permission to present his own views in writing. The plan of removing vol. ii.-3

the army by water to a new base, at Urbana or elsewhere on the Chesapeake Bay or lower Rappahannock, was stated somewhat in detail in a letter to the Secretary of War, and on the 3d of February the President wrote to the General:

You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac: yours to be done by the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the railroad southwest of Manassas. If you will give satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours:

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time and money than mine?

Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?

Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this: that it would break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine would?

Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your pian than mine?

McClellan claimed to have "substantially" answered these questions in his letter to the Secretary of War, just mentioned, and maintained that "the most brilliant results" were promised by landing the army at Urbana; or, "should that be found unadvisable," he said, "we can use Mobjack Bay, or, the worst coming to the worst, we can take Fort Monroe as a base, and operate with complete security, although with less celerity and brilliance of results, up the Peninsula. . . . I would respectfully but firmly advise that I may be authorized to undertake at once the movement by Urbana. believe that it can be carried into execution so nearly

I

simultaneously with the final advance of Buell and Halleck that the columns will support each other."

The order of January 31st was not at this time revoked, nor was the President convinced that it ought to be. He was very much in earnest about relieving the capital from the Potomac blockade and from the long interruption of direct railway communication with the West. General Lander, defeating Stonewall Jackson, occupied Hancock, beyond Harper's Ferry, on the 14th of February; the division of Banks and two of Sedgwick's brigades were sent across the Potomac, and a strong reconnoitering force was advanced to Charlestown. * A general movement by the valley-the favorite plan of General Scott at the first seems to have been momentarily intended by McClellan; but he returned from Harper's Ferry on the 28th, and a week passed without further visible sign of an intended advance. The President sent for the General on the 8th of March - the day of Curtis's victory at Pea Ridge, in Arkansas. At this interview Lincoln indicated that he was as averse as ever to setting this great army afloat on the Chesapeake Bay, but yielded so far as to permit the General to choose his own method of approaching Richmond. An executive order of this date directed that the Army of the Potomac be organized into five corps: the First, of four divisions, under General I. McDowell; Second, of three divisions, under General E. V. Sumner; Third, of three divisions, under General S. P. Heintzelman; Fourth, of three divisions, under

* General F. W. Lander, who was wounded in action, died a few days later, and was succeeded in command by General James Shields.

General E. D. Keyes. These four corps comprised "that part of the army destined to enter upon active operations, including the reserve, but excluding the troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington," under command of General James S. Wadsworth, as Military Governor of the District of Columbia. The divisions under command of General N. P. Banks and General James Shields were to form a separate corps, under Banks. In another order of the same date the

President directed:

That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a force as, in the opinion of the Generalin-chief and the commanders of Army Corps, shall leave said city entirely secure.

That any movement as aforesaid, en route for a new base of operations, which may be ordered by the General-in-chief, and which may be intended to move on Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon the bay as early as the 18th of March, instant, and the General-in-chief shall be responsible that it moves as early as that day.

On the 10th, McClellan moved in force to Centreville, pausing there for the night, and on the next day, with no enemy in sight, he occupied Manassas. Johnston had been for weeks gradually removing his heavy guns, and no spoils were left behind as the last of his army crossed the Rappahannock. On his retreat the Potomac blockade came to an end.

The Merrimac, a steam frigate partially destroyed by Commander McCauley when he abandoned Norfolk the previous year, had been reconstructed by the Confeder